Congestion pricing for TLC vehicles: what the fleet pays and what the rider pays

What the Congestion Relief Zone charges

The Congestion Relief Zone is the part of Manhattan south of and including 60th Street, excluding the FDR Drive, the West Side Highway, and the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel's connections to West Street. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority began tolling vehicles that enter it on January 5, 2025. A regular passenger car with E-ZPass pays $9 during the peak period, weekdays 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. and weekends 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., and $2.25 overnight. Those rates are scheduled to rise to $12 and $3 in 2028, then to $15 and $3.75 in 2031.

Why a taxi or for-hire vehicle pays differently

TLC-licensed taxis, green cabs, black cars, and for-hire vehicles are not charged that daily toll. Instead, the rate schedule sets a per-trip charge, added to the fare and paid by the passenger, for each trip to, from, within, or through the zone. A trip from a high-volume for-hire service, the large app-based networks, carries a $1.50 charge. Every other TLC trip, a taxi, a street hail livery, or a trip from a black car, livery, or luxury limousine base, carries $0.75. For a taxi or a street hail livery, the charge is added straight to the meter, and it only applies while the vehicle is actually on a trip, not simply for driving through. That $0.75 or $1.50 is the same figure at any hour, unlike the standard toll, which drops to a lower overnight rate.

The paperwork that makes the difference

The passenger-paid charge only replaces the standard toll if it is actually collected and sent to the MTA. A for-hire base has to sign its own agreement with the MTA to collect and remit that charge, and a technology provider, the company running the app or the meter, needs the same agreement before its trips qualify. Without one, the outcome flips: a for-hire vehicle whose base has not signed that agreement, or a taxi or street hail livery using a technology system that has not signed it, can be charged the $9 toll, up to once per day, paid by the vehicle owner, instead of the per-trip charge paid by the passenger, for entering the zone. TLC-licensed commuter vans sit outside this structure altogether: they can apply for exemption from the toll entirely, under a separate Commuter Bus Exemption Plan.

What still lands on the fleet

None of this changes an ordinary bridge or tunnel toll. A crossing at any Metropolitan Transportation Authority bridge or tunnel still posts to the fleet's own E-ZPass account exactly as it did before congestion pricing existed. The zone charge is the one part of the system built to skip that account entirely, and only while the enrollment behind it holds. It is worth asking a base directly, rather than assuming, whether its own agreement with the MTA and its technology provider's are both in place, since either one lapsing puts the standard toll back on the vehicle owner instead of the rider.