LaGuardia Airport TLC Rules: Fares, App Pickups & Summonses

In short: LaGuardia is now the city's busiest airport for TLC pickups, and most of them are app trips. In 2025 the LGA zone recorded about 6.21 million yellow, green and app pickups, slightly ahead of JFK, and 79% were app-based. If you drive for an app, the rule that matters most here is 80-19(f): no accepting a dispatch while sitting in a pickup area. If you drive a taxi, LGA is metered with a $5 surcharge. There is no flat fare here. And as at every Port Authority facility, the summonses written most often are plain traffic and parking charges.

This is general information, not legal advice. Pickup locations at LaGuardia change with construction. The Port Authority says pickup areas are marked outside each terminal (LaGuardia: Transportation), and your app shows the current spot.

App drivers: the LaGuardia dispatch rule

TLC's rule is short. You must not accept a dispatch while parked or located at LaGuardia or JFK unless you are parked somewhere other than the airport's designated passenger pickup locations (80-19(f), $250). The idea is that pickup areas are for picking up. You wait for your next trip in the waiting areas the airport and your app send you to.

Sources: TLC Chapter 80, Port Authority flyer. For the full app-driver rule set, see Uber and Lyft drivers and 80-19(c)(2).

Where riders meet you, and where you wait

When we checked on October 12, 2026, the Port Authority's ride-share page put app pickups at each terminal here, all marked with "Ride App Pick Up" signs:

• Terminal A: directly across the street from the terminal.
• Terminal B: Level 2 of the Terminal B parking garage.
• Terminal C: the arrivals inner lane.

The public Cell Phone Lot is off the airport on 94th Street between 23rd Avenue and Ditmars Boulevard, open 7:00 AM to 11:59 PM, and the Port Authority says you can't wait at the curb unless the passenger and bags are already there (Pick-up and Drop-off). Apps also run their own staging lot and virtual queue; see the LaGuardia guide for app drivers and can Uber drivers wait at LaGuardia.

Under the Port Authority's approved fee schedule, the access fee on for-hire vehicles rose to $3.50 per pickup and per drop-off on March 15, 2026, and is set to reach $4.50 in 2027 and $5.00 in 2028 (Port Authority). The schedule does not say who pays it inside app pricing.

Who picks up at LaGuardia

Yellow taxis recorded about 1.29 million LaGuardia pickups in 2025, against 2.06 million at JFK (NYC Open Data). Green cabs recorded a few hundred at each airport. Taxis load from the airport taxi line. You can't solicit or cruise for passengers anywhere at the airport (80-19(a)(4): $100/$150), and TLC says the Port Authority does not allow taxis to be e-hailed at the airport (TLC fare page). Holding-lot and feed-line rules work the same as at JFK. Park in the holding area before relief time, rejoin the end of the line, and never bring passengers into the lot (80-19(e)(2)). See the JFK page and the LaGuardia taxi line guide.

Taxi fares at LaGuardia

LaGuardia has no flat fare. Per §58-26(a) and TLC's fare page:

• Standard metered fare to or from LGA, wherever the passenger is going in the city.
• $5.00 LaGuardia surcharge on all trips to and from LaGuardia.
• $2.00 airport access fee on taxi pickups at LaGuardia (and JFK).
• The usual surcharges: rush hour ($2.50, weekdays 4–8 p.m.), overnight ($1.00, 8 p.m.–6 a.m.), MTA (50¢), improvement ($1.00). Add the Manhattan congestion surcharge and toll if the trip enters those zones, plus tolls.

The LaGuardia website lists different surcharges from TLC's; TLC's fare rules govern, as explained in why the LGA website fare is different. Charging a "flat" price to Manhattan from LaGuardia, or leaving off the meter, can lead to an overcharge summons. Overcharging carries mandatory penalties (80-17(a)(1)). After every airport trip, check the cab for left items (80-18(a), $25).

When LaGuardia trips start and where they go

TLC's trip records for the LaGuardia taxi zone (zone 138) cover September 2025 to August 2026. Uber and Lyft made about 4.93 million pickups there, about 13,500 a day, and yellow taxis about 1.18 million, about 3,200 a day (TLC Trip Record Data).

LaGuardia's day has a sharper shape than JFK's. Pickups nearly stop from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. (under 40 an hour on an average day), jump after 7 a.m., and stay high into the night. On weekdays the 2 p.m. hour is busiest (about 1,180 pickups); on Sundays the late evening is, with about 1,380 in the 11 p.m. hour. Saturdays are the quietest day here.

About 11% of LaGuardia pickups leave the city, and Times Square/Theatre District is the top in-city destination at 4.9%. All nine in-city zones on the list are in or next to Midtown Manhattan. That is why so many LaGuardia trips carry Manhattan charges: 51.4% of yellow taxi pickups and 41.1% of app pickups here were charged the Congestion Relief Zone fee (see the table below and congestion pricing for TLC drivers).

The median taxi trip from LaGuardia is about 9.4 miles and a $43.60 metered fare, before the $5 LaGuardia surcharge and other extras. The median app trip paid the driver $38.65 before tips.

What Port Authority Police actually write

Port Authority Police are one of three agencies whose taxi/FHV summonses go to OATH. In 2021–2025 they wrote about 12% of them (36,397 of about 311,000) (OATH data). The data can't separate LaGuardia from JFK, Newark or other Port Authority sites. Across all of them, the pattern is clear:

The two biggest bars are TLC's traffic rules: 80-13(a)(2), non-hazardous moving violations, and 80-13(a)(1), stopping, standing and parking. At an airport, that usually means where and how long you stop. Waiting at a no-standing curb for a rider who is "two minutes out" is exactly the kind of stop these rules cover. Next come overcharging (80-17(a)(1)), refusals (80-20(a)(1)), threats or harassment (80-12(e), appearance required), unsafe lane changes, discourtesy (80-15(i)), red lights and phone use. For a first violation, 80-13(a)(1) is $100 if you plead guilty before a hearing or $200 after. A second or third within 15 months adds a point, and a third adds a suspension unless you complete a remedial course.

Save your proof the same day. If you get a stopping or standing summons while picking up, your app's trip details can matter later. They show when you got the request, when you arrived, and when the rider got in. Take screenshots before the app archives them. Note the terminal, the door number and any signs. Then read evidence for a TLC hearing to see how records like these are used.

You answer a Port Authority summons the same way as a TLC one: at OATH, by phone, online or in person, with fines paid to TLC. Check your record and dates with the summons deadline calculator, and see Port Authority TLC summonses for the longer trend.