Where to stay in New York City

Where to stay in New York City comes down to a train line, a borough's rents and a tax regime. Manhattan held 68.8% of the rooms rented in the city's tax year 2025, at $352.61 a night against $202.76 in Queens, by our own division of Department of Finance records.

Six bases are compared here, and no hotel is named or recommended. We read the figures below on 3 November 2026 on the pages of the city's Department of Finance, its consumer agency DCWP and its Office of Special Enforcement. We also read the state's Tax Department, the federal eCFR, the Port Authority, New Jersey's Treasury and NYC Tourism + Conventions.

How do Midtown, Lower Manhattan, Williamsburg, Long Island City, Harlem and Jersey City compare?

Midtown, Lower Manhattan, Williamsburg, Long Island City, Harlem and Jersey City differ in train changes, printed airport links and borough rent. The overview of New York City covers the fares and sights, and our New York City itinerary puts the days in order.

The MTA's website refused our reads, so the train minutes come from its published GTFS timetable data of 28 October 2026. The reading is our own: weekday trains leaving between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., counted in the train only, with no wait, walk or transfer. Airport times are the Port Authority's, and the rents are worked out further down.

We do not compare the six on safety, noise or room size. We found no official comparison, and the NYPD's precinct reports are raw counts with no rate per resident or visitor.

Who should pick Midtown over Williamsburg or Harlem?

Midtown suits a short first visit, in our own judgement, and the other five suit narrower cases. These pairings on where to stay in New York are ours rather than any official ranking, and they rest only on the figures on this page.

• Midtown: the one base here with printed links to both JFK and Newark, and no train at all to Times Sq. You pay Manhattan's rent.
• Lower Manhattan: suits a trip built around the harbour, since the Staten Island Ferry leaves from Whitehall Terminal there. Express trains reach Times Sq in 8 to 11.5 minutes, at the same borough rent.
• Williamsburg: suits a traveller who accepts one change at Union Sq for a Brooklyn rent about $105 below Manhattan's.
• Long Island City: suits a traveller counting both price and changes. One 7 train reaches Grand Central and Times Sq, at Queens' rent.
• Harlem: suits an arrival at LaGuardia, because the M60 bus runs along 125th Street. Express trains take 10.5 minutes, but the tax records give no separate Harlem rent.
• Jersey City: cannot be judged on the same terms, because its PATH minutes and its local room tax could not be read. Choose it for a reason of your own, such as plans in New Jersey.

How many train minutes is each base from Times Sq or Grand Central?

Each subway base sits 8 to 17 minutes in the train from Times Sq or Grand Central on our timetable reading, and only Williamsburg needs a change. Each row rests on 37 to 59 weekday trips in the window, and the timetable is valid to 15 May 2027.

Express and local trains at one station can differ by 5 minutes or more, as Chambers St and 125 St show. Which line stops nearest your door therefore matters more than the area's fastest row. We did not read night or weekend service.

What does the Port Authority print for each base's trip to JFK, Newark and LaGuardia?

The Port Authority prints timed routes to JFK for Midtown, Lower Manhattan and part of Brooklyn, and to Newark for Midtown only. All the figures below are from its airport pages, and every JFK fare includes the $8.75 AirTrain fee.

The Brooklyn row names Bushwick and East Williamsburg, not the Bedford Av end of Williamsburg on the L train. For Harlem, Long Island City and Jersey City the JFK page prints no time. Even so, Court Sq–23 St is on the E and 125 St (8th Av) on the A, and that page names both lines for its JFK routes.

LaGuardia has no rail link, and the Port Authority prints no timed route from any base. Five MTA bus routes serve it. The M60 Select Bus Service runs from Terminals A, B and C along 125th Street in Harlem. The free Q70 LaGuardia Link runs from Terminals B and C to Jackson Heights–Roosevelt Av, for the E train, which also stops at Court Sq–23 St in Long Island City.

What did a room rent for in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens in tax year 2025?

A room in Manhattan rented for $352.61 a night in tax year 2025, against $248.00 in Brooklyn and $202.76 in Queens, by our own division. The Department of Finance prints total rent and rooms rented, and we divided one by the other. Its tax year ran from 1 March 2024 to 28 February 2025.

The rents exclude taxes, cover every hotel type and are not a quote for a booking made now. The records stop at the borough, so Midtown, Lower Manhattan and Harlem share one figure. Hotels averaging under $200 rented 15.6% of rooms and those from $500 up 8.7%, by our sum of the report's bands. Remarketers, at 18.1%, are not banded.

NYC Tourism + Conventions, the city's destination marketing body, reports separately for calendar 2025: an average daily rate of $334 and occupancy of 84.2%. Its figures cover a different period and a different set of hotels from the tax records. Never merge the two, and do not read the gap between $334 and $317.27 as a price change. Its occupancy by segment was 82.2% at luxury hotels, 87.5% at upscale and 76.7% at midscale.

