NYC Taxi Fare Estimator With All Surcharges

In short: A metered NYC taxi fare is $3.00 plus 70 cents per unit, where a unit is 1/5 mile of moving above 12 mph or 60 seconds of slow or stopped time. Then TLC surcharges are added: $0.50 MTA State Surcharge, $1.00 Improvement Surcharge, $1.00 overnight or $2.50 weekday rush hour, the state congestion surcharge south of 96th Street, the MTA congestion toll at or below 60th Street, airport charges, and tolls. Put in the trip and the tool lists every line, so drivers and passengers can check a receipt.

How to use it

1. Pick yellow taxi or green cab, then the trip type: a metered trip (including LaGuardia), JFK ↔ Manhattan (flat fare) or a trip to Newark Airport.
2. For metered trips, split the trip into miles moving above 12 mph and minutes slow or stopped. The meter charges one or the other at each moment, so do not count the same stretch twice. If you only know the total, a receipt from a similar trip is the best guide.
3. Set the day and start time. The time decides the rush hour (4–8pm weekdays) and overnight (8pm–6am) surcharges.
4. Tick the boxes that apply: south of 96th Street, at or below 60th Street, shared ride, legal holiday, and whether the trip ends in NYC or a nearby county.
5. Add tolls at the E-ZPass rate (use the toll calculator) and a tip if you want the total with tip.

How the numbers are calculated, with sources

Every amount comes from TLC's Taxi Fare page, copied into the site's rate file on October 12, 2026:

The airport rules:

• JFK ↔ Manhattan, either direction: $70 flat (meter screen "Rate #2 – JFK Airport"), plus the MTA State Surcharge, Improvement Surcharge, a $5.00 weekday rush hour surcharge, congestion charges, tips and tolls. JFK to anywhere else in NYC is metered.
• LaGuardia: the meter plus a $5.00 surcharge and all other surcharges.
• Airport access fee: $2.00 for taxi pickups at LaGuardia and JFK (not drop-offs).
• Newark: the meter plus the $20.00 Newark Surcharge, tip and tolls to and from Newark ("Rate #3 – Newark Airport"). In the tool, the "+ Port Authority return toll" button adds the toll for coming back into New York at the right time of day.
• Nassau or Westchester: inside the city, the normal meter; past the city line the meter runs at double ("Rate #04"). Other places outside NYC are a flat price agreed before the trip.

Worked examples

The driver's view

• Overcharging is a serious summons. Charging more than the approved rate, or the wrong rate code, is an overcharge under rule 80-17. Trips outside the city have their own duties under rule 80-17(f)(1). Read TLC overcharging rules.
• Tolls: the passenger pays the actual E-ZPass amount, never the mail rate.
• Card payments: in a leased taxi, rule 58-21(f) says the owner must pay you all non-cash payments from your shift at no cost to you, less only the amounts the rule lists, such as the Taxicab Improvement Surcharge and the MTA tax when the owner pays it.
• Which trips are flat-fare? In TLC trip records for Sep 2025 – Aug 2026, about 1.1 million yellow taxi trips ended on the JFK rate code:

Limits: what this tool can't tell you

• It can't know how much of a trip was in slow traffic. The meter measures that; you estimate it.
• E-hail Flex Fare trips use an upfront price, not the meter. See what is a Flex Fare trip.
• Green cabs can't take street hails at the airports or in Manhattan below East 96th and West 110th Streets, so some combinations in the tool won't happen in real life for a green cab.
• For Newark, TLC's listing does not mention the MTA State or Improvement Surcharge, so the tool leaves them out. Your meter may differ. See our Newark Airport page.
• It is an estimate and general information, not legal advice.

Every surcharge, line by line, is in every NYC taxi surcharge and the taxi improvement surcharge. How fares changed over time is in NYC taxi fare history and the data in yellow taxi fare per trip and fare components.