Livery and Black Car Trips in NYC: The Comeback Data

In short: car services that are not Uber or Lyft are growing again. In TLC's industry figures for 2025, livery (community car service) vehicles made about 40,300 trips a day, back above 2019 (about 39,000) after falling to about 22,200 in 2022. Black car trips reached about 30,900 a day, more than three times their 2015 level. Together with luxury limousines, TLC told the City Council that non-high-volume FHVs completed 28 million trips in 2025, up 4% from 2024 (TLC testimony, March 17, 2026). That is still small next to Uber and Lyft's 243 million.

The numbers at a glance

Trips per day by class, 2015–2025

Three different stories:

• Livery peaked in 2016, lost three quarters of its daily trips by 2022, and has nearly doubled since then.
• Black car (non-app) trips fell less than the other classes in 2020 (about 17%) and have grown every year since 2021.
• Luxury limousines have not recovered: about 1,200 trips a day in 2025, a third of 2015.

The full industry picture, including app trips and taxis, is in the all-industry chart.

The latest months

The yearly rise does not continue evenly into 2026. Livery stayed above 40,000 trips a day in every month from June 2025 to July 2026. Black car trips per day were lower in June and July 2026 (about 20,700 and 24,300) than a year earlier. Recent months can still be revised as bases send late data, so treat the last few months as provisional (TLC Industry Indicators).

All base trips, month by month

TLC's February 2026 license review splits the latest full month: in December 2025, high-volume trips were 22,108,438 (up 4.9% on a year earlier) and non-high-volume FHV trips were 1,926,891 (up 0.7%) (TLC license review). So the non-app share is about 8% of FHV trips in that month (our calculation).

Vehicles and bases outside the apps

TLC's annual report says livery bases "are required to offer passengers upfront flat fares, and many transactions occur using cash payment" (TLC 2025 Annual Report). That is one reason livery data looks different from app data: there is no trip-record field for driver pay. Which bases dispatch the most trips is on top FHV bases by trips, and the count of bases on how many FHV bases are in NYC.

Covid-19 Livery Recovery Act renewals

TLC adopted rules in 2025 under the Covid-19 Livery Vehicle Recovery Act. Owners whose FHV licenses expired between March 7, 2020 and September 12, 2022, while affiliated with a livery base, can apply to renew them. These licenses may not move to Uber or Lyft (annual report). Between February 2025 and January 2026, 45 licenses were reinstated this way.

How long drivers work in each class

Livery drivers recorded trips in about 5.2–5.4 hours a day in 2026, black car drivers about 4.2–4.6, and app drivers about 6.3–6.4. Drivers can hold one TLC license and work in more than one class, so these groups overlap.

What the data can't tell you

• Pay. Only high-volume companies must send TLC driver pay data, so there are no TLC pay figures for livery or black car drivers.
• Late data. TLC says bases have until the end of the following month to submit trips, the report is usually two months behind, and it "may not represent the total amount of trips dispatched by all TLC-licensed bases".
• Black Car Fund coverage differs by base type: see am I covered by the Black Car Fund? and livery. How the rules differ is on taxi vs FHV rules compared.