On June 30, 2025, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed Senate Bill No. 4654, which was introduced on June 16, 2025, into law, enacting significant reforms to the state’s requirements for the publication or advertisement of legal notices. Traditionally, legal notices are required to be published in printed newspapers to afford the public notice of municipal and county meetings. Since many print newspapers in New Jersey ended daily print publication, the new law revises the manner in which legal notices are to be communicated to the public.
Effective March 1, 2026, all governmental and public entities will be required to publish or advertise legal notices electronically on their own official website. Such websites will be required to clearly link to legal notices on its home page and be accessible and available to the public without charge. All governmental and public entities will be required to maintain public notices on the website for a minimum of a week, or the time required by law, before transferring the notice to archives and stored for at least one year. A local government unit is not required to maintain an archive until July 1, 2026.
The State is required to create a webpage under the Secretary of State’s website which links to the legal notice page for each public entity.
Effective January 1, 2026, governmental entities may, in addition to the publication on its official Internet website, advertise a legal notice in an “eligible online news publication.”
Any corporation, individual, or other entity that is not a public entity and is required by law or a court order or court rule to publish or advertise a legal notice will be required to publish in an “online news publication” (which satisfies the requirements mentioned below). Corporations, individuals, or other entities shall select an “online news publication” based on the geographic target as established or implied under the law, court order or court rules requiring publication.
The majority of the bill’s requirements are mandatory beginning March 1, 2026, and are optional until that date. Each public entity’s Internet website shall be accessible and available to the public free of charge, with a direct hyperlink to the legal notices published on the public entity’s official Internet website. Such public notices must be conspicuously placed on the public entity’s Internet homepage.
This new law defines “public entity” to include the State, any State agency and any local government unit, district, public authority, public agency and other political subdivision or political body of the State, as well as local government units, including county, municipality or any agency, board, commission, utilities authority or other authority (including any sheriff or sheriff’s office).
This law provides that public bodies may continue using qualifying newspapers for required notice notices and legal advertisement until March 1, 2026.
The term “online news publication” means “a news publication in electronic format that contains news on matters of public concern and has published news predominantly in the English language at least once per week for at least one year continuously.” To be an “eligible online news publication,” the following criteria must be satisfied:
(1) use a domain name for the Internet website that will be easily recognizable and understandable to users of the website as belonging to that online news publication;
(2) maintain the online news publication on the Internet in a manner that is fully accessible and searchable by members of the public at all times, other than during routine maintenance or circumstances outside of the operator’s control;
(3) ensure that legal notices published or advertised on the online news publication comply with the requirements that would apply to the legal notices if they were published in a physical newspaper, as applicable;
(4) maintain an archive for at least one year of notices that are no longer displayed on the online news publication;
(5) display a legal notice for at least one week, or other time period as required by law, before placing it in archive;
(6) enable legal notices, both those currently displayed and those archived, to be accessed by key word, by party name, by case number, by county, or other useful identifiers;
(7) maintain an adequate security system and develop a contingency plan for coping with and recovering from power outages, systemic failures, and other unforeseen circumstances;
(8) not charging a fee or require registration or a subscription to view legal notices;
(9) maintain media liability insurance of up to $1 million;
(10) have been in continuous operation for at least three years, which can be satisfied by the online news publication itself or by a company that has a controlling or majority interest in the online news publication; and
(11) provide the number of monthly unique website visit and monthly unique website visits by users in this State and in each county, as evidenced by IP address or other appropriate identifier, which shall be prominently displayed on the Internet homepage of the online news publication along with the criteria provided in this subsection, or a hyperlink to a webpage displaying such criteria, and whether the online news publication meets each criteria.
i. To qualify as an online news publication eligible to publish legal notices for municipal-wide circulation, the online news publication shall receive 4,000 unique monthly visits on average as calculated annually, no less than 50 percent of which shall be from IP addresses within the applicable municipality or within a 10-mile radius of the municipality.
ii. To qualify as an online news publication eligible to publish legal notices for county-wide circulation, the online news publication shall receive 50,000 unique monthly visits on average as calculated annually, no less than 50 percent of which shall be from IP addresses within the applicable county or within a 10-mile radius of the county.
iii. To qualify as an online news publication eligible to publish legal notices for State-wide circulation, the online news publication shall receive 350,000 unique monthly visits on average as calculated annually, no less than 50 percent of which shall be from IP addresses within the State.
This new law will change the manner in which legal notices are disseminated by applicants seeking land use approvals and appearing before local and county zoning boards and planning boards, as well as regional planning agencies (e.g., Pinelands Commission) and state agencies. Legal notices related to the publication of government resolutions, proposed bids for public work, or court orders requiring legal notices in real estate related litigations (e.g., mortgage foreclosures, sheriff’s sale, quiet title litigation, etc.) will likely be impacted as well.
If you have any questions, please contact Alan P. Fox, Esquire (Chairperson for the firm’s Land Use Section and Co-Chair for the Real Estate Section) at Afox@capehart.com or his direct phone number at 856-914-2056.
