It’s a fresh new fee!
Grocery delivery app Instacart abruptly began charging Big Apple residents a new “regulatory response fee” this week after sweeping changes to the city’s delivery worker laws were enacted Monday, The Post has learned.
“NYC regulatory response fees appear in the order summary,” the FAQ section of Instacart’s website now reads — a marked change from archived versions of the site just one month prior. An explanation of the fee reads that it “helps cover increased operating costs in NYC due to government regulations on delivery platforms.”
A Post analysis of orders prior to Monday found no such fee tacked on. Yet by Tuesday, a $5.99 fee was applied to orders ranging from $35 to $184.
Instacart confirmed the fee took effect Monday and blamed “the City Council’s misguided and burdensome grocery delivery laws,” in a statement to The Post.
“For months, we raised clear, data-backed concerns that the policy would increase grocery delivery costs for New Yorkers, but those warnings were repeatedly ignored,” the statement said.
The city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection is investigating the matter, a rep said.
Instacart was already in hot water after an explosive study last month found the company used a shady algorithm that charges different prices to different customers for the same items without telling them.
The city’s new worker protections, which took effect under a new law Monday, include expanded minimum pay to drivers working for grocery delivery apps like Instacart.
Excluding tips, the minimum hourly rate is $21.44 an hour with annual increases.
New York City law now also requires food delivery apps such as Uber Eats and DoorDash to provide customers a tipping option before checkout — and sets the default option to at least 10% of an order’s cost.
The Mamdani administration alleged earlier this month DoorDash and Uber Eats prevented delivery workers from earning over $550 million in tips by requiring customers to leave gratuities after checkout.
City officials said the change was needed to protect workers’ income after tips plummeted when a new minimum-wage law went into effect in late 2023.
Uber Eats and DoorDash had asked a federal judge to block the legislation, accusing the city of violating their free speech rights by forcing them to “speak a government-mandated message in a prescribed manner and at a prescribed time.”
The companies also claimed the new minimum pay requirements have made New York City food deliveries more expensive and argued the new laws – combined with “tipping fatigue” and “generally rising prices” – will hurt their bottom lines.
US District Judge George B. Daniels still declined to strike down the legislation in a Friday decision — and Instacart’s new fee popped up soon after.
