Where NYC Rides End: Top Drop-off Zones

Q: Where do the most NYC taxi and Uber rides end?

At LaGuardia (5,729,391 drop-offs from September 2025 to August 2026) and JFK (5,304,804), then Midtown Center (4,004,650), Upper East Side South and Times Sq/Theatre District. Counts include yellow, green and Uber/Lyft trips.

Q: Which zones get more drop-offs than pickups?

Newark Airport by far (1,978,501 drop-offs, 6,404 pickups). In NYC the biggest net gains were Crown Heights North (+228,647), East Harlem South (+156,403) and Morningside Heights (+141,111). The biggest net losses were Midtown Center, East Village and the Lower East Side.

Q: Where do rides end late at night?

Between 8pm and 6am, the most drop-offs were in the East Village (1,696,131), Crown Heights North (1,555,752) and Bushwick South (1,536,110). In Bushwick South and the East Village, more than half of all drop-offs happen in those night hours.

Q: Why are total drop-offs lower than total pickups?

About 11.7 million trips ended outside New York City or at an unknown location (TLC zones 265 and 264). Those are not counted in any zone's drop-offs.

On this page (7)

The numbers at a glance
Top drop-off zones
Net flow: where you end up vs where the next fare is
Night vs day
What the data can't tell you
FAQ
Sources

In short: From September 2025 to August 2026, more NYC rides ended at LaGuardia (5,729,391 drop-offs) and JFK (5,304,804) than anywhere else, followed by Midtown Center, the Upper East Side South and Times Square. But the busiest drop-off zones are mostly also the busiest pickup zones. The more useful question for a driver is the balance: Midtown, the East Village and the Lower East Side send out far more trips than they receive, while zones such as Crown Heights North, East Harlem South and Morningside Heights receive more than they send.

Figures are TLC Help counts from TLC trip records for yellow taxis, green cabs and Uber/Lyft, by the zone where each trip ended.

The numbers at a glance

Top drop-off zones

The 20 busiest drop-off zones (all industries)

Sep 2025 – Aug 2026. Five of the 20 are outside Manhattan: the two airports, Crown Heights North, East New York and Bushwick South.

LaGuardia Airport5,729,391
JFK Airport5,304,804
Midtown Center4,004,650
Upper East Side South3,768,004
Times Sq/Theatre District3,638,084
East Chelsea3,635,551
Crown Heights North3,593,082
Upper East Side North3,505,417
East Village3,362,971
West Chelsea/Hudson Yards3,318,925
Murray Hill3,275,971
Union Sq3,209,114
Midtown East3,114,244
East New York3,002,022
TriBeCa/Civic Center2,941,748
Bushwick South2,930,808
Midtown South2,850,334
Clinton East2,763,858
Midtown North2,650,977
Lincoln Square East2,644,621

Show data table

Label	Trips (trips)
LaGuardia Airport	5,729,391
JFK Airport	5,304,804
Midtown Center	4,004,650
Upper East Side South	3,768,004
Times Sq/Theatre District	3,638,084
East Chelsea	3,635,551
Crown Heights North	3,593,082
Upper East Side North	3,505,417
East Village	3,362,971
West Chelsea/Hudson Yards	3,318,925
Murray Hill	3,275,971
Union Sq	3,209,114
Midtown East	3,114,244
East New York	3,002,022
TriBeCa/Civic Center	2,941,748
Bushwick South	2,930,808
Midtown South	2,850,334
Clinton East	2,763,858
Midtown North	2,650,977
Lincoln Square East	2,644,621

Drop-offs by taxi zone

Darker = more trips ended there, Sep 2025 – Aug 2026. Click a zone for its page, including the top places trips there come from.

