New Executive Order reinforces excellence in City government’s customer service standards, offering concierge support and strengthened rights during inspections
Mayor Zohran Mamdani today announced “OPEN for Small Business”, a package of more than 50 regulatory reforms to reduce the paperwork and bureaucratic burden facing the city’s roughly 180,000 small businesses. Alongside an Executive Order that immediately implements several reforms, the package saves time, effort, and money for the small businesses that anchor New York’s economy and the one million New Yorkers they employ.
"You cannot tell the story of New York without our small businesses, and yet our city has often made it too hard for them to open their doors and keep them open," said Mayor Mamdani. "The owners tell us the same thing again and again. What wears them down is not simply the cost of any one fee, it is the paperwork and the inconsistency they face when dealing with their own government. Today we are not only announcing reforms, we are building the machinery to find and fix more, so that a small business owner in this city is finally treated as someone government works for, not around."
In January, Mayor Mamdani signed Executive Order 11, which directed seven city agencies — the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP), Department of Sanitation (DSNY), Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), Department of Transportation (DOT), Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), Fire Department (FDNY), and Department of Buildings (DOB) — to inventory their fees and civil penalties and recommend ways to reduce them. In the six months since, the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice (DMEJ) and the Department of Small Business Services (SBS) held roundtables and surveyed over 500 business owners across all five boroughs to better understand the barriers they face.
Business owners who took part in these roundtables and surveys most often pointed to delays in opening, uncertainty about compliance requirements, and inconsistent enforcement as key pain points. OPEN responds directly to those findings.
What OPEN Means for Small Businesses Across the City
The more than 50 reforms in OPEN touch nearly every type of small business in New York City, and break down as follows: 25 for food service and food retail businesses, seven for transportation businesses, five for other retailers, four for child care providers, three for industrial and commercial businesses, two for personal care businesses, three for nonprofits running bingo and games of chance licenses, and six that apply to every business in the city.
“Having the backs of small businesses starts with listening and that’s what we’ve been doing,” said Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice Julie Su. “What I’ve heard again and again, across boroughs and industries, is the sense that government too often treats them as a problem to be managed rather than a constituency to be valued. Small business owners run on customer service, and they cannot survive without it. OPEN holds the City to that same standard, with a single point of contact to help owners open, clear rights when an inspector walks in, and an ongoing commitment to keep cutting the red tape that stands in their way.”
“I grew up watching my family navigate the same maze so many small business owners face, the paperwork, the fines, and the deciphering of city regulations. As we dramatically expand our NYC Business Express Service Team, new businesses will have a dedicated case manager to help them open their business quickly,” said SBS Commissioner Kenny Minaya. “Thank you, Mayor Mamdani and Deputy Mayor Su, for your commitment to putting money back into the pockets of the entrepreneurs that power our city.”
“Small businesses are the heartbeat of New York City, but for too long outdated rules, excessive paperwork, and confusing processes at City agencies have stood in their way,” said DCWP Commissioner Samuel A.A. Levine. “Executive Order 11 and ‘OPEN for Small Business’ will save people precious time and money—cutting back on red tape and axing pricey fines, while upholding core protections New Yorkers deserve. DCWP is proud to partner with Mayor Mamdani to ensure our city is a place where hardworking business owners can thrive.”
“Every TLC driver is a small business on wheels, safely delivering service to nearly one million New Yorkers every day,” said Taxi & Limousine Commissioner Midori Valdivia. “Reducing unnecessary costs and fees for hardworking drivers — no matter how small those costs may seem — helps them earn a more dignified living, strengthens the industry, and supports a safer transportation system for everyone. This is just the beginning. We will continue looking for ways to provide meaningful relief to drivers while also holding the bases and corporations that directly benefit from their labor accountable for their fair share.”
“Our commercial corridors depend on clean, cared for streets, sidewalks, and public spaces to draw customers and create a sense of pride,” said Sanitation Commissioner Gregory Anderson. “Our regulations and their enforcement should be clear, consistent, and equitable, with a direct connection to achieving our goals — cleaner streets, worker protection, sustainability. These new initiatives will reduce the burdens on small businesses, while ensuring that all New Yorkers do their part to keep us safe and our neighborhoods sparkling.”
“Small businesses are the backbone of New York City’s economy, and every dollar matters,” said DEP Commissioner Lisa F. Garcia. “By eliminating these registration fees, we’re making it easier for food truck operators and small businesses with commercial cooking equipment to invest in their success, create jobs and keep serving communities across our city.”
