What's Inside an Average NYC Taxi Fare (Trip Data)

In short: On an average metered yellow taxi trip from September 2025 to August 2026, the passenger's recorded total was $29.73. Of that, the meter fare averaged $19.98, the "extra" surcharges (rush hour, overnight and similar) $1.55, the NYS congestion surcharge $2.26, the improvement surcharge $0.97, the MTA congestion toll $0.55, the MTA tax $0.49, the airport fee $0.16, tolls $0.59 and recorded card tips $3.73. Most trips pay the state congestion surcharge (90%) and the MTA toll (73%); only 7.5% include a toll and 8.7% an airport fee.

These are TLC Help averages over 33.3 million yellow trips in the public TLC Trip Record Data, using each field defined in TLC's yellow data dictionary. We kept trips of 1 minute to 4 hours, under 150 miles, with a fare above $0, and left out Flex Fare trips (see caveats). The current rates behind each line are on how a NYC taxi fare is calculated.

The numbers at a glance

Average components, card vs cash

Cash trips pick up more airport fees on average ($0.26 vs $0.15): a larger share of cash trips start at JFK or LaGuardia. Card and cash fares are otherwise close. Components don't add exactly to the total because of rounding and a few adjusted records.

Share kept by the driver vs passed through

Using the rules in who keeps what from a taxi fare, the average card trip splits like this:

• Driver's side: $25.77 (fare $19.91 + extras $1.57 + tip $4.29), about 84% of the itemized amount.
• Passed through: $4.43 (MTA tax, improvement surcharge, NYS congestion surcharge, MTA congestion toll, airport fee), about 14%.
• Tolls: $0.60, about 2%, to whoever holds the E-ZPass tag.

"Driver's side" is before the lease, fuel and the $7-per-shift card surcharge, so it is not take-home pay.

How often each charge applies

The MTA congestion toll is $0.75 per trip. Charged on 73% of trips, that works out to about $0.55 per trip on average, which is exactly what the records show. Toll shares for taxis and apps:

Congestion charges since the MTA toll started

The MTA's per-trip charge began on January 5, 2025. Our trip-record data starts in September 2025, so it shows the charge in steady state, not the switch-on. Per metered trip, the MTA toll averaged between $0.53 and $0.58 each month, and the NYS surcharge between $2.23 and $2.34.

Yellow taxis recorded between $1.79 million (February 2026) and $2.29 million (December 2025) a month in MTA congestion fees. App trips recorded about 4.6 to 5.4 times as much, because there are far more of them and their per-trip charge is $1.50. The average fare itself is compared across sectors in yellow taxi vs Uber fares.

What the data can't tell you

• Flex Fare trips are left out. About 10.2 million yellow trips in these months were Flex Fare (payment type 0). Their records leave the congestion surcharge and airport fee fields blank, so their parts can't be compared. See what is a Flex Fare taxi trip?
• Cash tips are missing, so the tip line understates what drivers receive.
• "extra" is a mixed field: TLC defines it as "miscellaneous extras and surcharges", so we can't split rush hour from overnight or LaGuardia charges.
• Airport trips: JFK flat-fare and Newark trips are included. Newark is covered on our Newark Airport page.
• A fare above the approved rate would be an overcharge (see Rule 80-17(f)(1) for out-of-city trips); this data cannot tell which trips, if any, were overcharged.

Long-run per-trip totals are on yellow taxi fare per trip and tips on yellow taxi tipping statistics. Try a fare yourself with the taxi fare estimator. More on the money hub.