Across the country, cities and states are still testing how far they can go in regulating app-based delivery companies without pushing more costs onto workers, restaurants, and customers. In New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration has framed its latest legal and regulatory wins over delivery apps as a major gain for workers, while critics point to city data showing that fees charged to consumers have also increased. The dispute centers on whether higher mandated pay and new tipping rules are improving the market fairly or simply reshuffling who pays.
City cites court win and worker gains tied to delivery app rules
The clearest official milestone came on January 23, 2026, when the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection said a court ruling upheld the city’s delivery worker laws against challenges from DoorDash, Uber and Instacart. In that statement, DCWP said the ruling affirmed laws covering minimum pay and tipping standards, and Commissioner Samuel Levine said the city would continue enforcing those rules. The same statement cited a recent DCWP report finding that interface changes by Uber Eats and DoorDash reduced worker compensation from tips by more than $550 million.
City officials have paired that legal victory with broader earnings data. DCWP said in January that since the city began enforcing the minimum pay rate in December 2023, total pay to delivery workers had increased by $1.2 billion. The agency’s public reporting also shows restaurant delivery workers earned an average of $22.28 an hour in the fourth quarter of 2024, up 84 percent from a year earlier, with weekly total earnings rising to $23.9 million.
The $104 million figure now circulating in the debate appears to refer to consumer spending totals in the city’s delivery economy, not a direct cash recovery announced in a court order. In DCWP’s fourth-quarter 2024 report, total weekly consumer spending on restaurant delivery apps was $109.1 million, while the comparable figure for fourth-quarter 2023 was $104.2 million. The city has separately announced direct enforcement recoveries, including a January 2026 settlement of more than $5 million involving Uber Eats, Fantuan and HungryPanda.
What is confirmed in New York City is that workers are earning more under the city’s pay rules and that app users are paying more in fees. DCWP’s fourth-quarter 2024 data shows consumer fees rose to $20.5 million per week from $14.8 million a year earlier, a 39 percent increase. On a per-delivery basis, average consumer fees rose to $7.55 from $5.54, while the average total order cost increased to $40.15 from $39.05.
At the same time, the same city report shows tips dropped sharply. Average tip per delivery fell to $0.99 in the fourth quarter of 2024 from $3.30 a year earlier, and total weekly tips declined 70 percent to $2.7 million. DCWP has said those declines followed app interface changes that discouraged tipping and should not be read as a collapse in customer willingness to tip when the option is presented clearly.
What remains less clear is how those added costs are distributed neighborhood by neighborhood or platform by platform across the five boroughs. The city’s quarterly reporting covers five restaurant delivery apps — DoorDash, FanTuan, Grubhub, HungryPanda and Uber Eats — but it does not provide a borough-by-borough breakdown of fee increases or identify which households absorbed the biggest changes. The city also notes that some worker counts are affected by multi-apping, meaning one person may be counted more than once across platforms.
The city’s explanation for the changes is straightforward: regulators say stronger labor standards raised worker pay, while some companies responded by redesigning apps in ways that reduced tipping and by charging higher fees. DCWP’s January 13 report said Uber Eats and DoorDash changed their interfaces after the minimum pay rule took effect, and that the average tip on those platforms had fallen to $0.76 per delivery. By contrast, DCWP said apps that kept checkout tipping options unchanged averaged $2.17 per delivery.
The broader economic backdrop also matters. DCWP’s delivery worker FAQs say restaurant and grocery apps must pay at least $22.13 an hour, not including tips, for pay periods beginning on or after April 1, 2026. Earlier city reports also found that after minimum pay enforcement began, on-call time fell sharply while trip time and deliveries remained higher, suggesting the apps adjusted scheduling and labor allocation as the rules took effect.
For New Yorkers ordering dinner or groceries, the practical takeaway is that the city’s worker protections are producing measurable wage gains, but city data also shows higher app fees and lower tips on some platforms. Restaurants are also paying more, with merchant fees averaging $15.4 million per week in the fourth quarter of 2024, up 13 percent from a year earlier. The legal framework is now more settled after the January court ruling, and the city has said it will continue enforcing both minimum pay and tip-protection laws as additional 2026 requirements take effect.