diff --git a/spacy/syntax/ner.pyx b/spacy/syntax/ner.pyx
index 04fbbefc1..4ee41779e 100644
--- a/spacy/syntax/ner.pyx
+++ b/spacy/syntax/ner.pyx
@@ -49,6 +49,10 @@ cdef class BiluoGold:
         self.mem = Pool()
         self.c = create_gold_state(self.mem, moves, stcls, example)
 
+    def update(self, StateClass stcls):
+        update_gold_state(&self.c, stcls)
+
+
 
 cdef GoldNERStateC create_gold_state(
     Pool mem,
@@ -58,30 +62,15 @@ cdef GoldNERStateC create_gold_state(
 ) except *:
     cdef GoldNERStateC gs
     gs.ner = <Transition*>mem.alloc(example.x.length, sizeof(Transition))
-    ner_tags = get_aligned_ner(example)
+    ner_tags = example.get_aligned_ner()
     for i, ner_tag in enumerate(ner_tags):
         gs.ner[i] = moves.lookup_transition(ner_tag)
     return gs
 
 
-def get_aligned_ner(Example example):
-    cand_to_gold = example.alignment.cand_to_gold
-    i2j_multi = example.alignment.i2j_multi
-    y_tags = biluo_tags_from_offsets(
-        example.y, 
-        [(e.start_char, e.end_char, e.label_) for e in example.y.ents]
-    )
-    x_tags = [None] * example.x.length
-    for i in range(example.x.length):
-        if example.x[i].is_space:
-            pass
-        elif cand_to_gold[i] is not None:
-            x_tags[i] = y_tags[cand_to_gold[i]]
-        elif i in i2j_multi:
-            # Assign O/- for many-to-one O/- NER tags
-            if y_tags[i2j_multi[i]] in ("O", "-"):
-                x_tags[i] = y_tags[i2j_multi[i]]
-    return y_tags
+cdef void update_gold_state(GoldNERStateC* gs, StateClass stcls) except *:
+    # We don't need to update each time, unlike the parser.
+    pass
 
 
 cdef do_func_t[N_MOVES] do_funcs
@@ -120,11 +109,12 @@ cdef class BiluoPushDown(TransitionSystem):
             for action in (BEGIN, IN, LAST, UNIT):
                 actions[action][entity_type] = 1
         moves = ('M', 'B', 'I', 'L', 'U')
-        for example in kwargs.get('gold_parses', []):
-            for ner_tag in example.get_aligned("ENT_TYPE", as_string=True):
-                if ner_tag != 'O' and ner_tag != '-':
+        for example in kwargs.get('examples', []):
+            for token in example.y:
+                ent_type = token.ent_type_
+                if ent_type:
                     for action in (BEGIN, IN, LAST, UNIT):
-                        actions[action][ner_tag] += 1
+                        actions[action][ent_type] += 1
         return actions
 
     @property
@@ -247,6 +237,37 @@ cdef class BiluoPushDown(TransitionSystem):
                     self.add_action(UNIT, st._sent[i].ent_type)
                     self.add_action(LAST, st._sent[i].ent_type)
 
+    def get_cost(self, StateClass stcls, gold, int i):
+        if not isinstance(gold, BiluoGold):
+            raise TypeError("Expected BiluoGold")
+        cdef BiluoGold gold_ = gold
+        gold_state = gold_.c
+        n_gold = 0
+        if self.c[i].is_valid(stcls.c, self.c[i].label):
+            cost = self.c[i].get_cost(stcls, &gold_state, self.c[i].label)
+        else:
+            cost = 9000
+        return cost
+
+    cdef int set_costs(self, int* is_valid, weight_t* costs,
+                       StateClass stcls, gold) except -1:
+        if not isinstance(gold, BiluoGold):
+            raise TypeError("Expected BiluoGold")
+        cdef BiluoGold gold_ = gold
+        gold_.update(stcls)
+        gold_state = gold_.c
+        n_gold = 0
+        for i in range(self.n_moves):
+            if self.c[i].is_valid(stcls.c, self.c[i].label):
+                is_valid[i] = True
+                costs[i] = self.c[i].get_cost(stcls, &gold_state, self.c[i].label)
+                n_gold += costs[i] <= 0
+            else:
+                is_valid[i] = False
+                costs[i] = 9000
+        if n_gold < 1:
+            raise ValueError
+
 
 cdef class Missing:
     @staticmethod