Grocery app workers in NYC get at least $22.13 per delivery hour

If you deliver groceries in New York City through an app like Instacart, the app must pay at least $22.13 for each hour of trip time—the time from accepting an offer until completing or canceling it—before tips. Apps can choose between two formulas. One guarantees each worker that rate for trip time and requires enough total pay across all workers to cover on-call time; the other pays a higher trip-time rate but no separate on-call pay. The $22.13 floor therefore is not a promise that each hour logged into an app will be paid at that rate. Tips cannot be counted toward the minimum, and the rate rises with inflation each year. Apps must also pay within seven days after each pay period ends and provide a written pay statement. More contracted delivery workers now have a right to use the bathroom at businesses where they pick up orders.

You don’t have to apply. The rules took effect on Jan. 26, 2026, when the rate was $21.44. It rose to $22.13 for pay periods beginning on or after April 1, 2026. The city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection enforces the rules.

Council Member Sandy Nurse wrote the grocery pay law, and Council Member Jennifer Gutiérrez wrote the companion bill that extended protections to more delivery workers. The Council passed both in July 2025. Mayor Eric Adams vetoed them, saying they would raise delivery prices for older and disabled New Yorkers. The Council overrode him that September, 39–8 on the pay bill and 40–7 on the protections bill. The department then adopted the implementing rule.

Instacart’s parent company sued to overturn the pay law. A federal judge refused to block it, and the Second Circuit also refused to pause it during the appeal. The law remains in force while the appeal is pending.