09-15-2026
Employer Insight: In 2023, NY Governor Kathleen Hochul signed the 9/11 NOTICE Act, and the state published its final regulations in 2025. The Act is intended to promote awareness and outreach regarding state and federal 9/11 benefits.
What It Requires: Qualifying New York businesses must make an effort to notify current and former employees that they may be eligible for benefits under two 9/11 programs - the New York State-administered World Trade Health Program (WTC) and the federally administered September 11th Victim Compensation Fund (VCF). The NOTICE Act applies to businesses with over 50 employees that operated in Lower Manhattan, part of Brooklyn, on barges that moved debris, or worked at the Fresh Kills landfill between September 11, 2001, and May 30, 2002.
What It Requires: Qualifying New York businesses must make an effort to notify current and former employees that they may be eligible for benefits under two 9/11 programs - the New York State-administered World Trade Health Program (WTC) and the federally administered September 11th Victim Compensation Fund (VCF). The NOTICE Act applies to businesses with over 50 employees that operated in Lower Manhattan, part of Brooklyn, on barges that moved debris, or worked at the Fresh Kills landfill between September 11, 2001, and May 30, 2002.
What Employers Need to Know: NY Employers must notify “where practicable” current and former employees. They can make notifications by email, text, electronic messaging system, postal mail, or fax, and maintain duplicate records of their notice efforts for at least three years.
The federal VCF continues to receive 750 new claims each month. The fund is intended for those who have been certified by the World Trade Center Health Program with a 9/11-related illness and is open to individuals (or their representatives) who were impacted around one of the three crash sites (New York, the Pentagon, or Shanksville, PA). Compensation under VCF includes individuals such as first responders, journalists, construction workers, and cleanup crews. People who lived, worked, visited, or attended school in the designated areas may also be eligible.
The state-run WTC Health Program monitors and treats certain conditions experienced by first responders and eligible survivors who lived, worked, attended school, used childcare, or attended adult day care in areas affected by WTC dust and debris from the twin towers' collapse.
Employers who have not yet complied should begin to notify individuals, though no mandatory timing requirements have been established.