New York’s effort to kill the “black market” for restaurant reservations became enforceable this winter. The Restaurant Reservation Anti-Piracy Act took effect February 17, 2025, after Governor Kathy Hochul signed it on December 19, 2024 — the first state law of its kind in the United States.

The law targets a practice that had spread across the city’s hardest-to-book restaurants: third-party platforms snapping up reservations and reselling them, sometimes for hundreds of dollars, to diners willing to pay for a table at places like Carbone. Hochul, at signing, said the bill would end the “predatory black market for restaurant reservations.”

What the law actually bans

The act is narrower than a blanket prohibition on reselling tables. As the law firm Holland & Knight noted in its analysis, it does not ban resale outright. Instead, it bars any person or platform from listing or selling a restaurant’s reservations on a website or app unless they have a written agreement with that restaurant.

In effect, the law requires reservation platforms to partner directly with operators before listing their tables. Services found in violation face fines of up to $1,000 per day, per restaurant — a structure designed to make systematic scalping uneconomic.

The New York State Restaurant Association, which backed the measure, framed it as a fairness issue: reservations are supposed to be free, and a secondary market let third parties profit while pushing access toward those who could pay a premium.

The platforms adapt

The clearest target was Appointment Trader, a marketplace that had let users buy and sell reservations. After the law took effect, the platform stripped out promotional features — restaurant names, location details and rankings — to avoid running afoul of the ban on listing and advertising specific reservations. By mid-2025 it was moving toward an AI-driven chat interface, an attempt to test how far the new rules reach.

The law did not touch the broader prepaid-reservation business. Membership service Dorsia, which charges annual fees and requires diners to prepay a minimum spend to lock in tables at sought-after restaurants, operates through arrangements with the restaurants themselves rather than reselling free reservations — placing it outside the conduct the act targets.

Still a contested market

More than a year on, the reservations economy remains unsettled. Reporting in March 2026 found the broader fight over reservation apps showing no signs of slowing, as platforms, restaurants and would-be resellers kept testing the boundaries of who controls a table and who profits from it. New York’s law reshaped the rules of that fight — but did not end it.

Verification

Frequently Asked Questions

What does the Restaurant Reservation Anti-Piracy Act do?
It prohibits third-party services from listing or selling a restaurant's reservations on a website or app unless they have a written agreement with that restaurant. It does not ban resale outright; it bans unauthorized resale.
When did the law take effect?
Governor Kathy Hochul signed it on December 19, 2024, and it took effect February 17, 2025. New York was the first state to enact such a law.
What are the penalties?
Reservation services found in violation can face fines of up to $1,000 per day, per restaurant.
How did resale platforms respond?
Appointment Trader, which had let users buy and sell reservations, was forced to remove promotional features like restaurant names, locations and rankings, and later moved toward an AI-driven interface to test the law's limits.