Drop-offs (all sectors)
0 – <257K
257K – <639K
639K – <1M
1M – <1.9M
1.9M – 5.7M
No data

Show data table (263 zones)

Zone	Borough	Drop-offs (all sectors)

Source: NYC TLC Trip Record Data (yellow, green, high-volume FHV), Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 · Data as of Oct 12, 2026. Aggregated by TLC Help from TLC trip records, Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 (pickup date; TLC publishes trip files about two months after the month ends and may revise them). 'App' = high-volume for-hire services (Uber, Lyft). Taxi records with a negative fare (reversals) are excluded. Averages, medians and rates use 'clean' trips only: 1 minute to 4 hours, more than 0 and under 150 miles, fare above $0 and under $1,000. 'Fare' is the metered fare_amount for taxis and base_passenger_fare for app trips — before tolls, tips, taxes and surcharges — so it is not what the passenger paid in total. App driver_pay is TLC's 'total driver pay (not including tolls or tips and net of commission, surcharges, or taxes)'. Tips are separate. 'Per engaged hour' divides pay by passenger time only (pickup to drop-off). It leaves out time driving to pickups and waiting for requests, so real hourly earnings are lower; it is not the TLC minimum-pay formula. Medians/rates need ≥250 trips (else null). labels are LocationIDs as strings; zones[] has names, boroughs, service_zone (from taxi_zone_lookup.csv), suggested slugs and neighbouring zone ids (shared boundary, from taxi_zones.zip).

Zone boundaries: NYC TLC taxi zones (LocationID 1–263).

Net flow: where you end up vs where the next fare is

For each zone we compared drop-offs with pickups. A zone with more drop-offs than pickups is a place where drivers arrive more often than riders leave, so you may need to drive out empty or wait longer. A zone with more pickups than drop-offs sends riders out.

Drop-offs per 100 pickups, by taxi zone

Darker zones receive more rides than they send out. Above 100 means more trips end there than start there. Zones with fewer than 50,000 pickups in the year are left blank, and so is Newark Airport (309 drop-offs per pickup would swamp the scale). Sep 2025 – Aug 2026, all sectors.

73 – <91
91 – <95
95 – <99
99 – <103
103 – 222
No data

Show data table (245 zones)

Zone	Borough	Value

Source: TLC Help calculation from dataset trips-zone-index (NYC TLC Trip Record Data (yellow, green, high-volume FHV), Sep 2025 – Aug 2026)

Zone boundaries: NYC TLC taxi zones (LocationID 1–263).

Biggest gains and losses: drop-offs minus pickups (Sep 2025 – Aug 2026)

More drop-offs than pickups	Net	More pickups than drop-offs	Net
Crown Heights North (Bk)	+228,647	Midtown Center (Mn)	−738,333
East Harlem South (Mn)	+156,403	East Village (Mn)	−688,096
Morningside Heights (Mn)	+141,111	Lower East Side (Mn)	−621,997
Flushing Meadows-Corona Park (Qn)	+136,726	Times Sq/Theatre District (Mn)	−570,300
Stuyvesant Heights (Bk)	+118,101	West Village (Mn)	−514,016
Park Slope (Bk)	+110,171	JFK Airport (Qn)	−512,572
Hunts Point (Bx)	+105,996	Clinton East (Mn)	−497,909

Two patterns stand out. Busy Manhattan zones send more trips than they get, especially nightlife areas like the East Village and the Lower East Side. Many residential zones in Brooklyn, upper Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx receive more than they send. Newark Airport is the extreme case, with 1,978,501 drop-offs and only 6,404 pickups. TLC drivers must take passengers to Newark Airport if asked (rule §80-20(a)(1)), but very few TLC trips start there.

Net flow is small in most zones. In 190 of the 245 zones with at least 50,000 pickups (78%), drop-offs and pickups are within 10% of each other (our arithmetic from dataset trips-zone-index).

Night vs day

We split drop-offs by the time the trip ended: night = 8pm to 5:59am, day = 6am to 7:59pm.

Top drop-off zones at night vs in the day

Night = drop-offs between 8pm and 5:59am; day = 6am to 7:59pm (by drop-off time). Sorted by night drop-offs. Night share = night as a % of the zone's drop-offs.

