Taxi Improvement Fund: Collections and WAV Payments

In short: The Taxi Improvement Fund (TIF) is paid for by a $1 surcharge on every yellow and green taxi trip. It collected $46.8 million in 2025 and $331.4 million from 2015 through 2025. In 2025 it paid out a record $53.2 million: $43.8 million to medallion owners of accessible taxis, $4.0 million to drivers, and $5.3 million for the Accessible Dispatch program. All figures are from TLC's report to City Council dated June 5, 2026.

This page charts the money year by year and explains the turning points: the 2020 collapse, the jump from $0.30 to $1 in December 2022, and the 2025 shift from driver payments to bigger owner hack-up grants. For how to apply, see TIF grants.

The numbers at a glance

Collections by year

Three things stand out:

1. Falling trips, falling money (2017–2021). At $0.30 a trip, collections tracked taxi trips. They fell from $41.4 million in 2016 to $11.2 million in 2021, when TLC says total trips were 64% below 2019.
2. The $1 surcharge (December 2022). TLC raised the surcharge from $0.30 to $1.00 "to finance increased disbursements to owners and drivers of accessible taxicabs" (fare rule, Nov 15, 2022). Collections almost tripled, to $36.0 million in 2023.
3. More trips in 2025. Collections beat 2024 because trip volume grew. The green cab fund stays small because green cabs make few trips.

Where the money went

• Owners got $198.4 million over 11 years. 2025 alone was $43.8 million, an $11 million-plus rise driven by a surge of accessible hack-ups and the hack-up grant rising by $6,000 (from $14,000 to $20,000).
• Drivers got $77.6 million in total. Payments peaked at $14.0 million in 2019 and dropped to $4.0 million in 2025 after the $1-per-trip payment ended in April 2025. A new $10 payment for phone-requested accessible trips started in mid-2025. TLC says more than 15,000 drivers have enrolled since 2016, over 11,000 have received a payment, and 4,001 took part in 2025.
• Accessible Dispatch (the phone/app service for wheelchair users) cost $51.7 million over the period. TLC ended the single-vendor contract; requests now go through e-hail apps.

TLC's 2025 Annual Report counts the 2025 payments slightly differently: $47,865,154 to 5,351 owners and 3,828 drivers (9,179 payees). That total leaves out dispatch costs.

Hack-up vs operational payments to owners

The open dataset splits owner money into one-time hack-up payments and recurring operational payments. It confirms the shape of the report: hack-up money jumped in 2025 as owners replaced cars with accessible ones. Because the dataset skips 2024 and stops mid-2025, don't add it up against the report.

The insolvency warning

TLC's 2025 report is frank: an analysis found the fund "would be insolvent" by the end of 2025 under the court order requiring 100% accessible hack-ups. In 2024 TLC projected it needed $6 million to stay solvent through December 2025, with needs "exceeding $100 million by the end of 2029". TLC's fixes, adopted in spring 2025:

TLC concluded the $1 surcharge can stay where it is and found no other funding source. Whether that holds depends on taxi trips: the fund rises and falls with them. Trip trends are on wheelchair-accessible taxi statistics.

What the data can't tell you

• How much one owner received. The report gives totals; individual payments are listed by medallion on Open Data, not by person.
• Whether a given owner was paid correctly. Owners should check the Open Data posting for their medallion and use TLC's TIF webform.
• The cost of a WAV. TLC doesn't publish an average conversion or purchase price in these reports.

Who pays the surcharge, and why it shows on the receipt: what is the taxi improvement surcharge?. For drivers' accessible-trip pay see WAV driver pay; owners who miss surcharge payments can get a 58-16(f)(3) summons, and green cabs a 82-17(g)(2) summons. More on the medallions hub, and the definition in the glossary.