How to sue in New York small claims court

NYC CIVIL COURT ACT § 1801 · UCCA § 1801 · UDCA § 1801 · UJCA § 1801

What small claims court is, and is not.

Small claims is a simplified part of New York's local courts built for one thing: money claims up to a dollar cap, decided quickly, without the formal rules of pleading and evidence that govern a regular civil lawsuit. You do not need a lawyer. The filing fee is modest. The clerk serves the defendant for you. Hearings are often at night so working people can attend. The judge or arbitrator is directed to do substantial justice between the parties rather than enforce technicalities.

What it cannot do matters just as much. Small claims awards money only. It cannot order someone to return your property, finish a job, or stop doing something. It cannot hear claims above the cap unless you give up the excess. And a win produces a judgment, not a check; collection is a separate job, covered below and in how to collect a small claims judgment.

Typical small claims cases: a $2,400 security deposit the landlord kept, a $6,000 contractor who walked off the job, a $1,500 loan to a friend who stopped answering, a $900 unpaid invoice, a $3,200 repair bill after an uninsured driver hit your parked car. If that sounds like your situation, keep reading. If you are still deciding whether to sue at all, start with demand letter vs. small claims.

Which court hears your case.

New York does not have one small claims court. It has a small claims part inside whichever local court covers the place where the defendant lives, works, or does business. Four systems, four statutes, three dollar limits:

• New York City Civil Court, Small Claims Part. All five boroughs. Limit $10,000 under section 1801 of the New York City Civil Court Act. Details in the NYC small claims guide.
• City courts outside NYC. Yonkers, White Plains, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, and the other sixty-odd cities. Limit $5,000 under section 1801 of the Uniform City Court Act.
• District courts. Nassau County and the five western towns of Suffolk County. Limit $5,000 under section 1801 of the Uniform District Court Act.
• Town and village justice courts. Everywhere else, which is most of the state by area. Limit $3,000 under section 1801 of the Uniform Justice Court Act. See town and village court small claims.

The general venue rule, stated in words: you sue where the defendant can be found, meaning the court whose territory includes the defendant's residence, place of employment, or place of business. You generally cannot drag a Rochester defendant into a Brooklyn small claims part just because you live in Brooklyn. If the defendant is a business with a storefront in your town, that storefront is enough. Full breakdown of the caps and what to do when your claim is bigger: small claims limits in NY.

Who can sue, and who has to use commercial claims.

Small claims is for individuals. A natural person eighteen or older files in their own name; a parent or guardian files for a minor. Sole proprietors can usually file as individuals because legally they are the business.

Corporations, LLCs, partnerships, and associations generally cannot be claimants in the small claims part. They use the parallel commercial claims part, which has the same dollar caps, a slightly higher fee, a cap on how many claims a business may file per month, and a mandatory pre-suit demand letter when the claim arises from a consumer transaction. That whole process is in commercial small claims for NY businesses. Anyone, including a corporation, can be a defendant in either part.

One more eligibility rule worth knowing: assignees and collection agencies cannot use small claims. The claim has to be yours.

Filing: what it costs and what you fill out.

You file in person at the clerk's office of the correct court, or in many courts by mail using the court system's small claims form. The claim form asks for your name and address, the defendant's exact legal name and address, the amount, and a short statement of why the defendant owes it. Keep the statement plain: "Defendant kept my $2,400 security deposit after I vacated on March 31 and left the apartment clean. No itemized statement was ever provided."

Filing fees are modest. In New York City the fee is in the range of fifteen to twenty dollars depending on the amount claimed; city, district, and justice courts charge similar small amounts, often ten to twenty dollars including the cost of mailing. There are no process server fees, because the clerk serves the defendant for you.

Getting the defendant's name right is the single most common filing mistake. A judgment against "Joe's Plumbing" is hard to enforce if the legal entity is "JP Mechanical Contracting Corp." Check the Department of State business entity database, the invoice, the contract, the license, or the lease. If you are not sure, many courts let you list both the trade name and the suspected legal name.

Service. After you file, the clerk sends the notice of claim to the defendant by both certified mail and ordinary first-class mail. If the certified mail comes back unclaimed but the first-class mail does not come back within a set number of days, service is generally presumed complete. If both come back undeliverable, the clerk will tell you and you will have to provide a better address or arrange personal service by someone other than yourself.

The notice tells the defendant the date, time, and place of the hearing and warns that failing to appear means a default judgment. In NYC the first hearing date is typically set several weeks out; elsewhere it varies with the court's calendar, sometimes faster in a small justice court, sometimes slower in a busy city court.

Evening sessions, arbitrators, and the hearing itself.