What do three taxes and one fee add to a $300 room?

Three taxes and one fee add $47.75 a night to a $300 room, by our own arithmetic. The Department of Finance names them as state sales tax, city sales tax, the city's hotel room occupancy tax and the state's hotel unit fee. Combined sales tax is 8.875% on the state's rate list. The hotel tax is 5.875% of the rent plus $2.00 per room per day at $40 or more, and the unit fee is $1.50 per room per day.

The examples are ours; no official page prints them. Three nights in one room at $300 come to $143.25 in tax and fees by the same rule. A suite pays the flat $2.00 on each room, so three rooms pay $6.00 a day, plus the percentage on the whole suite. A booking through a reseller is taxed on the total rent you pay, and the state requires the invoice to show the taxes separately.

The Department of Finance says the 5.875% rate was extended to 30 November 2027. We could not read the later rate on an official page, so we print none.

A resort or facility fee, where a hotel charges one, is not in the table. The state's bulletin TB-ST-331 says charges such as parking, service or cleaning fees "may be taxable" as part of the room charge, and the city counts any charge required as a condition of occupancy as rent, so ask for the breakdown. Our guide to sales tax in the USA explains why US prices are shown before tax.

What has a New York City hotel price had to include since 21 February 2026?

A New York City hotel price has had to show the total, mandatory fees included, since the city's rule took effect on 21 February 2026. Only taxes and fees imposed by a government may be left out, so the taxes in the table above can still come on top of the advertised price. The rule also applies to third-party travel websites and to a price shown to a New York City consumer.

Fines for improper disclosure are $525 for a first violation, $1,050 for a second and $3,500 for a third and later. DCWP received over 300 complaints in 2025 about hidden hotel fees or unexpected holds. Complaints go to nyc.gov/dcwp or to 311.

DCWP's FAQ, dated 8 April 2026, adds a duty "Beginning January 2027". Hotels must then disclose the standard amount of a deposit or card hold, the reasons for keeping it and roughly when it is released.

The federal FTC rule on fees, 16 CFR Part 464, has covered hotels, motels and short-term rentals since 12 May 2025. As read in the eCFR issue of 30 October 2026, it requires the total price to be shown more prominently than any other price. It also requires the nature, purpose and amount of any excluded fee before you agree to pay. We could not confirm the rule's litigation status, because no court docket or FTC page could be read.

We found no New York State statute on hotel fees. The city's notice mentions a state bill, whose status we could not read. No official page we read lists which hotels charge a mandatory fee, or how much.

Can you rent a whole apartment under New York City's Local Law 18?

A whole apartment for under 30 days is banned under Local Law 18 of 2022 unless the building is Class B, a class that includes hotels. Short-term rentals as such are not banned. A host may take at most two paying guests and must stay in the same unit. Rentals of 30 consecutive days or more fall outside the registration rule.

Hosts must register with the city's Office of Special Enforcement, or OSE, and booking platforms may not process unregistered rentals. Guests can check a listing against OSE's public registry. A registered host must display the number in the listing and in the unit.

The violation falls on the host or the platform on the pages we read, with penalties of up to $5,000 for an unregistered transaction. No page says a guest is fined, and none rules it out. A booking can still fall through, since platforms stop processing unverified transactions. OSE encourages a guest sent to a different address from the listing to file a complaint.

What does the Safe Hotels law give a guest at the front desk?

The Safe Hotels law, Local Law 104 of 2024, gives a guest a licensed operator, with the DCWP licence on public show. The law took effect on 3 May 2025. Rooms must have clean towels and sheets, and a hotel may not charge for daily cleaning. A known service disruption, such as no hot water, must be notified within 24 hours, and cancelling for that reason carries no fee.

What changes for a bed in Jersey City: PATH and New Jersey's room taxes?

Jersey City changes both the train and the tax, since it lies in New Jersey and links to Manhattan by PATH rather than the subway. A one-way PATH ride cost $3.25 when we read the Port Authority's page on 3 November 2026. Approved changes add a further $0.25 each January in 2027, 2028 and 2029.

PATH takes no OMNY card and sits outside the OMNY weekly cap. Riders pay with a TAPP card or a contactless bank card, phone or wearable at the turnstile. A paper SingleRide ticket costs the same $3.25 and lasts two hours. MetroCard and SmartLink ended on 31 August 2026. The same page prints unlimited passes at $12.50 for one day and $42.75 for seven.

New Jersey's Treasury prints a 6.625% sales tax and a 1% State Occupancy Fee for Jersey City, on pages dated 7 April 2026 and 22 September 2025. The fee is lower there because such cities already charge a local hotel tax. We could not read Jersey City's own rate, so we give no total. PATH's script-built timetable also could not be read, so we print no PATH minutes.

Our page on New York State covers the rest of the state.