New York Cruise Port Rental Car Guide

Cape Liberty’s $35 comes from Royal Caribbean’s US page — other copies disagree, and the night-before page lays out which.

Manhattan’s and Brooklyn’s $45 is older than it looks. Cruise NYC’s page dates it April 1, 2023, so treat it as a figure to confirm, not a quote.

Driving to a city pier also changes how you unload — the should-you-rent page has the park-first rule.

New York City stacks three charges on a rental: 8.875% sales tax, a 6% statewide tax on short-term car rentals and a 6% special supplemental tax. Together that’s about 20.875% by our arithmetic — before any airport fee reaches the bill.

One New York tax page says the extra inside the metropolitan district is 11%, not 12%, which would make the total 19.875%. The department’s bulletin and the statute both say 6% plus 6% — so we print 20.875%, and your quote settles it.

New Jersey charges 6.625% sales tax plus a $5-a-day Domestic Security Fee. The fee runs for the first 28 days only, tops out at $140, and is charged separately from the sales tax.

The $5 a day eats into New Jersey’s lower rate, so a short rental barely notices the state line.

Over a long road trip the gap opens up — the after-cruise page runs it over three, seven and fourteen days.

For Cape Liberty the answer is easy, since every desk near it is in New Jersey anyway.

We found no rental desk at any of the three terminals, and no rental company page we read mentions a shuttle to one. Every card above is a ride or a long walk from a ship.

National on West 56th Street is the closest desk to Piers 88 and 90 — about 0.8 miles out by our estimate — and its page shows no hours at all. Call before you build a sail-day plan around it.

Budget on West 49th is about a tenth of a mile farther, by our estimate, and keeps the longest published hours we found nearby, 7 AM to 11 PM every day but Saturday.

We found no branch in Red Hook — Enterprise lists none there, and the nearest pair, Enterprise and Avis, face each other on State Street in Downtown Brooklyn.

Hertz lists Manhattan desks on West 55th and West 59th Streets, but both detail pages failed to load for us; West 55th’s hours came only from a booking site, so we left Hertz off the checker. Sixt’s main Manhattan branch is at 20 Morris Street near Battery Park, with 24-hour returns.

Try Sunday morning against the Cape Liberty list first — Enterprise in Bayonne and Enterprise on Communipaw Avenue are both closed all day Sunday, which leaves Avis in Jersey City or Newark airport.

Enterprise Bayonne does take after-hours returns, which helps on a Sunday. A drop box saves you the trip, not the paperwork — ask the branch when the contract actually closes.

Brooklyn isn’t in a checker because there are only two choices. Avis on State Street keeps 7 AM to 9 PM except Saturday’s 3 PM close, while Enterprise across the street opens just 9 to noon on Sunday and takes no after-hours returns.

The Port Authority’s tunnels and bridges collect only from cars entering New York — leaving for New Jersey is free.

The Lincoln and Holland tunnels, the George Washington, Bayonne and Goethals bridges and the Outerbridge Crossing charge $16.79 at peak with E-ZPass, $14.79 off-peak and over $23 by mail, in 2026, as reported; we couldn’t read the Port Authority’s own rate table.

Manhattan’s congestion toll is $9 at peak with E-ZPass, $2.25 overnight, and once a day at most. It covers local streets at or below 60th Street — the FDR Drive and the West Side Highway, Route 9A, are excluded.

The Manhattan terminal’s car entrance is on Route 9A at West 55th Street. A car that stays on the West Side Highway to the gate shouldn’t enter the zone, though that’s our reading of the MTA map and the terminal’s directions, not an MTA statement.

Peak at the Port Authority means weekdays 6 to 10 AM and 4 to 8 PM, and 11 AM to 9 PM on weekends, as reported — a Sunday-morning disembark can catch the off-peak rate.

A car that comes in through the Lincoln, Holland, Queens-Midtown or Hugh L. Carey tunnel at peak gets up to $5 off the congestion toll, once a day.

The MTA’s own crossings, the Verrazzano-Narrows, the Queens-Midtown Tunnel and the Hugh Carey Tunnel among them, charge $7.46 with a New York E-ZPass, $9.79 with an E-ZPass from another state and $12.03 by mail. The Carey Tunnel is the direct way from lower Manhattan to Brooklyn’s waterfront.

We couldn’t get a reliable New Jersey Turnpike toll from Newark to Exit 14A, so we don’t print one.

The Port Authority’s and the MTA’s crossings are cashless, so the rental company bills you for every toll unless you’ve arranged otherwise. Enterprise says you can use your own E-ZPass if the rental’s plate is added to your account as required — that skips the program fee, as long as the plate is on the account before you drive off.

At an assumed $50 a day a rental from JFK to Piers 88 and 90 comes to about $70 before any toll — and it still has to go back to a desk or into the terminal garage.

JFK’s yellow cabs run a flat fare to Manhattan, and the airport page breaks it down surcharge by surcharge.

For a plain transfer the cab wins. Keep the car in the picture only if West Point or Storm King is on the same day.

Newark is the only one of the three airports in New Jersey, and the only one close to Cape Liberty.

JFK and LaGuardia sit on the New York side of the tax line, closer to Brooklyn and Manhattan.

Where each airport’s counters are, what the AirTrain costs and how the cab rules work — the airport page has all of it, priced pier by pier.

A car that sits for a seven-night sailing is about $245 at Cape Liberty at $35 a day, or $315 in Manhattan or Brooklyn at $45 a night — the city rate being the one dated 2023.

That’s parking alone — add a week of rental days you aren’t using, and returning the car before boarding usually beats keeping it.

Brooklyn takes cash or the major cards on arrival, and the city’s development agency points drivers to Arrive (ParkWhiz) for reservations, which we didn’t test.

Manhattan opens cruise parking at 8 AM and wants cars out by 3 PM on return day, and its clearance is 8 feet 3 inches.

If you’re driving your own car in, our New York parking page covers the garages and lots in more depth.

New York: rear-facing until at least age 2; a car seat or booster until the eighth birthday.

New Jersey: under 2 and under 30 pounds rear-facing in a 5-point harness; under 8 and under 57 inches in a harness seat or booster in the back. That summary comes from a legal-reference site, not the state, so read it as a guide.

Avis’s published US price: “usually” $14 a day, $84 max a rental. Budget lists $14.50 and $87. Enterprise, Alamo, National and Sixt charge by the day but publish no amount. A week of one seat hits the cap, so bringing your own is usually the better deal.

For Cape Liberty, search Newark: it’s the closest airport, in New Jersey, with Avis and Hertz open 24 hours. For a Manhattan or Brooklyn sailing, compare a city pick-up against JFK, and check the desk’s Sunday hours before you book.

A headline rate is a starting point, not a total — the airport page sets each airport’s advertised price against its tax line.