“The City's relationship with small businesses shouldn't end with enforcing rules. It should be built on respect, responsiveness, and service,” said Annie Levers, Director of the Mayor's Office of Operations. “By listening to business owners, improving customer service, and recognizing public servants who go above and beyond, we're making it easier for small businesses to succeed."
The Full Reform Package
Developed by DMEJ and SBS in partnership with the agencies named in Executive Order 11, the package includes proposals to:
- Waive Mayoral approval for the sidewalk café program immediately, removing a layer of review that adds time without adding scrutiny, and will waive it for the roadway café program once outdoor dining reforms are enacted.
- Work with the State to eliminate the second permit restaurants need just to serve ice cream and other frozen desserts, a requirement left over from decades-old dairy regulation, on top of the general permit they already hold to serve food safely.
- Repeal the license a bodega needs to sell fruit, flowers, or soft drinks from a stand just outside its own door, on top of the license it already holds to sell those same goods inside.
- Publish a single plain-language guide for child care providers covering DOHMH, DOB, and FDNY together, so opening a center means one playbook instead of three separate agency timelines.
- Relocate the Health Academy, the City's only in-person location for the food protection course every restaurant needs, from the Upper West Side to 125 Worth Street, so an owner in Canarsie or Throgs Neck no longer loses most of a day just getting certified.
- Remove the requirement that mobile food vendors carry a paper copy of their commissary agreement on the cart at all times, even though the City already has the same document on file and can look it up itself.
- Extend license renewal cycles for newsstand operators, pawnbrokers, second-hand dealers, sightseeing bus companies, scale dealer repairers, and storage warehouses.
- Cut DEP registration fees for cooking equipment and food trucks from $110 to $0 for the next twelve months.
- Reduce the maximum penalty from $600 to $500 for three common food safety violations, and replace two overlapping City and State allergy-poster requirements with a single poster that satisfies both, so owners face one standard instead of the risk of multiple violations.
- Remove outdated regulations on bingo and game of chance licenses held by nonprofit fundraisers, including prize caps set well below what today's fundraisers are worth, so nonprofits and the businesses that host them aren't boxed in by decades-old limits.
A complete list of all 50-plus reforms is included in the accompanying policy summary.
The Executive Order
Alongside the reform package, Mayor Mamdani signed a new Executive Order to both create ongoing infrastructure for identifying regulatory reforms and make changes today to how government serves small businesses. The Executive Order:
- Expands the mission of the NYC Business Express Service Team (NYC BEST) at SBS: the Executive Order creates a dedicated one-stop concierge service for new businesses, where they are assigned a single client manager who stays with them start to finish, facilitating permitting, licensing, inspections, and compliance across agencies. Today, business owners either navigate this complexity alone or pay expediters to do it alongside them. The administration’s dramatic expansion of NYC BEST will ensure more businesses benefit from 1:1 compliance education, saving them time and money. Under the new Executive Order, SBS and partnering city agencies will work together to proactively reach small businesses ahead of qualifying inspections, instead of waiting on them to request for help.
- Puts the Business Owner Bill of Rights in every owner's hands: the document sets out what owners should expect from City government during inspections: how they should be treated, what an inspector must tell them, and what recourse they have when those standards are not met. City agencies are required to provide it, but in SBS's 2025 survey of over 500 small businesses, only 9% reported ever receiving it. SBS and the Mayor's Office of Operations have broadened the document to better reflect what small business owners actually experience, and agencies will now distribute it at every point of service, including at inspections (available at nyc.gov/bizrights).
- Establishes a permanent working group (the OPEN Taskforce): convened by SBS and DMEJ, the OPEN Taskforce will consist of nearly ten city agencies and offices who will continue to identify and fix the pain points business owners face, with an annual update of reform opportunities delivered to the Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice.
- Strengthens customer service training and accountability for city inspectors: the Executive Order will require annual training and regular review of Customer Service Survey results by agency leadership so patterns are identified and addressed, and recognition each year for inspectors who demonstrate excellence in public service.
- Directs SBS to develop recommendations to address small business costs beyond regulation: SBS will develop these recommendations by the fall to help businesses with other costs they face -- including insurance, commercial rents, utility costs – and address chronic storefront vacancy.
