NYC Congestion Pricing: What It Means for Your Ride

The Congestion Relief Zone is the area of Manhattan covered by New York's congestion pricing program — the first of its kind in the United States, launched by the MTA on January 5, 2025. It covers local streets and avenues at or below 60th Street: Midtown, Times Square, Chelsea, Greenwich Village, SoHo, the Financial District — essentially everywhere a first-time visitor spends their trip.

Two highways along the edges are excluded: the FDR Drive on the east side and the West Side Highway (Route 9A) on the west side, along with the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel connections to West Street. A vehicle that stays on those roads without exiting onto local streets is not charged. The moment it leaves the highway and touches a street inside the zone, the toll applies.

The purpose is exactly what the name says: fewer cars in the most gridlocked square miles in America, with the revenue funding subway, bus, and commuter rail improvements. In its first year the state reported roughly 11% fewer vehicles entering the zone, with faster travel speeds — which, for what it's worth, also means your ride through Midtown moves better than it did in 2024.

One important status note, because a lot of stale information is still floating around: congestion pricing is fully in effect as of July 2026. The federal government tried to revoke the program's approval in 2025, but in March 2026 a federal judge in the Southern District of New York ruled that attempt unlawful, and the MTA has operated the toll without interruption the entire time. Details can change — the MTA's Congestion Relief Zone pages are the official source — but the program is not "paused," "blocked," or "cancelled."

For a regular passenger vehicle with E-ZPass, the MTA's toll as of July 2026 is $9 during the peak period and $2.25 overnight. Peak runs 5 AM to 9 PM on weekdays and 9 AM to 9 PM on weekends; the overnight rate is 75% off. The toll is charged once per day — a driver who enters the zone three times on a Tuesday pays $9, not $27. Vehicles without E-ZPass are billed by mail at a higher rate.

These numbers are not permanent. The MTA board approved a phase-in schedule: the $9 peak rate holds through 2027, rises to $12 in 2028, and reaches $15 in 2031, with overnight rates staying proportionally discounted. So if you're reading this well after July 2026, check the MTA's current rates before quoting anyone the toll.

Here's the part most visitors miss, and the reason this article exists: if you're a passenger, the $9 toll is not your number. Taxis and for-hire vehicles don't pay the daily vehicle toll at all. Their riders pay a much smaller per-trip surcharge instead — covered next.

Yes — but as a small per-trip surcharge, not the full toll. Under the MTA's rules, any trip that starts in, ends in, or passes through the Congestion Relief Zone carries:

• $0.75 per trip in yellow taxis, green cabs, and licensed black cars
• $1.50 per trip in high-volume app services — Uber and Lyft

The surcharge is charged to the passenger, appearing as a line item on a taxi receipt or in the fare breakdown of the Uber or Lyft app. It's per trip, not per person, and it doesn't stack per entry — one ride, one surcharge. So when people ask "does my Uber cost more below 60th Street?" the precise answer is: yes, by exactly $1.50.

Why do Uber riders pay double what taxi riders do? The MTA set the app-service rate higher in part because high-volume vehicles spend more time circulating in the zone, and officials wanted to avoid pushing riders away from the yellow cab industry.

One more wrinkle worth knowing so your receipt makes sense: this CRZ surcharge is separate from the older New York State congestion surcharge that has applied since 2019 — $2.50 per taxi trip and $2.75 for other for-hire vehicles on trips below 96th Street. A cross-town ride in SoHo can legitimately carry both. Neither is a scam; they're two different programs with overlapping geography.

It depends on which charge you mean. For drivers, yes — but at a steep discount. The overnight toll for passenger vehicles is $2.25 with E-ZPass, 75% below the peak rate. Overnight means 9 PM to 5 AM on weekdays and 9 PM to 9 AM on weekends.

For riders, the per-trip surcharges have no night discount at all. A taxi trip at 3 AM carries the same $0.75 as one at 3 PM, and an Uber trip carries the same $1.50 around the clock, seven days a week. The practical upshot for a visitor taking a late flight: your 4 AM ride to the airport includes the same sub-$2 surcharge as any other ride — the time of day changes nothing on your bill.

Weekends work the same way: the per-trip surcharges apply in full, and drivers pay the peak vehicle toll from 9 AM to 9 PM on Saturdays and Sundays. There is no day of the week when the zone is "free."

None of the three major airports — JFK, LaGuardia, or Newark — sits inside the Congestion Relief Zone. What matters is the other end of your trip. If your hotel is in Midtown, Times Square, Chelsea, or anywhere else at or below 60th Street, your airport transfer starts (or ends) inside the zone, and the per-trip surcharge applies: $0.75 in a taxi or licensed black car, $1.50 in an Uber or Lyft. Staying on the Upper West Side or in Brooklyn and heading straight to the airport without crossing below 60th Street? No congestion charge at all.

In an app, that $1.50 shows up as one more line in an already long fare breakdown — base fare, booking fee, state congestion surcharge, CRZ surcharge, tolls, tip — quoted fresh each time, on top of whatever surge is doing. In a metered taxi, the $0.75 gets added alongside the 2019 state surcharge and any bridge or tunnel tolls. The amounts are small; the unpredictability is the annoying part.

This is where we'll say the one promotional thing in this article, because it's the answer to the question visitors actually ask us: our flat rates already include every toll and surcharge — congestion charges among them. A JFK transfer from Manhattan is $170 in a sedan whether your hotel is on Wall Street (inside the zone) or 96th Street (outside it), and the quote you see at booking is the number on your final bill — tolls, taxes, congestion surcharge, and gratuity included. No line items appear afterward. The same applies to LaGuardia and Newark transfers.

Full pricing for every route is on our NYC rates page, and our NYC car service cost guide breaks down exactly what a flat rate does and doesn't include — so you can compare it against a taxi meter or an app quote on equal terms.

Here's the good news: nothing. If you're not driving your own car into Manhattan, congestion pricing is entirely automatic from your point of view. There is no pass to buy, no account to register, no zone map to memorize, and no way to accidentally "forget" to pay. The surcharge is collected by the taxi meter, the rideshare app, or the car service — you couldn't opt out if you tried.

The only action item is a budgeting one, and it's small: if you'll be taking taxis and Ubers around Manhattan below 60th Street, expect each ride to run roughly $1 to $4 more than the base fare once the CRZ surcharge and the 2019 state surcharge are counted. Over a long weekend of ten rides, that's maybe $20-35 total — real money, but not trip-changing money.

If you are renting a car and driving into Manhattan, that's the one case where the full toll touches you: the rental's E-ZPass will log the $9 peak charge (once per day), and the rental company will bill it to you, often with a processing fee on top. It's one more reason most visitors are better off not driving in Manhattan at all — between the toll, parking rates, and gridlock, the math rarely works.