What Is the $1 Taxi Improvement Surcharge For?

The $1.00 improvement surcharge pays for wheelchair-accessible taxis. The passenger pays it on every yellow taxi trip and every green-cab hail trip. It goes into a City fund that pays owners to buy and run accessible vehicles, and pays drivers who drive them. You don't keep it: the owner takes it out of your card money, and you hand it over on cash trips.

TLC's Chapter 51 defines the Taxicab Improvement Surcharge as "the surcharge of $1.00 per trip that will be added to every taxicab trip," deposited into the Taxicab Improvement Fund, "except for any amounts paid directly to the Drivers of Accessible Taxicabs."

Where the money goes

The Chapter 51 definitions say the funds pay for:

• Grants to owners who must buy accessible vehicles. Rule 58-50(i) sets a hack-up payment of at least $20,000, plus operational payments that add up to $10,000 over four years, paid four times a year. Owners must pass inspection, and after the first payment, complete at least 750 passenger trips since the last inspection.
• Payments to drivers of accessible taxis. A driver gets $10 for each trip that a passenger requested as accessible service through an approved e-hail app's call center (Rule 58-50(i)(2)).
• Other accessibility costs, "including, but not limited to, offsetting the costs associated with driver training and funding the Accessible Vehicle dispatch program."

In TLC's published payment records on NYC Open Data, owners received $10,004,000 in hack-up payments and $7,556,000 in operational payments in 2025 (records through June 27, 2025, so 2025 may be partial).

Grant details are in Taxi Improvement Fund grants, and more charts are in Taxi Improvement Fund statistics.

Why it comes out of your card pay

Rule 58-21(f) says your owner must pay you all non-cash payments, including e-payments, "less the Taxicab Improvement Surcharge payable to the Taxicab Improvement Fund." So $1 per card trip leaving your payout is expected. The fleet Driver Bill of Rights says the same: owners must keep "Taxi Improvement Fund surcharges." Any other card fee taken out of your payout is not allowed (58-21(f)(3)). The exception is the separate credit card surcharge on your lease.

TLC's payment dates page says TLC switched from quarterly to monthly surcharge billing in 2021. Invoices are posted in LARS and due on the 15th of each month. If an owner doesn't pay, Rule 58-16(f) allows a $1,000 fine and suspension until it pays.

Green cab equivalent

Green cabs have their own Street Hail Livery Improvement Surcharge: $1.00 "added to every Hail Trip in a Street Hail Livery," which goes to the Street Hail Livery Improvement Fund (Chapter 51; Rule 82-26(a)(1)(i)). On cash hail trips the driver remits it to the green-cab licensee (Rule 80-17(i)). For accessible green cabs, the payment provider pays a per-trip "Driver Incentive Payment" straight to the driver (Rule 82-17(g)(2)). TLC sets the amount and posts it on its website (Rule 82-70(b)). We did not find the current amount when we reviewed this page.

Where you will see it

• On the meter and receipt as "Improvement Surcharge," $1.00.
• In trip data as improvement_surcharge, "assessed trips at the flag drop" (yellow data dictionary).
• On your payout statement as $1 per card trip held back.

It is a different charge from the overnight surcharge (see night surcharge), the 50-cent MTA tax and the congestion surcharge. The full list is in every surcharge on a NYC taxi fare, and who keeps what traces each dollar. More pay topics are on the money hub.