How can I automatically change directory on ssh login?

cd is a shell builtin. LocalCommand is executed as:

/bin/sh -c <localcommand>

What you're looking to do can't really be accomplished via SSH; you need to modify the shell in some way, e.g. via bashrc/bash_profile.

<Editing almost a decade later...>

LocalCommand isn't what you want, anyway. That's run on your machine.

You want RemoteCommand. Something like this worked for me:

Host example.net
  RemoteCommand cd / && exec bash --login
  RequestTTY yes

This works:

ssh server -t "cd /my/remote/directory; bash --login"

To create a directory if it doesn't exist:

ssh server -t "mkdir -p newfolder; cd ~/newfolder; pwd; bash --login"

If you don't add bash to the end of path then you exit after the cd comand runs. And If you don't add --login then your ~/.profile isn't sourced.

1. Login to your box
2. Edit ~/.bash_profile
3. On the end of the file add cd /path/to/your/destination
4. Save it & exit
5. Logout from the box
6. Login again and then you should land on /path/to/your/destination

Note (Dec 2021): As @Matthias points out on some machines you may need need to append your command to ~/.bashrc instead of to ~/.bash_profile.