Food cart statistics show how strongly mobile food vending is shaped by licensing limits, sidewalk space, neighborhood access, and customer demand. New York City data includes more than 16,000 active mobile food vending licenses, thousands of permit slots, long waiting lists, and detailed studies of Green Cart locations and purchases.
Contents
- Licensing history and expansion
- Permits, fees, and operating timelines
- Green Cart availability
- Where food carts operate
- Customers and transaction spending
- School-area frutero findings
- Compliance and inspection figures
Licensing history and expansion
New York City’s food-cart system has been shaped by decades of licensing caps. The Mayor’s Push-cart Commission report cited more than 2,500 licensed pushcart vendors and more than 5,000 unlicensed vendors. The city also constructed 9 enclosed public-market structures for licensed pushcart vendors under Mayor La Guardia.
The same NYC Public Advocate report describes a general non-food vendor license cap of 853 in 1979 and a food vendor license cap of 3,000 in 1983. These limits help explain why demand accumulated faster than available licenses. At one point, more than 10,000 applicants were on the food vendor license backlog, while almost 12,000 individuals were on the general vendor waiting list.
Local Law 18 changed the planned pace of food-vendor expansion. It created 4,450 additional food vending licenses over 10 years beginning in 2022, with 445 licenses released per year. The NYC IBO report likewise recorded 445 supervisory license applications annually from 2022 through 2032.
The city also created a separate green-cart pathway. Local Law 9 created 850 green-cart licenses. Its allocation was 250 in the Bronx, 250 in Brooklyn, 150 in Manhattan, 150 in Queens, and 50 in Staten Island. Later NYC Green Carts FAQ figures describe a citywide allowance of 1,000 Green Cart permits, allocated as 350 to Brooklyn, 350 to the Bronx, 150 to Manhattan, 100 to Queens, and 50 to Staten Island.
The two allocation descriptions are tied to different reported licensing arrangements and should not be treated as one undated schedule. Together, they show that Green Cart capacity has been managed through borough-specific limits rather than an unrestricted citywide market.
Permits, fees, and operating timelines
Before the Local Law 18 expansion, the NYC IBO report counted 5,100 permit slots: 2,800 citywide permits, 50 borough-specific permits in each borough except Manhattan, 100 disability or veteran specialized permits, 1,000 seasonal or temporary permits, and 1,000 Green Cart permits.
The NYC Comptroller audit reported that NYC DOHMH limited public-area mobile food vending to 4,100 full-term permits, including 1,000 Green Carts. It also allowed 1,000 seasonal permits and could issue an unlimited number of restricted permits for private property or city parks. Seasonal permits were valid for 7 months, from April 1 through October 31, while full-term permits were valid for 2 years.
For a first-time mobile food vendor, the NYC IBO report listed a $50 license fee and a $53 food safety course fee, or $103 in total. The average fees collected from mobile food vending permits and licenses across fiscal years 2018, 2019, and 2022 were about $960,000.
Green Cart costs are reported separately by the NYC Green Carts FAQ. A Green Cart permit costs $75 and lasts 2 years. A permit renewal costs $50 every 2 years. A Green Cart license renewal costs $50 every 2 years plus a $10 tax-clearance fee.
The Green Cart application process also has defined deadlines. Selected applicants have 90 days to submit a permit application. After approval, they have 6 months to bring the cart for a pre-permit inspection. The permit document is mailed within 4 weeks after approval. Green Cart permits are issued through borough-specific waiting lists.
Green Cart availability
The number of permits allowed and the number actually active are different measures. NYC Green Carts FAQ material says 1,000 permits were made available in total. However, the NYC IBO report found that only 220 Green Cart permits were active in the city as of October 2023, despite the legal cap of 1,000.
An earlier CDC Green Cart study reported nearly 500 active Green Cart vendors citywide as of 2013. The 2013 count and the October 2023 active-permit count come from different reports and measurement dates, so they should not be read as a simple year-over-year trend.
| Green Cart measure | Reported figure | Source and period |
|---|---|---|
| Citywide permit allowance | 1,000 | NYC Green Carts FAQ |
| Active vendors citywide | Nearly 500 | CDC study, as of 2013 |
| Active permits | 220 | NYC IBO report, October 2023 |
| Permit term | 2 years | NYC Green Carts FAQ |
| Permit cost | $75 | NYC Green Carts FAQ |
The difference between available capacity and active permits is important for anyone evaluating food cart opportunities. A legal ceiling does not mean every slot is occupied, and an applicant may still face a borough-specific waiting list, application deadlines, inspection requirements, and licensing costs.
