Is the "Albany Switch" Legal? New York's LLC Publication Law and the Bill That Would End It (2026)
Search for ways to make New York's LLC publication cheaper and you will find the same idea everywhere: move your LLC's county to Albany on the State's record, publish there for a fraction of the New York City price, then move it back. Some services sell it under a name, "the Albany Switch." The natural question is whether it is legal. The short answer is yes, under the law as written today, and a bill that would end it has been introduced in Albany in every session since 2019. This guide explains the law, the bill, what it would change if it ever passed, and why publishing in the county where your business really operates is still the better choice for most owners.
What the law says today
Three sections of the New York Limited Liability Company Law decide the question.
§206(a), the publication rule. Within 120 days of filing the Articles of Organization, the LLC publishes a notice once a week for six weeks "in two newspapers of the county in which the office of the limited liability company is located," one daily and one weekly, designated by that county's clerk. A notice in any other paper does not count.
§102(s), what "office" means. This is the sentence the whole strategy rests on. The office is "the office of the limited liability company, the location of which is stated in the articles of organization," and, in the words of the statute, "such office need not be a place where business activities are conducted by such limited liability company." In other words, the office for publication purposes is the county the State's record names, not necessarily where the owners work.
§211-A, the Certificate of Change. An LLC can change the county of its office on the State's record by filing a one-page Certificate of Change, with a $30 State fee. (The Certificate of Change, explained.)
Put together: if the State's record names Albany County when you publish, the Albany County Clerk's papers are the correct papers, and the publication is valid. Publication is required once, so a later change of county does not require publishing again. That is the legal basis every "Albany" service relies on. It is the reason the strategy is legal, and the reason it can stop being legal with one amendment.
The bill that would end it
The same bill has been filed in both houses of the Legislature for four sessions in a row. In the Senate the sponsor has been Senator Leroy Comrie; in the Assembly, Assemblymember Amy Paulin.
| Session | Assembly bill | Senate bill | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019–2020 | A10677 (filed June 24, 2020) | S4293 (filed March 6, 2019) | Referred to the Corporations, Authorities and Commissions committee in both houses. Never voted on. |
| 2021–2022 | A339 (filed January 6, 2021) | S5737 (filed March 17, 2021) | Referred to committee in both houses. Never voted on. |
| 2023–2024 | A3717 (filed February 7, 2023) | S2593 (filed January 23, 2023) | Referred to committee in both houses. Never voted on. |
| 2025–2026 | A1231 (filed January 9, 2025) | none listed | Referred to the Assembly committee, and referred again on January 7, 2026. Pending. |
Source: the bill pages on nysenate.gov, read November 12, 2026.
This is the text of the 2023 version, A3717, as printed by the Assembly. Words in red with a line through them are current law the bill would delete. Words in green and underlined are what it would add.
Assembly Bill A3717, page 1. The struck words are today's "need not be a place where business activities are conducted."
Page 2: the same change for professional LLCs, foreign LLCs and limited partnerships. Section 9: "This act shall take effect immediately."
What the bill would change
Every version has the same text. It does three things.
- The office would have to be real. §102(s) would say the office "shall be a place in the county within this state of the principal and actual business location of the company."
- Addresses that are only addresses would stop counting. "In no event" could the office be only the address of a registered agent, a post office box, or a private mailbox at a mail center, for the purposes of publication. That covers the registered agent addresses in Albany that most "publish in Albany" offers depend on.
- The street address would have to be printed. The notice today includes "the street address of the principal business location, if any." The bill deletes "if any," so every notice would carry a real street address.
The same changes would apply to professional LLCs (§1203), foreign LLCs (§802 and §1306) and limited partnerships under the Partnership Law. And the bill would take effect the day it is signed, with no phase-in.
The sponsors' memo gives the reason plainly: a legal notice is published for the public, so it should run where the company will actually do business, not in a paper "that has no geographical nexus to the community they will operate in."
How a bill like this becomes law
New York's Legislature works in two-year sessions. A bill that does not pass by the end of the session dies and has to be filed again, which is why this one has a new number every two years. To become law it must:
- Be reported out of committee, in each house. This is where every version has stopped. "Referred to corporations, authorities and commissions" is the last action on all seven bills.
- Pass a floor vote in the Senate and in the Assembly, in identical form.
- Be delivered to the Governor and signed (or not vetoed in time).
None of the seven bills has cleared step 1. There is no 2025-2026 Senate version at all, so even if the Assembly committee moved A1231 tomorrow, the Senate would have to introduce and pass its own copy. The Legislature usually finishes its regular business in June, so in practice the next real chance is a new bill in 2027.
So the bill has not been taken up. That is not the same as being rejected: nothing stops it from being reintroduced, moved and signed in a single session, and it would apply at once.
Questions people ask
Is the Albany Switch legal right now? Yes, under the current text of §102(s), §206 and §211-A. A change of county must be filed and recorded by the State before the notice runs, or the publication is in the wrong county.
Does an LLC that already used it have to publish again if the bill passes? The bill does not say so, and it changes definitions going forward rather than reopening completed publications. That is our reading, not legal advice; if it matters to your company, ask a New York attorney.
Is a registered agent address in Albany enough? Today, yes, because the office need not be where business is conducted. Under the bill, no: an office that is "only" a registered agent's address would not satisfy the publication rules.
Does the county change anything besides the newspapers? Yes. While the State's record names Albany County, a lawsuit against the LLC can be brought there. The record also becomes part of your LLC's public history.
Our view: publish where your business runs
We publish LLCs in every county, and we file Certificates of Change for owners whose office really has moved. With that experience, our advice to most owners is to publish in the county where the business actually operates, even though the switch is legal today. Five reasons:
- It is what the publication is for. The notice tells your own community that your company exists. That is the point of §206 and the whole case the sponsors make.
- It cannot be undone by the next session. A publication in your real county is correct under today's law and under the bill.
- Fewer filings, less risk to your deadline. A switch adds two State filings, and the first one has to be recorded before the six weeks can start. Your 120 days keep running while you wait.
- Lawsuits stay where you are. Your company is not open to suit in a county you have never been to.
- The savings are smaller than they sound outside the five boroughs. In many counties the two papers already cost a few hundred dollars. See the county-by-county costs before deciding.
There are owners for whom the arithmetic is different: a Manhattan bill can run over $1,500, against a few hundred in Albany. If you choose a switch, do it in the right order: file the change, wait for the State's record to show the new county, publish in that county's designated papers, file the Certificate of Publication, and only then move the county back. The mechanics, and the ways it goes wrong, are in the Albany strategy, explained.
And keep an eye on the bill. If a version of it is ever reported out of committee, the window can close quickly.
FileMyPublication is a filing service of MI Tax LLC, not a law firm, and this article is general information, not legal advice. Statute and bill texts quoted from nysenate.gov as of November 12, 2026.