DoorDash to Pay $131.5 Million Over New York City Delivery Worker Pay Violations
Food delivery company DoorDash has agreed to pay $131.5 million to settle a New York City investigation that found more than 260,000 of its couriers were underpaid, paid late or, in some cases, not paid at all.
The agreement, announced Sept. 22 by Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP), directs more than $115 million to affected workers, with the remainder covering fines, administrative costs and a worker-driven compliance program. City officials called it the largest labor enforcement settlement in New York City history and the largest U.S. municipal settlement involving food delivery workers.
The settlement resolves a DCWP investigation that examined more than 150 million payments made to couriers, known as Dashers, and covers workers employed between April 2022 and November 2026. Regulators said DoorDash violated the city’s 2023 minimum pay law by excluding certain categories of trip time and on-call time — the period a worker is logged into the app between deliveries — from its pay calculations.
DoorDash did not contest most of the findings. “Simply put, we screwed up,” the company said in a statement. “Our mistakes meant some Dashers were underpaid or paid late. While these mistakes weren’t intentional, that doesn’t make them okay.” The company said it has corrected the technical issues involved and will submit compliance data to the city for three years under the settlement’s terms.
Causes disputed
DoorDash attributed most of the missed or delayed payments to technical errors: deliveries that crossed city boundaries, orders with multiple pickup or drop-off points, trips that were cancelled or partially completed, and cases where workers had provided incomplete banking information. The company said the payment problems affected less than 1% of transactions to New York City Dashers, with roughly $6.6 million in payments never reaching workers and a further $5.7 million arriving days or weeks late.
City officials rejected the characterization of the violations as unintentional. Mamdani said the underpayments were “sustained” and “rampant” across a quarter of a million workers and described them as the product of the company’s pay algorithm rather than isolated technical glitches. “This was not a rounding error or an accidental mistake,” he said. DCWP’s own account of the settlement states its investigation found the company paid workers below the required minimum rate or withheld pay outright; DoorDash disputes that its conduct was deliberate.
How the money breaks down
According to figures DoorDash provided, the settlement includes $12.3 million earmarked for workers who were underpaid or paid late, and more than $83 million tied to a separate dispute over how the company calculated pay for on-call time. DoorDash disputes the city’s position on that larger question, maintaining its original method complied with the law, but agreed to adopt the city’s calculation method going forward as part of the settlement. The company said it will also pay $16.7 million in civil penalties and fees to DCWP.
City Hall’s own summary of the settlement, provided separately, put the worker-restitution fund at more than $115 million and listed roughly $11.3 million in civil penalties, $4.3 million toward a worker compliance program and about $468,000 in administrative costs — a breakdown that does not align precisely with the figures DoorDash cited. Both sets of figures total approximately $131.5 million; the discrepancy in categorization was not resolved in city or company statements.
City officials said about 264,000 workers are eligible for payments, including roughly 209,000 who experienced missed or late pay. Workers denied timely payment will receive 200% of the amount they were owed, according to the city; a worker who was never paid $1,000, for example, would receive $3,000. Payment notices are expected to go out in late October through a third-party administrator, with a second round for a smaller group of workers covering the period from late June through late November 2026. The city said the median payment will be about $48, and DoorDash said 65% of affected workers were underpaid by $1 or less, though more than 27,000 workers are expected to receive more than $1,000 and over 4,000 more than $5,000.
Background
New York City adopted its minimum pay standard for app-based delivery workers in 2023, setting a base rate — now $22.13 an hour, excluding tips — calculated from the time couriers spend on deliveries plus certain on-call time. DoorDash, Uber Technologies and Grubhub sued to block the rule when it took effect; an appeals court rejected their request, and the standard went into force in December 2023.
This settlement is separate from a DCWP finding announced in January that accused DoorDash and Uber Eats of using app design changes to divert more than $550 million in tips from workers, a matter city officials said remains under separate review. It is also distinct from a $16.75 million settlement DoorDash reached with New York Attorney General Letitia James in 2025 over allegations the company used customer tips to subsidize its guaranteed base pay to workers, a case brought under state rather than city law. DoorDash said Tuesday’s settlement does not involve tips and that Dashers continue to keep 100% of tips received.
What follows
Under the settlement, DoorDash must report compliance data to DCWP for three years. City officials declined to say whether they are pursuing similar claims against Uber Eats or Grubhub over the same 2023 pay law; Uber declined to comment on the matter, and Grubhub did not respond to requests for comment cited in press accounts. DoorDash said its New York City couriers have earned more than $1 billion since the pay law took effect, with average pay of about $30 an hour before tips.
The company’s dispute with the city over how on-call time should be counted going forward — an issue at the center of the largest portion of the settlement — has been resolved for this case through DoorDash’s agreement to adopt the city’s calculation method, though the company maintains its prior approach was lawful. Independent verification of the total number of affected workers and the precise categorization of settlement funds was not available beyond the figures provided by the city and by DoorDash, which differ in their breakdowns of how the $131.5 million is allocated.
Sources
Figures on the settlement total, worker eligibility and payment mechanics are drawn from New York City’s official settlement notice; DoorDash’s statement and account of the payment breakdown are drawn from the company’s own published statements. Quotes from Mayor Mamdani and background on the city’s prior tip-related findings are corroborated across multiple wire and local outlets.
Wire services and international press
- Associated Press (via ABC News), “DoorDash to pay $131M for underpaying delivery workers in New York City.” https://abcnews.com/Business/wireStory/doordash-pay-131m-underpaying-delivery-workers-new-york-136652002
- Reuters (via Allwork.Space), “DoorDash To Pay $131.5 Million As NYC Cracks Down On Gig Worker Pay.” https://allwork.space/?p=1048922
- Bloomberg (via Claims Journal), “DoorDash to pay $131.5 million New York settlement.” https://www.claimsjournal.com/news/national/2026/09/22/340271.htm
Local press (proceedings and statements)
- amNewYork, “DoorDash to pay at least $131.5M after NYC finds it underpaid 260,000 workers.” https://www.amny.com/news/doordash-to-pay-131-5m-nyc-underpaid-workers/
- ABC7 New York (WABC), “DoorDash to pay $131.5M after underpaying NYC delivery workers.” https://abc7ny.com/post/doordash-pay-1315m-underpaying-nyc-delivery-workers/19857512/
Official and company statements
- NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, “NYC Settlement With DoorDash.” https://www.nyc.gov/site/dca/workers/workersrights/doordash-delivery-workers.page
- DoorDash, “Making It Right: Our Settlement with the City of New York.” https://about.doordash.com/en-us/news/dcwp
Background and prior proceedings
- New York Attorney General’s Office, “Attorney General James Secures $16.75 Million from DoorDash for Cheating Delivery Workers Out of Tips.” https://ag.ny.gov/attorney-general-james-secures-1675-million-doordash-cheating-delivery-workers-out-tips
- NBC News, “DoorDash reaches $131.5M settlement with New York City over delivery workers’ pay.” https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/doordash-settles-nyc-driver-pay-rcna599186
Editor’s note on sourcing The January DCWP finding that DoorDash and Uber Eats cost workers more than $550 million in tips through app design changes is referenced only as background; that matter was not resolved by this settlement, and this article does not independently verify the $550 million figure beyond its appearance in wire and local reporting. The precise, itemized breakdown of the $131.5 million settlement differs between DoorDash’s own accounting and the city’s summary; both totals are reported here without reconciling the discrepancy, as neither party’s press materials explained it. Uber Eats’ and Grubhub’s compliance status with the same 2023 law is unconfirmed; city officials declined to address it, and neither company issued a substantive statement.
