New York Governor Kathy Hochul signs the Digital Fair Repair Act, set to take effect on July 1, 2023, with amendments giving OEMs some exceptions and loopholes
When Jeannie Crowley came up with the idea for a student-run repair center … Paul Roberts / Fight to Repair : NY Governor Bows To Big Tech, Signs Slimmed Down Right To Repair Act Rich Brome / Phone Scoop : New York “Right to Repair” Law Takes Effect Next Year Molly de Blanc / Electronic Frontier Foundation : Right to Repair Legislation and Advocacy: 2022 in Review Tweets: Jon Campbell / @joncampbellny : New: Gov. Hochul has signed the “right to repair” law — with the Legislature agreeing to a number of changes, as outlined in her approval message. https://twitter.com/... Gregory Conley / @gregthr : @JonCampbellNY That July 2023 date seems like the most significant win for the companies that were lobbying to kill this. @mrcodygrace : “Right to repair” is a goal that I have for the state of TX and something I will be working on in the future. If I buy something (phone, car, etc) then it's mine and I want to be able to fix it. https://www.theverge.com/... Kyle Wiens / @kwiens : Right to repair is now the law of the land in New York. More states are expected to follow. https://www.ifixit.com/... Nathan Proctor / @nproctor : Let me add this to the conversation about what happened to Right to Repair in New York: The manufacturers fear one thing most of all. Not Right to Repair! But 10 different Right to Repair bills. Which is why they should be livid with their lobbyists right now ... @ifixit : Congratulations to New York on becoming the first state to pass a Right to Repair bill! This is a major victory for consumer rights and sustainability. #righttorepair Seamus Campbell / @seamuscampbell : A HUGE win for tinkerers like me and a giant f-u to closed-source technologies (see: Apple). I love it. https://twitter.com/... Dan Herbert / @danherbert : Allowing OEMs to provide assemblies of parts instead of individual components when components would be “unsafe” basically waters down this bill to be useless. Which is sad because the original bill text passed with a veto-proof majority. https://twitter.com/... Nathan Proctor / @nproctor : Long night. Right to Repair is done. The bill was trimmed significantly, but its signed. Some more analysis in a bit. https://twitter.com/... @system76 : While we'd like to see more rights secured by #RighttoRepair legislation, this is a considerable step in the right direction. https://pirg.org/... Nathan Proctor / @nproctor : STATEMENT: N.Y. governor signs Right to Repair, after trimming it down “Today is a critical milestone for repair and the Right to Repair campaign ... it's not everything we wanted, it's the first of its kind in the nation, and just the start.” https://pirg.org/... Assemblymember Patricia Fahy / @patriciafahy109 : Yes, a number of changes right up to the wire but we got it done & and I'm proud to have sponsored this groundbreaking bill - years in the making. Thanks to so many! @RepairCoalition @uspirg @FTC @RepJoeMorelle @fighttorepair @R2REurope https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
New York’s signing turns the Assembly’s earlier passage of the first US electronics right-to-repair bill into an enacted framework, but the amendments narrow that victory with OEM exceptions and loopholes. It matters as an early state-level test of how much repair access legislation changes manufacturer obligations once it reaches implementation.
The subsequent Minnesota and California laws show that New York was part of a widening legislative push, though each state’s law carries its own exclusions, including the exceptions in Minnesota’s broader measure and California’s carve-outs.
First-order effects
- OEMs selling covered electronics in New York must prepare for the Digital Fair Repair Act’s July 2023 effective date, while the signed amendments preserve exceptions that limit the law’s reach.
- Repair providers and advocates gain a statutory basis for access to covered repair resources, but must operate around the exemptions retained in the final act.
Second-order effects
- Minnesota and California lawmakers and advocates gain a live reference point for drafting their own repair rules, with exclusions becoming a central negotiating issue rather than a peripheral detail.
- Manufacturers operating across states face a less uniform compliance environment as New York’s qualified framework sits alongside California’s differently scoped repair law.
Third-order effects
- If more states follow New York, right-to-repair policy is likely to develop as a state-by-state baseline with product-specific carve-outs, rather than a single uniform standard for electronics makers.
- The recurring exclusions suggest the durable contest is shifting from whether repair access should exist to which device categories and security-related tools states will leave outside it.
The trend: US right-to-repair policy is spreading through state legislation, with the practical scope of each mandate being set by negotiated OEM exemptions.