How to Verify an Auto Body Shop's License in New York
Short answer: any shop that repairs vehicles for compensation in New York must hold a current registration from the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles before it operates. The duty is in Vehicle and Traffic Law § 398-c:
no person shall operate, or cause to have operated, a motor vehicle repair shop, unless such motor vehicle repair shop is registered in accordance with the provisions of this article and unless such registration is currently valid
Body shops carry the RSB business type; general repair shops carry RS. A registered facility displays a green-and-white DMV sign with its facility number, and the whole roster is public. Section read at nysenate.gov on 23 August 2026.
Who licenses body shops in New York
The NYS DMV licenses repair facilities under its Repair Shop registration program. Two business types matter for collision work:
- RS: registered repair shop (general vehicle repair)
- RSB: registered repair shop, body work
A legitimate New York body shop displays its DMV facility number on site. If there is no sign and no number, that is not a paperwork quibble; it is the one thing state law makes visible on purpose.
Where the official record lives
New York publishes the entire licensed-facility roster as an open dataset, refreshed by DMV:
Facilities Licensed by the Department of Motor Vehicles (dataset nhjr-rpi2)
This is the source we pull for every New York shop in this directory. It is unusually good as public records go: it ships with coordinates already attached, and it deliberately retains facilities whose registrations expired within the last six years, which is what makes the expired picture visible at all.
The register's status words: and what they mean
| Register's word | What it actually means |
|---|---|
| Licensed | The DMV registration is current. The facility may lawfully operate. |
| Expired | The registration lapsed and has not been renewed. The dataset keeps these visible for roughly six years after expiry. |
We carry New York's own word, "Expired", rather than relabeling it. An expired registration does not tell you the shop closed, many are still trading, but it does mean they are not currently a registered DMV facility.
What we hold for New York
As of our 2026-08-04 pull, the directory carries 21,057 New York RS and RSB facilities: 14,956 currently licensed and 6,101 expired. Of the full set, 3,994 classify as collision or body shops.
Those two numbers move faster than you would expect, and the way they move is worth understanding. On our 2026-07-24 pull the same roster read 15,404 licensed and 5,653 expired. The total did not change at all, 21,057 both times. What changed is that 448 registrations crossed from licensed to expired in eleven days. New York's dataset does not drop a facility when its registration lapses; it keeps the row and flips the word. So the roster is not a list of open shops that grows and shrinks. It is a permanent list in which the status column is the only thing that moves.
The practical consequence: an expired status you read last month may be a licensed shop that has since renewed, and a licensed status may have lapsed. Check the date on whatever you are reading, including this page.
New York's expired registrations are the second-largest block inside the 16,174 lapsed credentials counted as at 2026-07-26 across the nine licensing states in the State of Collision Repair 2026-Q3 report. That is a report figure with a report date, not a live counter, New York's share of it alone has grown since. And it is not a national total: most states do not license body shops at all, so there is no register to count lapses in.
If the shop you are looking at shows expired
- Look for the sign. New York requires the DMV registration to be displayed at the facility. Compare the number on the wall to the number on the record.
- Ask when it lapsed. Renewal gaps happen; a six-year-old expiry is a different conversation.
- Check whether the business moved. A facility number attaches to a location. A shop that relocated may hold a current registration under a new address record.
- Know your rights on the estimate. New York requires a written estimate on request and your authorization before work exceeds it.
Verify a specific New York shop
Every New York shop page in this directory shows its DMV facility number, the register's own status word, the expiry date where the source carries one, and the date we last checked, next to any federal environmental and safety records for the same address.
- Auto body shops in New York
- Search the map by ZIP
- How our data is verified
- Nationwide licensing statistics
General consumer information: not legal, insurance, or financial advice. Requirements, coverage, and practices vary by state, policy, and manufacturer.