Who Keeps What From a Taxi Fare: Driver, Owner, City, State

In short: Of what a passenger pays for a yellow taxi ride, you keep the meter fare, the rush hour, overnight and LaGuardia surcharges, and the tip. Four charges pass through you to someone else: the $1.00 improvement surcharge (to the Taxicab Improvement Fund), the 50-cent MTA tax (to the taxpayer, usually the owner, for New York State), the NYS congestion surcharge (withheld by the technology provider for the state) and the 75-cent MTA congestion toll (collected for the MTA). Tolls go to whoever holds the E-ZPass tag.

Card money must reach you daily on a shift lease, at no cost to you, with only those pass-through items taken out (TLC Rule 58-21(f)). Your lease and allowed fees are paid separately. Rules checked October 12, 2026. This page explains rules; it is not legal or tax advice.

How the money moves

The passenger's charges, one by one

Your card payout: the rules

Rule 58-21(f) sets four protections:

• Timing. On a daily or shift lease of a medallion and car, the owner must pay you "on a daily basis" all non-cash payments from your shift, including e-hail payments. A weekly driver may choose weekly payment. On other leases (medallion-only, DOV), at least weekly.
• No cost. "Payments to a Driver and access to these funds must be provided at no cost to the Driver." No fee to cash a check or to load a card.
• Only three deductions. The improvement surcharge; the MTA tax for your trips, if the owner or agent is the taxpayer (Rule 58-21(f)(4)); and amounts kept by or payable to the TSP when a TLC rule provides for them (Rule 58-21(f)(5)). Nothing else.
• No card fees. The owner "must not withhold from the payments any credit card pass-along, fees or charges" (Rule 58-21(f)(3)). Fines: $200, $300, then $500, and the judge must order restitution. The only card charge allowed is the separate $7 per shift / $49 per week surcharge — see how much a taxi owner can charge for credit cards.

If the owner hands the paying job to someone else and that company fails to pay, the owner is still responsible, as long as you report the non-payment to the owner within 90 days (Rule 58-21(f)(1)(i)). Late or short payouts can be reported to TLC's Driver Protection Unit at 718-391-5539 or driverprotection@tlc.nyc.gov.

Cash trips work differently

When a passenger pays cash, all the money is in your hand. Then:

• the improvement surcharge is still owed: Rule 80-17(h) says the driver must remit it to the medallion owner ($50 fine per occurrence);
• the MTA tax can be collected by the taxpayer owner, first from your card money, then from your deposit, and only then from you directly (Rule 58-21(c)(5)(vii));
• toll money for trips on the owner's E-ZPass must be forwarded to the owner at the end of your shift or lease (Rule 58-27(d)(1)(i));
• the congestion surcharge is collected by the TSP from fares it handles. NYS says if the TSP can't withhold it in full from one day's fares, it takes it from the next day's, and after 12 months the owner or agent becomes responsible. TLC says the surcharge "cannot be taken out of the driver's pay" (TLC Congestion Surcharge).

Who carries the MTA tax is explained in more detail in who pays the MTA tax in a taxi? and the congestion question in does the taxi driver pay the congestion surcharge?

Tolls: your tag or the owner's

TLC Rule 58-26(e) says every taxi must carry an MTA Bridges & Tunnels E-ZPass, and the passenger pays only the actual E-ZPass toll. Rule 58-27 then decides who keeps it:

• Owner's tag: all toll money belongs to the owner. If the passenger paid by card, the owner keeps the toll from the card money; if by cash, you hand it over. The owner may require a replenishment account of up to $10 per shift, maximum $100.
• Your own tag: you keep the toll money, or are reimbursed for tolls paid by card.

Trips outside the city, where the passenger also pays your return tolls, are explained in taxi trips outside NYC.

Worked example (fictional)

A weekday 1 p.m. card trip from Midtown to the Financial District, both below 60th Street, on a daily lease, owner's E-ZPass not used:

Your shift costs, such as the lease (capped at $105 for a day shift), the card surcharge (up to $7 a shift) and fuel, come out of what you earn across all trips. They are not deductions from each fare. See NYC taxi lease caps.

What real trips look like

We averaged every metered, non-Flex-Fare yellow taxi trip in TLC's trip records from September 2025 to August 2026 (33.3 million trips, same cleaning rules as our other trip pages). Cash tips are not recorded, so the real average tip is higher than the one shown.

On those averages, about $25.26 per trip is the driver's side (fare, extras and recorded tips) and about $4.43 passes through to the fund, the state, the MTA and the Port Authority, plus $0.59 in tolls. These are averages over all metered trips, not what any one driver earns, and they come before your lease and fuel. More breakdowns are on what's inside an average NYC taxi fare and the yearly trend is on yellow taxi fare per trip.

When a passenger changes the plan

If a passenger changes the destination mid-trip, the same split applies to whatever the final fare is. See can a passenger change the destination? Charging any amount above the approved fare is an overcharge, including charging double the meter where it is not allowed (Rule 80-17(f)(1)). Other topics are on the money hub.