BinderWhich fire code does New York use?
New York is really two jurisdictions. The rest of the state runs on the New York State Uniform Fire Prevention and Building Code, adopted under Article 18 of the Executive Law, with the fire provisions at 19 NYCRR Part 1225. New York City is not part of that at all.
The exemption, in the state's own words
The Department of State puts it plainly: the Uniform Code applies to all buildings and structures in New York State except for those located within the City of New York.
So if your restaurant is in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx or Staten Island, the state Uniform Code is not your code. New York City maintains its own Fire Code, administered by the FDNY, alongside its own Building Code. That is a separate document with its own numbering, its own amendment cycle and its own enforcement.
This catches people constantly, because New York City is by a wide margin the largest restaurant market in the state and most writing about "New York fire code" does not say which one it means.
Outside the city
The Uniform Code's fire provisions sit at 19 NYCRR Part 1225 and incorporate the International Fire Code with New York amendments. The last completed rulemakings were in 2020.
The Code Council is currently developing amendments to bring in revisions to New York law and the ICC's model codes published since those 2020 rulemakings, including the 2021 and 2024 model codes, with an environmental review process that ran through 2025. That update is in progress rather than in effect.
What I could not confirm, and what to do about it
The Department of State's own council page does not state the currently effective edition and effective date in a form I would rely on for a compliance decision, and this page will not invent one. The Division of Building Standards and Codes answers this directly by phone, and your local code enforcement office answers it for your specific building.
Given that an update is actively in development, this is worth confirming rather than assuming, particularly if you are reading this some months after the date above.
Either way, ask locally
- In the city: your FDNY borough office or the fire prevention bureau. Ask about commercial cooking exhaust requirements and any filing obligations.
- Outside the city: your local code enforcement officer, who enforces the Uniform Code for your municipality.
- In both cases ask whether inspection reports must be submitted electronically by your contractor. Syracuse appears on published third party reporting programme partner lists. See how those work.
The constant
Whichever of the two applies, commercial kitchen exhaust requirements reach you through NFPA 96, and you will be asked for dated evidence that the work was done. See why the code differs by state.
This page describes what published standards say. It is not legal advice and it is not a determination about any premises. The requirements that apply to your building, including how often work must be done and what must be kept, are set by your authority having jurisdiction, which is usually your local fire marshal or health department. Where this page and your inspector disagree, your inspector is right.
Verified August 2026 against the New York Department of State's State Fire Prevention and Building Code Council pages, which is the source of the New York City exemption quoted above. The currently effective edition was not stated there and is deliberately not asserted here.
Keeping this straight without thinking about it
Binder tracks records per location, which matters for an operator running stores both inside and outside the city, because those two sets of locations answer to different codes and different inspectors.
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