The FHV license pause and the EV exemption, explained for fleet owners

A pause that started in 2018, with one exception from day one

TLC stopped issuing new for-hire vehicle (FHV) licenses in 2018, under Local Law 147, which paused new licenses for a year while TLC and the city's Department of Transportation studied driver income, congestion, and vehicle utilization. The pause carried an exception from the start: an owner buying a wheelchair accessible vehicle could still get a new FHV license while the general pause held everyone else back. TLC has extended the pause every year since, and now reviews the question annually under its own rules.

The electric vehicle exception that opened, then closed

In August 2019, TLC extended the pause and added a second exception, for battery electric vehicles, citing carbon-reduction targets and the goal of spurring private investment in charging infrastructure. TLC removed that electric vehicle exception again in June 2021, replacing it with a requirement that its periodic reviews consider EV cost, demand, and charging availability as factors instead. Following its August 2022 review, TLC decided to issue 1,000 new licenses restricted to electric vehicles, set eligibility rules for them in January 2023, and made them available that March. In October 2023, TLC began taking applications for these EV-only licenses through its standard process, as it had between 2019 and 2021.

That window did not stay open long. In November 2023, a lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Court sought to stop TLC from continuing to accept EV-restricted license applications. On November 8, 2023, the court issued a temporary restraining order directing TLC to stop accepting new EV FHV applications after November 13 at 9 a.m., while allowing TLC to finish processing whatever had already come in before the cutoff.

What is current, checked September 2026

The EV application window has not reopened since. TLC's own page for getting a new for-hire vehicle license currently states that only owners of wheelchair accessible vehicles may apply for a new FHV vehicle license. TLC's most recent License Review Report, covering February 2025 through January 2026, confirms it: the agency issued 1,241 new FHV licenses in that period, and 1,206 of them, 97.2 percent, were restricted to wheelchair accessible vehicles, with the rest going to a different, smaller license category attached to street hail livery permits. The report states plainly that TLC has not issued any new EV-only licenses in the past year.

The pause has not kept the licensed fleet flat, either. TLC's report counted 105,487 FHVs licensed in good standing in February 2025 and 103,618 in January 2026, even though TLC issued more new licenses, 1,241, than the 1,118 that expired over the same period. TLC attributes that discrepancy to renewal grace periods, which change how many licenses count as expired at any given moment rather than reflecting a change in policy. Either way, a licensing cap and a stable fleet size are not the same thing.

There is one narrow, separate path worth knowing about. In March 2025, TLC adopted rules implementing a state law, the COVID-19 Livery Vehicle Recovery Act, letting owners of livery vehicles whose TLC licenses expired between March 7, 2020 and September 12, 2022 apply to renew them. That is a reinstatement of a license that already existed, not a new one, and it only reaches that specific two-year window.

What this means for a car already on the road

None of this touches a vehicle that already carries a valid FHV license; the pause only affects new licenses. An owner who holds one of the 1,000 electric-only licenses issued under the 2022-2023 window keeps it, with one condition attached: TLC restricts that license to use with an electric vehicle, so replacing the car later means replacing it with another electric vehicle, not any FHV. For an owner planning to add a car that was not already licensed, the standard path today runs through exactly one door: a wheelchair accessible vehicle. TLC reviews that position at least once a year, most recently concluding that no new licenses beyond the standing exception were needed before its next review in 2027.