Tools
Every option from JFK, LaGuardia and Newark, priced line by line — the fare, the surcharges nobody mentions, the toll, the congestion fee and the tip. No email, no sign-up.
JFK to Midtown, 2 travellers — pay-as-you-go on top, pre-booked below. All prices door to door.
$28
$14.00 per person · 35–50 min
AirTrain to Jamaica → LIRR to Penn Station or Grand Central
The catch Fastest option by a wide margin, but you carry your bags up from the LIRR platform.
$82–155
per car, up to 4 · 48–95 min
Priced when you tap, not when you land. Cheapest on a quiet Tuesday, worst on a rainy Friday.
The catch Surge is the risk — storms and holiday rushes land well above that range, and the pickup lots are a walk from arrivals.
$96.64
per car, up to 4 · 40–75 min
Walk to the rank, no app, no surge. Never ride with anyone who approaches you inside the terminal.
The catch The flat fare is the ride only — every line above lands on top at the end.
$218.81
per car, up to 4 · 40–75 min
Flat rate with tolls, taxes and tip all inside the number. Meet & greet in arrivals, flight tracked, 60 min free wait.
The catch Premium price for the certainty — on a quiet day a cab is cheaper. Operated by the team behind this guide.
See live rates$140–190
per car, up to 4 · 40–75 min
Global chauffeur network. All-in fare quoted in the app before you commit — tolls and tip included.
The catch Book a day ahead — same-day cars are hit and miss, and short-notice pricing climbs.
Get a quote$79–103
per car, up to 4 · 40–75 min
Old-school NYC car service since 1978. The cheapest way to pre-book a sedan — reliable, not fancy.
The catch The sticker price is the base fare only — tolls and tip land on top, so compare the final number.
Get a quoteKing & Queen Limo rates are live quotes from their booking engine; they're run by the team behind this guide (disclosure). Blacklane and Carmel figures are our estimates, not quotes.
What we'd do AirTrain + LIRR is cheapest at $28. Whether that's the right call comes down to how many bags you're dragging and how tight your evening is.
Most airport fare pages quote you a fare and stop. The fare is never what leaves your wallet — the surcharges are where the money goes, and they're the part nobody writes down. So this tool shows every line, including the ones the driver adds at the end.
Published rates are exact and come from the sources below. Everything we've estimated ourselves — road distances, how long a drive really takes, what Uber will charge, what a car service quotes — is shown as a range and labelled as ours. Rates last verified August 2026, and we re-check them quarterly.
The fare itself is, and the TLC fixes it — traffic cannot push it higher. But $70 is not what you pay. Add the MTA State surcharge, the improvement surcharge, the New York State congestion surcharge, the MTA congestion toll if you're headed below 60th Street, the tunnel toll if your driver takes one, and a tip. Realistically you hand over closer to $90.
Sometimes. On a quiet weekday Uber often undercuts the taxi by a little. In rain, on a holiday, or when a bank of flights lands at once, surge can push it well past the taxi — and from JFK the taxi's flat fare cannot follow it up. If you want certainty, the taxi rank or a pre-booked car is the safer bet.
Two separate things get called that. The New York State congestion surcharge is $2.50 on any taxi trip touching Manhattan below 96th Street, and has applied since 2019. The MTA congestion pricing toll started in 2025 and adds $0.75 to a yellow cab, or $1.50 to an Uber or Lyft, for trips into Manhattan below 60th Street. If you're going to Midtown or Downtown, you pay both.
From Newark, yes — AirTrain plus NJ Transit is one ticket to Penn Station and it's genuinely fast. From JFK the AirTrain plus LIRR is quick but ends with stairs. From LaGuardia it means a bus, and it's slow. Travelling alone with a carry-on, transit is the obvious call. With three suitcases and a tired child, it isn't.
Every figure comes from one dated file we re-check quarterly; this set was verified in August 2026. Published rates from the TLC, MTA and Port Authority are exact. Distances, traffic times, Uber estimates and car-service bands are our own and are always shown as ranges — a single number there would be a guess dressed up as a fact.