Filter rows12 rows


East Village	1,696,131	1,666,840	50.4%
Crown Heights North	1,555,752	2,037,330	43.3%
Bushwick South	1,536,110	1,394,698	52.4%
JFK Airport (zone 132)	1,308,707	3,996,097	24.7%
Lower East Side	1,149,805	1,247,897	48%
Clinton East	1,124,872	1,638,986	40.7%
East Chelsea	1,109,594	2,525,957	30.5%
Murray Hill	1,109,397	2,166,574	33.9%
Greenpoint	1,099,255	1,523,370	41.9%
Stuyvesant Heights	1,073,837	1,087,350	49.7%
Astoria	1,063,299	1,491,164	41.6%
West Village	1,061,272	1,522,032	41.1%

Source: TLC Help calculation from NYC TLC Trip Record Data (yellow, green, high-volume FHV), Sep 2025 – Aug 2026

Citywide, 33.5% of drop-offs happen at night. In some zones it is far higher. Among zones with at least 500,000 drop-offs, the highest night shares were Alphabet City (52.7%), Stuy Town/Peter Cooper Village (52.6%), Bushwick South (52.4%) and the East Village (50.4%). By day, the airports and Midtown dominate: LaGuardia had 4,693,992 daytime drop-offs and JFK 3,996,097.

After every trip that ends at JFK, LaGuardia or Newark, TLC rule §80-18(a) says the driver must check the back seat and trunk for left property ($25 fine) (TLC rules, chapter 80). For anything a passenger leaves behind, see lost property.

What the data can't tell you

Where drivers waited or cruised after a drop-off. Trip records cover only time with a passenger.
Trips ending outside NYC. About 11.7 million trips ended in zone 265 (outside NYC) or 264 (unknown), and the records don't say where.
Black car and livery trips outside Uber and Lyft are not included.
Summonses by place. Some drivers ask whether busy drop-off areas get more tickets; OATH's public data has no usable location field for TLC summonses, so it can't be mapped. See most common TLC violations instead.

The other half of the picture is in busiest pickup zones and borough-to-borough trip flows. Rank zones within a borough: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, Staten Island. More on the places hub.

Frequently asked questions

Where do the most NYC taxi and Uber rides end?

At LaGuardia (5,729,391 drop-offs from September 2025 to August 2026) and JFK (5,304,804), then Midtown Center (4,004,650), Upper East Side South and Times Sq/Theatre District. Counts include yellow, green and Uber/Lyft trips.

Which zones get more drop-offs than pickups?

Newark Airport by far (1,978,501 drop-offs, 6,404 pickups). In NYC the biggest net gains were Crown Heights North (+228,647), East Harlem South (+156,403) and Morningside Heights (+141,111). The biggest net losses were Midtown Center, East Village and the Lower East Side.

Where do rides end late at night?

Between 8pm and 6am, the most drop-offs were in the East Village (1,696,131), Crown Heights North (1,555,752) and Bushwick South (1,536,110). In Bushwick South and the East Village, more than half of all drop-offs happen in those night hours.

Why are total drop-offs lower than total pickups?

About 11.7 million trips ended outside New York City or at an unknown location (TLC zones 265 and 264). Those are not counted in any zone's drop-offs.

Sources

Last reviewed against the official sources on Oct 12, 2026.

NYC TLC Trip Record Data (yellow, green, high-volume FHV), Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 nyc.gov
TLC Taxi Zone Lookup Table d37ci6vzurychx.cloudfront.net
TLC Rule Book, Chapter 80 (Drivers) nyc.gov

Spotted something out of date? Tell us and we'll check it against the official source.

TLC Help is not a law firm and is not affiliated with the NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission or OATH. Explanations on this site are general information, not legal advice. Legal representation is provided by independent attorneys and OATH-registered representatives in our network.