New York City Bookkeeping Services — Five Boroughs, Zero Surprises
New York City taxes businesses that no other American city taxes, in ways no other city does. There is a 4% tax on unincorporated businesses, a corporate tax that ignores your federal S election, a tax on renting an office in the wrong half of Manhattan, and a payroll tax with brand-new brackets. Every one of them is computed from numbers in your books — allocated income, gross receipts, base rent, quarterly payroll — and every one of them is manageable when those numbers are clean. Maxim Liberty has been serving New York City businesses remotely since 2005, from $75/month.
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Restaurants, healthcare practices, professional firms, and the CPAs who serve them get a dedicated bookkeeper at $15/hour ($10/hour wholesale for CPA firms) — daily transaction logging, monthly reconciliations, and tax-ready books that keep UBT, CRT, and MCTMT filings honest. 100% money-back guarantee on your first deposit.
On This Page
- NYC tax cheat sheet
- The UBT: 4% on unincorporated businesses
- Corporations: 8.85%, and your S election stops at the city line
- 8.875% sales tax — with a clothing quirk
- Commercial Rent Tax: the below-96th-Street surprise
- MCTMT: new brackets since July 2025
- Stacking the NYC PTET
- Who we keep books for in NYC
- NYC bookkeeping FAQs
NYC Tax Cheat Sheet
| Obligation | Rate / Threshold | Key deadline |
|---|---|---|
| Unincorporated Business Tax (UBT) | 4% of NYC-allocated income; must file if gross income >$95,000; full credit if tax ≤$3,400, partial to $5,400 | April 15 (NYC-202); March 15 for partnerships |
| Business Corporation Tax (BCT) | 8.85% standard; 6.5% small-business rate below $1M allocated income; fixed dollar minimum $25–$200K | April 15 (NYC-2) |
| General Corporation Tax (GCT) — federal S corps | 8.85% | April 15 |
| Combined sales tax | 8.875% (4% NYS + 4.5% NYC + 0.375% MCTD); clothing & footwear under $110 exempt | Per NYS DTF schedule |
| Commercial Rent Tax (Manhattan south of 96th St) | 6% nominal / 3.9% effective; applies at annual base rent ≥$250K; small-business credit if income ≤$5M AND rent <$500K; must file if rent >$200K | CR-A annual June 20; quarterly returns |
| MCTMT — NYC Zone 1 (since July 1, 2025) | 0.055% / 0.115% / 0.60% / 0.895% (top tier >$2.5M/quarter); owed only if payroll >$312,500/quarter | Quarterly (MTA-305) |
| NYC PTET (elective, stacks on NYS PTET) | 3.876% | Elect January 1 – March 15 |
Bookkeeping context, not tax advice — verify current rates and thresholds with the NYS Department of Taxation and Finance and the NYC Department of Finance before filing.
The UBT: 4% on Unincorporated Businesses
If you operate in the city as a sole proprietorship, partnership, or an LLC taxed as either, New York City wants 4% of your NYC-allocated business income — the Unincorporated Business Tax, a levy most owners have never heard of until their first year in the five boroughs. Corporations and S corps are excluded; they pay the corporate taxes below instead.
Two thresholds do the real work. You must file once gross income tops $95,000 — even if you end up owing nothing. And a credit wipes out small liabilities entirely: if your UBT comes to $3,400 or less the credit covers all of it, phasing out partially up to $5,400. NYC-resident sole proprietors also get a partial UBT credit against their city personal income tax, softening the double hit. The bookkeeping angle is allocation and accuracy: the tax applies to NYC-allocated income, and the filing threshold keys off gross income — both figures your books either produce cleanly or your preparer reconstructs expensively. Freelancers and partnerships crossing $95K for the first time are the classic missed filing; we flag it before it happens.
Corporations: 8.85%, and Your S Election Stops at the City Line
C corporations doing business in the city pay the Business Corporation Tax — 8.85% standard, with a genuine small-business break: 6.5% below $1 million of allocated income, plus a fixed dollar minimum that runs $25 to $200,000 by receipts. The filing is the NYC-2, due April 15.
The trap is for S corporations. Your federal S election does not carry into the city: federal S corps pay NYC’s General Corporation Tax at 8.85%, at the entity level, as if the election never happened. Owners who moved from another state and assumed “S corp = no entity tax” discover this in their first city filing season. Note also that physical presence is not required — NYC applies an economic nexus standard of $1,128,000 in city receipts (the 2024 figure, CPI-indexed), so a business selling into the city from elsewhere can owe corporate tax here too. Whether you clear the small-business rate, the nexus threshold, or the next fixed-dollar-minimum band all comes down to receipts and allocated income — numbers that disciplined monthly books produce as a byproduct.
8.875% Sales Tax — With a Clothing Quirk
New York City’s combined sales tax is 8.875%: 4% state, 4.5% city, and 0.375% for the Metropolitan Commuter Transportation District. One exemption matters enormously for retail: clothing and footwear under $110 per item are exempt. A boutique selling a $95 shirt charges no sales tax; the $120 jacket on the next rack is taxed in full. That means item-level bookkeeping, not lump-sum daily deposits — your point-of-sale data has to reconcile to your books by taxable and exempt category, or your sales tax filings become guesswork. We keep the categories tight so each filing on the DTF’s schedule is pulled, not assembled.
Commercial Rent Tax: the Below-96th-Street Surprise
Only in Manhattan, and only south of 96th Street, the city taxes tenants for the act of renting commercial space. The Commercial Rent Tax is nominally 6% of base rent — effectively 3.9% — and it kicks in at $250,000 of annual base rent. A small-business credit exempts tenants with income of $5 million or less AND rent under $500,000, which spares most small firms the tax itself.
