How Long NYC Riders Wait for Uber/Lyft: Wait Time Data

In short: An Uber or Lyft rider in New York City waited 5.4 minutes on average in January 2026, according to TLC's February 2026 FHV License Review. That is up from 4.8 minutes a year earlier but inside the 4.5–6.6 minute range TLC has seen since 2018. In TLC's trip records for the last 12 months, the typical (median) wait was 4.3 minutes: shortest in Manhattan (3.9) and late morning, longest on Staten Island (5.4) and around 4am.

"Wait" here means the time from the ride request to the pickup, as recorded by the app companies in TLC's trip files.

The numbers at a glance

By borough

TLC reports that in January 2026 average waits in every borough were between 4.4 and 6.6 minutes. Our 12-month count from the trip files (pickup borough, request to pickup) shows the same order:

The average is always higher than the median because a few very long waits pull it up.

Waits also move from month to month. In our count, the monthly average ranged from 4.7 minutes (November 2025) to 5.8 minutes (June 2026), and the monthly median from 3.9 to 4.8 minutes. A single month that looks slow is not unusual in this data.

By hour of day

Waits are shortest from 9am to noon (3.7–3.9 minutes median) and longest in the small hours, peaking at 5.5 minutes at 4am. Evening rush hours (5–6pm) sit around 4.3 minutes. For when riders request most, see busiest hours for Uber and Lyft; for how pay changes by hour, see app pay by hour of day.

Airports

At the JFK and LaGuardia pickup zones the median wait was 5.6 minutes, longer than anywhere in the city except Staten Island. Airport pickups involve walking to a pickup area and app driver lots; see JFK app driver lots and pickups and can Uber drivers wait at JFK or LaGuardia?.

Wheelchair accessible (WAV) requests

TLC's trip files have an extra time, on_scene_datetime, for accessible vehicle trips. We looked at about 573,000 completed trips where the rider asked for a WAV:

• about 560,000 of them show the WAV arriving after the request (the rest show an arrival time before the request, which may mean rides booked ahead). For those, the median time from request until the WAV was on scene was 4.8 minutes, and 91.5% were on scene within 10 minutes;
• the median time to pickup was 7.6 minutes, against 4.3 minutes for other trips. The gap includes the time between the WAV arriving and the trip starting.

TLC's rule for accessible dispatchers requires serving at least 90% of WAV requests in under 10 minutes (rule 59B-17(f), amended effective March 6, 2025). Our figure covers completed trips only, so it cannot tell whether any company met that rule. More in the WAV trip mandate and WAV trip requests on Uber and Lyft.

Why waits matter for the license cap

TLC limits the number of FHV licenses under Local Law 147 of 2018 and has reviewed the cap periodically since August 2020 under rule 59A-06(a)(1), most recently in February 2026. Wait times and outer-borough service are among the things it checks. In February 2026, TLC said "the increasing outer-borough trip counts and stable wait times suggest that outer-borough service levels have not been an issue," and kept the cap: the only new FHV licenses are for wheelchair accessible vehicles. For drivers, short and stable waits are one reason plates stay scarce.

Related data

• How long NYC trips are
• How Uber's fare and your pay are calculated
• NYC taxi and Uber trip statistics