New York City Civil Court holds small claims sessions in the evening, usually starting at 6:30 p.m., in every borough. Many city and district courts also hold evening or early-morning sessions; town and village courts sit whenever the part-time justice sits, which is often one or two evenings a week.

When your case is called you will usually be offered a choice: wait for the judge, or have the case heard immediately by a volunteer arbitrator, an experienced attorney who hears small claims cases without charge. The trade-offs, honestly stated:

• Arbitrator. Heard that night, usually within the hour. Informal. The decision is final; there is no appeal.
• Judge. May mean waiting hours or being adjourned to another date. Slightly more formal. A judge's decision can be appealed, though appeals from small claims are narrow and rarely worthwhile for the sums involved.

The hearing is short, often ten to twenty minutes. You tell your story, hand up your documents, and answer questions. The defendant does the same. Rules of evidence are relaxed; the judge or arbitrator can consider a text message, a photo, or an estimate without the foundation a regular trial would demand. Written estimates for repair cases count as evidence in many courts; ask the clerk about the local practice of accepting two itemized estimates in place of live testimony.

Interpreters are provided free in any language on request; tell the clerk when you file or at least a week before the hearing.

What to bring:

• The contract, lease, invoice, estimate, or loan agreement, and every amendment.
• Proof of payment: bank statements, Venmo or Zelle screenshots with names and dates visible, canceled checks, receipts.
• Every text, email, and message about the debt, printed in chronological order with dates. Highlight the admissions: "I know I owe you, I'll pay next week."
• Photos and videos, printed or on a device you can hand over.
• Your demand letter and proof of mailing, plus any response. This is often the most persuasive exhibit in the folder, because it shows the court you asked politely and were ignored.
• A one-page timeline you can read from. Nerves are real.
• Three copies of everything: one for the court, one for the defendant, one for you.
• Witnesses who saw the work, the damage, or the promise, if you can get them there. Written statements from absent witnesses are weaker but often accepted.

The judgment, and the part that comes after.

You will usually get the decision by mail a few days to a few weeks after the hearing. If the defendant did not show, you get a default judgment for what you proved; be ready to prove the amount even in a default. Interest runs on a money judgment at the statutory rate, which is nine percent a year in most cases, with a lower rate for consumer debt judgments against individuals.

Then the real question: does the defendant pay? Many do, because a judgment is public, accrues interest, and in New York lasts twenty years. Many do not, and the court will not collect for you. Your tools are an information subpoena to find assets, a restraining notice to freeze a bank account, an income execution to garnish wages, and a marshal or sheriff to levy property. Each is covered step by step in collecting a small claims judgment in NY. A business that ignores a small claims judgment faces extra consequences under the Civil Court Act, including potential treble damages in a later action and reports to its licensing agency.

What a demand letter does here.

Nothing in the small claims statutes requires an individual to send a demand letter before filing. We recommend it anyway, and here is the practical reason: most small claims cases settle or are paid before the hearing, and the letter moves that moment from the courthouse steps to your mailbox, weeks earlier and with no evening off work.

A letter on attorney letterhead states the amount, the legal basis, and a deadline, and tells the debtor exactly which court will hear the case if they do not pay. Debtors who would otherwise gamble that you will never actually file stop gambling, because the letter proves you know how. If they pay, you are done. If they do not, the letter becomes your first exhibit, it may start the interest clock, and it often draws a written response that narrows the dispute.

When a letter is not the right tool: the amount is too small to justify even a flat fee (under a few hundred dollars, just file), the debtor has already told you in writing they will never pay and has no assets, or you have a statute of limitations deadline within days. In those cases file first and ask questions later. Our flat-fee demand letters page explains how the process works; the NY small claims filing kit covers the court filing itself when the letter is ignored.

Common mistakes that lose winnable cases:

• Suing the wrong entity or the wrong person (the manager instead of the company, the trade name instead of the corporation).
• Filing in the wrong court and getting dismissed for improper venue after waiting two months for a date.
• Asking for damages you cannot document. Small claims gives you what you can prove, not what you feel.
• Missing the hearing. A claimant who does not appear gets the case dismissed; a defendant who does not appear gets a default judgment entered against them.
• Forgetting to ask for interest and costs. Ask; the judgment will include the filing fee and interest from the date the money was due.
• Winning, then doing nothing. Judgments do not enforce themselves.

Read next.

• NYC small claims court: the five-borough guide
• Small claims limits in New York, by court
• Town and village court small claims
• Commercial small claims for businesses
• How to collect a small claims judgment
• Demand letter vs. small claims: which gets you paid?
• Unpaid invoices for small businesses
• Lent money and not paid back