What it does not spare them is the paperwork: if your annualized rent exceeds $200,000 you must file — the annual CR-A by June 20 plus quarterly returns — even when the credit zeroes out your liability. That gap between “owe” ($250K) and “file” ($200K) is where penalties breed. And despite recurring headlines, no change has been enacted: repeal bills are pending, but the $250K threshold stands. Your lease terms, escalations, and any sublease income all feed the base-rent calculation, so we keep rent and related charges booked in a way that makes the CR-A a transcription job rather than a research project.
MCTMT: New Brackets Since July 2025
The Metropolitan Commuter Transportation Mobility Tax was restructured effective July 1, 2025, and any rate table older than that is stale. For NYC employers (Zone 1), the brackets now run 0.055%, 0.115%, 0.60%, and 0.895% — the top rate applying above $2.5 million of payroll per quarter. Critically, you owe nothing unless quarterly payroll exceeds $312,500, which exempts most genuinely small employers, and small employers who do owe start at just 0.055%, not the old rates many payroll setups still carry.
Because the tax keys off payroll per quarter, a hiring spike, year-end bonuses, or a one-time payout can push a single quarter over a threshold even when the annual average sits below it. Payroll ledgers reconciled monthly — the way our virtual bookkeeping service maintains them — mean your quarterly MTA-305 filings use real numbers and no bracket surprises you.
Stacking the NYC PTET
New York State’s pass-through entity tax has a city sibling: eligible NYC taxpayers can elect the NYC PTET at 3.876%, layered on top of the state PTET, in the same January 1 – March 15 annual window. For partnerships and S corporation owners, the stacked election is a significant planning lever your CPA will want to model early in the year — and modeling it requires books that are current in January, not reconstructed in March. If yours are months behind, catch-up bookkeeping before the window opens is the difference between electing on real numbers and missing the year entirely. Statewide rates and windows live on our New York state page.
Who We Keep Books For in NYC
The city’s wage economy is famously top-heavy: securities firms employ only about 5% of the private workforce yet pay roughly one-fifth of all private-sector wages — 201,500 jobs averaging $505,677 in 2024, per the State Comptroller. But the small-business economy underneath is where we work: healthcare, leisure and hospitality, accommodation and food services, and professional services dominate small-business employment across the five boroughs.
That mix maps to what we do daily. Restaurants and food businesses get books built for tips, vendors, and thin margins plus item-level sales tax discipline. Practices get claims-aware healthcare books — revenue earned versus received, by payer. Law firms get trust-account discipline. Consultancies and agencies get UBT-ready allocation records. And CPA firms across the city hand us the bookkeeping layer at $10/hour wholesale so their staff stays on higher-value work. Whatever the industry, the deliverable is the same: monthly reconciled, tax-ready books that make every city filing above a lookup instead of a scramble.
The engagement itself is simple. You get one dedicated bookkeeper — not a rotating pool — who logs transactions daily and closes your books monthly, with every bank and credit card account reconciled. Plans start at $75/month, additional hours run $15/hour, and you only pay for hours actually worked. There are no long-term contracts, and the first deposit carries our 100% money-back guarantee, so the real test of the service costs you little to nothing: hand us a month of your books and judge the output. If those books are currently a year behind — a common state of affairs for busy NYC owners between filing seasons — we quote the cleanup as a fixed catch-up project first, then roll you into the monthly rhythm once the backlog is gone.
NYC Bookkeeping FAQs
Do I owe NYC UBT?
If you operate as a sole proprietor, partnership, or LLC taxed as either, and you have NYC-allocated business income, potentially yes — 4%. You must file once gross income exceeds $95,000, but a credit eliminates liabilities of $3,400 or less and phases out at $5,400, so many smaller filers owe nothing. Corporations and S corps are outside the UBT — they pay the BCT or GCT instead. The filing obligation is the part people miss; we track the threshold so you do not.
Does the Commercial Rent Tax apply to me?
Only if you rent commercial space in Manhattan south of 96th Street. The tax starts at $250,000 of annual base rent, and the small-business credit exempts tenants with income of $5 million or less and rent under $500,000 — but you must still file (CR-A by June 20, plus quarterlies) once annualized rent passes $200,000, even if you owe zero. Outside that zone, including all of Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island, the CRT does not apply.
What sales tax rate do I charge in NYC?
8.875% — 4% state, 4.5% city, 0.375% MCTD — with clothing and footwear under $110 per item exempt. The exemption is per item, which is why retail books need item-level taxable/exempt tracking that reconciles POS data to the ledger before each filing.
Do I have to pay the MCTMT?
Only if your payroll exceeds $312,500 in a quarter. Above that, the post-July-2025 Zone 1 brackets run 0.055% to 0.895%, with the top rate applying beyond $2.5 million of quarterly payroll. Because the test is quarterly, bonus season or a hiring push can trigger it in a single quarter — one more reason payroll should reconcile monthly, not annually.
Should we elect the NYC PTET?
That is a CPA decision — the NYC PTET is 3.876% stacked on the state PTET, and the annual election window is January 1 through March 15 with no second chances. Our role is making the decision possible: books current in January, entity income visible, so your CPA can model the election on real numbers before the window closes.
Do you have a New York City office?
No — we are fully virtual, founded in Vienna, Virginia on May 25, 2005 and headquartered in San Juan, Puerto Rico today, serving New York City businesses remotely since 2005. You get a dedicated bookkeeper from $75/month, daily transaction logging, extra hours at $15/hour, and a 100% money-back guarantee on your first deposit.