What permits do you need to open a contractor or trade in Yonkers?

There is no single figure, and any site quoting one is rounding away the part that matters. Of the 9 records listed for a contractor or trade in Yonkers, NY, 3 apply to every business of this type and 6 are conditional. Adding every fee on the page together would overstate what most operators pay, because it would include permits they never need.

Of the 3 that always apply, 1 carry a flat fee, coming to $50.00. That is a floor, not a total. 2 of the 9 are charged as a range or a formula set by the issuing agency, and 1 has no fee published at all. The ones that vary:

Certificate of Occupancy: $250 for each floor, including the basement and mezzanine, plus $250 for every individual tenant space or use in a new commercial building. An existing commercial space changing occupancy instead pays $175 per tenant space.

Commercial Building Permit: A $250 filing fee, plus $15 per $1,000 of estimated construction cost up to $1,000,000, and $12 per $1,000 above that.

Permits for a contractor or trade in Yonkers, NY come from 5 separate offices: City of Yonkers Department of Housing and Buildings, City of Yonkers Office of Licensing, Consumer Protection Bureau, New York State Department of State, Division of Corporations, State Records and Uniform Commercial Code, New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, New York State Department of Labor. No single office issues them all, which is why an opening means filing in several places rather than one.

• City of Yonkers Department of Housing and BuildingsIssues 2 permits on this page: Certificate of Occupancy, Commercial Building Permit20 South Broadway, 3rd Floor, Yonkers, NY 10701 · (914) 377-6500www.yonkersny.gov/217/Housing-Buildings
• City of Yonkers Office of Licensing, Consumer Protection BureauIssues 1 permit on this page: Home Improvement Contractor Licence(914) 377-3000www.yonkersny.gov/229/Forms-Permits
• New York State Department of State, Division of Corporations, State Records and Uniform Commercial CodeIssues 4 permits on this page: Articles of Organization (LLC), Certificate of Incorporation, Biennial Statement, Certificate of Publication (LLC)www.businessexpress.ny.gov
• New York State Department of Taxation and FinanceIssues 1 permit on this page: Sales Tax Certificate of Authoritywww.tax.ny.gov/bus/st/register.htm
• New York State Department of LaborIssues 1 permit on this page: Contractor Licence (local, not state)dol.ny.gov/how-register-contractor-and-subcontractor-registry

A copy of an existing certificate costs a flat $10.

A reinspection costs $250 the first time and $500 for every one after that — a real incentive to get the work right before calling for the next inspection.

Westchester County's own parallel home improvement licence explicitly excludes any city already regulating the trade itself, and Yonkers does — so a Yonkers contractor is licensed here rather than through the county, at a genuinely different fee and term than the county's program. This licence covers work on buildings of three families or fewer; no separate Yonkers licence for larger commercial contractors was found, since those simply pull building permits directly.

$200 to file, which is only the start of forming a New York LLC. Within 120 days you must also publish notice in two newspapers for six successive weeks and file a Certificate of Publication at $50 — and the newspaper advertising, which the county clerk designates and no state agency caps, routinely costs more than every state fee combined. Incorporating instead costs $125 and carries no publication requirement at all, which is the single biggest cost difference between the two structures in this state. Expedited handling is $25 for 24 hours, $75 for same day or $150 for two hours.

$125, and unlike an LLC a corporation has no newspaper publication requirement — which in New York City can make incorporating hundreds of dollars cheaper than forming an LLC despite similar filing fees. A further $20 applies where State Education Department consent is needed, which catches professional practices. Not-for-profit corporations file on a different schedule.

$9 every two years — the cheapest recurring state filing of any state covered here, and the same amount for an LLC and a corporation. It falls due in the calendar month in which the original formation document was filed, not on a fixed date, so diarise the month you registered. Expedited handling is not available for this one.

$50 is the state's fee and almost certainly the smaller half of what you will pay. New York requires every new LLC to publish a notice once a week for six successive weeks in TWO newspapers in the county where its office sits — one printed daily, one printed weekly — and the county clerk, not the business, designates which papers. Those papers set their own rates, no state agency caps them, and no official New York source publishes a figure, so no advertising cost is quoted here: it is genuinely not state-set and varies enormously by county. What is fixed is the consequence of missing the deadline. Section 206 suspends the LLC's authority to carry on business in New York at the end of the 120-day period. A corporation has no equivalent obligation.

Free, and the statute says so in terms — the Commissioner issues the certificate "without charge" within five days of a registration being filed. Apply at least 20 days before you begin trading, because you may not make a taxable sale until it is in hand. Unlike most states this one does carry a term: not less than three years, with renewal at the Department's discretion rather than automatic. Show vendors, entertainment vendors and temporary vendors can be issued shorter terms.

No amount is shown here because New York charges none: the state does not license general contractors at all, and this record exists to say so rather than leave a gap a reader would fill with a guess. The Department of State's catalogue of licensed occupations runs to thirty-six trades and construction is not among them. Home improvement licensing is instead a local matter, and the Attorney General names where: New York City, Suffolk, Nassau, Westchester, Putnam and Rockland. Everywhere else there may be no licence at all. One state-level credential does exist but is narrower than it looks — the Department of Labor's Contractor and Subcontractor Registry, mandatory since 30 December 2024 for public work and certain covered private projects, at $200 for two years or $100 for a certified minority or woman-owned business. It is a registration for bidding on public work, not permission to trade.