NYC agency · Licensing
Consumer & Worker Protection (DCWP)
Licenses businesses that operate at an address and enforces licensing and consumer-protection summonses.
What DCWP regulates
The Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (formerly the Department of Consumer Affairs) is mainly a business-licensing and consumer/worker-protection agency. For buildings its role is narrow: it licenses businesses operating at a location (parking garages, laundries, sidewalk cafés, home-improvement contractors, and more) and issues licensing and consumer-law summonses adjudicated at OATH. It does not issue building-condition violations.
What owners deal with
- Confirming that businesses operating in the building hold required DCWP licenses.
- DCWP summonses for unlicensed activity or consumer-law violations — heard at OATH.
How to look it up
Check a business’s license at DCWP’s Check License Status. DCWP summonses show up in the NYC Building Compliance violation lookup under other-agency (OATH) summonses.
Reviewed against current NYC agency guidance by the NYC Building Compliance editorial team. Found something out of date? Tell us. Informational only — not legal or engineering advice.
See your building’s open DCWP violations right now.
Look up violations →Primary sources
NYC Building Compliance is an independent resource, not the City of New York. Rules and dollar amounts change — always confirm against the official pages above or a licensed professional before acting.