NYC Delivery App Fee Caps: What Apps Can Charge a Restaurant, and How to Price the App Menu

By Marji · Published September 29, 2026 · 6 min read

In New York City, a delivery app may charge a restaurant at most 15% of an order's menu price for delivery, 5% for a basic listing and ordering service, 3% for payment processing (more only as a proven pass-through), and up to 20% for enhanced services if it also offers the basic plan. Restaurants may price the app menu differently.

These caps come from the city's Administrative Code, §20-563.3, as rewritten by Local Law 79 of 2025, and the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) enforces them. They apply to apps' charges to NYC restaurants, not to what an app charges the customer. Outside the city, check whether your own jurisdiction caps these fees; where it does not, the rate is whatever your agreement says, and the pricing method below still works.

The caps, fee by fee

NYC Administrative Code §20-563.3 as amended by Local Law 79 of 2025; each cap is a share of the order's purchase price
Fee	What it pays for	Cap
Delivery fee	Delivering the order to customers within at least 1 mile of the restaurant	15%
Basic service fee	Receiving delivery and pickup orders, and being listed and findable in the app's search	5%
Enhanced service fee	Any other service, and only if the app also offers the basic service	20%
Transaction fee	Processing the payment (a card issuer's or online payment system's charge)	3%, unless the app passes through a higher actual charge it can prove

Three definitions decide what the percentages apply to. The purchase price is "the total price of the items contained in an online order that are listed on the menu", and it "does not include taxes, gratuities and any other fees", per Local Law 100 of 2021. An online order is any order placed through or with the assistance of the app, including a telephone order. And the delivery, basic and enhanced caps can be met either order by order or as an average across a calendar month.

The law caps each fee type separately and states no single combined cap, but any charge that is not one of these four is unlawful (§20-563.3(d)), so the four caps add up to 43% of the purchase price, exceeded only through a proven transaction-fee pass-through. What you actually pay depends on the services in your agreement. Apps must disclose any fee, commission or other charge clearly and conspicuously (§20-563.3(g)(3)) and send a monthly itemized list of every transaction and fee (§20-563.3(h)). DCWP's page for restaurants summarizes the same rules.

What an order nets at the basic caps

Worked example · A $40.00 delivery order on a basic plan, every fee at its cap

Purchase price (menu items only): $40.00
Delivery fee, 15%: $6.00
Basic service fee, 5%: $2.00
Transaction fee, 3%: $1.20
Total fees: $9.20, or 23%
Restaurant receives before food and packaging: $30.80

Tax and the customer's tip are outside the purchase price, so they are not in the fee base. A pickup order through the app has no delivery service, so on a basic plan at the caps it carries the basic and transaction fees: $3.20, or 8%, on the same $40.

The law lets you price differently on the app. An app "shall not require" a restaurant to charge the same price as in-house as a condition of the capped services. The two may agree on price terms only in a separate written contract, and even that separate agreement cannot be made a condition of getting the capped services (§20-563.3(k)); DCWP puts it plainly: "Restaurants can charge different prices for items ordered on the app and items ordered directly at the restaurant, with limited exceptions." The arithmetic for that price is the same wherever you operate.

App price that holds the in-house contribution

(Plate cost + packaging + fixed per-order fees + in-house contribution) ÷ (1 − total percentage fees)

In-house contribution = in-house price − plate cost. Enter 23% as 0.23. Multi-item orders share one packaging and fixed-fee cost, so a per-item calculation overstates them slightly.

Hypothetical $20 entrée: plate cost $6.00, packaging $0.60, in-house contribution $14.00
Scenario	App price	Fees	Restaurant receives	Contribution after plate and packaging
Same price, basic caps (23%)	$20.00	$4.60	$15.40	$8.80
Same price, fees totalling 30%	$20.00	$6.00	$14.00	$7.40
Partial markup, 23%	$23.00	$5.29	$17.71	$11.11
Hold $14.00, 23%	$26.75	$6.15	$20.60	$14.00
Hold $14.00, 30%	$29.43	$8.83	$20.60	$14.00

Holding the full contribution takes a 33.75% markup at 23% in fees and 47.15% at 30%. Many menus will not carry that, and a higher app price can lower order volume; the table shows the arithmetic, not what guests will accept. The practical choices are a partial markup with a known contribution per order, a shorter app menu that leaves off dishes that earn too little after fees, or portions and packaging designed for travel. Decide dish by dish, using your reviewed plate costs rather than a menu-wide percentage.

Check the monthly statement against the caps

Get the monthly itemized statement the law requires, and match each fee to its type: delivery, basic, enhanced or transaction.
Divide each fee type's monthly total by the month's total purchase price. The delivery, basic and enhanced fees can be over the cap on a single order as long as the monthly average is within it; the transaction fee has no monthly averaging.
Allow for refunds. A delivery, basic or enhanced fee over its cap is not a violation if the app refunds the excess within 30 calendar days after the end of the month.
Check telephone orders. Apps "cannot charge your restaurant for phone orders that do not end with a sale", and an app that lists a phone number for you must include your direct number.
If a fee is still over its cap, DCWP takes complaints through its online services.

Your side of the agreement

DCWP lists obligations on restaurants too: comply with the agreement to give delivery workers bathroom access when they pick up orders, with limited health and safety exceptions; let customers withdraw consent to use of data shared by apps and delete it on request; and do not sell, rent or disclose that customer data without consent. You may also put your own menus and coupons in app orders.

Marji does not take online orders or connect to delivery apps; it keeps plate costs tied to supplier invoices, which is the number the app-price formula starts from. The free delivery margin calculator compares dine-in, direct pickup and app delivery for one dish with your own fees and packaging.

Can a delivery app require the same prices as my dining room?

Not as a condition of the services covered by the caps. Under §20-563.3(k) an app may not require price parity for those services; a price agreement is allowed only in a separate written contract, and signing it cannot be a condition of the app providing the capped services.

Is the cap calculated on the order total with tax and tip?

No. The purchase price is the menu price of the items ordered, excluding taxes, gratuities and other fees.

Does the 15% delivery cap apply to pickup orders?

The law does not address pickup orders separately. A delivery fee is defined as a fee for a service that delivers food to customers, so on a pickup order placed through an app the caps that apply are the basic service fee (5%), the transaction fee (3%) and, on an enhanced plan, the enhanced service fee (20%). A delivery fee on a pickup order is worth raising with the app or DCWP.

Can an app charge more than 3% for payment processing?

Only if it charges the restaurant exactly what it was charged for that order and can prove that charge to DCWP and the restaurant on request.

Price one dish for the app

Enter the in-house price, plate cost, packaging and your fee percentage. See what the dish earns on the app and the price that would hold it.

Compare delivery margins

Terms this guide uses

Third-party commission
The percentage a delivery marketplace takes from each order — DoorDash's and Uber Eats' published delivery plans run 15–30% — charged on the order subtotal.