Where food carts operate
Street width and access rules narrow the practical operating area. Roughly 80% of NYC sidewalks were not wide enough to permit legal street vending, according to the NYC Public Advocate report. Less than 20% were able to permit vending. A general merchandise vendor must leave a 12-foot clear pedestrian path.
The same report says vending is banned within 20 feet of a building entrance, sidewalk cafe, or store entrance, and vendors must remain 10 feet from any subway entrance or crosswalk. These measurements help explain why a large city can have extensive consumer demand but relatively few legally usable locations.
The CDC’s 2014 Green Cart placement study found that Green Carts were in food deserts 7% of the time, compared with 36% of candidate sites. Green Carts were in food swamps 41% of the time, while candidate sites were in food swamps 29% of the time. Green Carts were in healthy areas 51% of the time, compared with 35% of candidate sites.
The study also found that 78% of Green Carts were near 2 or more healthy stores. Green Carts had nearly 60 times the odds of locating next to subway stops, 6.4 times the odds of being near large employers, 14.1 times the odds of being near other food stores, and 2.9 times the odds of being in more populous census tracts.
Transit proximity was especially common. Seventy-nine percent of Green Carts were within a quarter-mile of a subway stop, compared with 28% of candidate locations. Only 24 candidate sites, or 4%, were both within a quarter-mile of a subway stop and in a food desert.
The study’s store-count comparison adds another location detail: 130 Green Cart sites had 16 or more food stores nearby, versus 91 candidate sites. Of 108 sites with no stores nearby, only 4 were actual Green Cart locations.
Income and payment access varied by cart type. Census tracts with outlier Green Carts had median income of $60,885, versus $33,275 for tracts within Green Cart boundaries. Tracts with EBT-accepting carts had median income of $29,850, versus $36,674 for tracts with non-EBT Green Carts. The share of residents below the federal poverty level was 32.6% in tracts with EBT-accepting carts, compared with 29.1% in tracts with non-EBT carts.
Customers and transaction spending
The CDC’s 2017 Green Cart study reported that 27% of Green Cart vendors were equipped with EBT machines as of 2013. In that study, customers spent a little more than $4 per transaction at Green Carts, while customers paying with SNAP spent more than $8 per transaction.
Those figures describe transaction spending, not vendor income, profit, or average daily sales. They also come from a specific study period and should not be generalized to every cart, product mix, borough, or year. Still, the contrast between the reported overall transaction value and SNAP transaction value is useful when considering how payment access relates to purchasing patterns.
The CDC’s 2014 placement findings provide additional context. Carts were often positioned near transit, employers, food stores, and more populous tracts. That pattern indicates that location decisions were connected to existing movement and commercial activity, even though the program also addressed healthy-food access.
School-area frutero findings
The CDC’s 2012 frutero study examined sales near an elementary school. During the 2008–2009 school year, the school had 279 students. Its student population was 41% Hispanic, 33% African American, and 15% Asian, and 74% of students were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch.
The frutero’s 233 consumers included 59% elementary-school students. Over 14 days, the frutero sold 248 items. The study reported an average of 1 additional bag of fruits and vegetables sold with each successive day. A competing vendor sold 1.5 fewer nonnutritious foods with each successive day in the same study.
These results are study-specific observations rather than a universal sales forecast for food carts. The customer mix, school setting, 14-day observation period, and comparison with a competing vendor all matter when interpreting the numbers. The figures are most useful for understanding how a cart’s surroundings and product offer can be associated with purchasing behavior.
Compliance and inspection figures
The NYC Comptroller audit provides a snapshot of inspection activity and permit records. Inspectors observed 28 mobile food vending units during 2 days of fieldwork. Of those 28 units, 5 needed initial full-sanitary inspections or re-inspections. Inspectors performed limited inspections on 7 additional units because of obvious violations.
Some type of inspection was conducted on 12 of the 28 observed units. The audit included 16 observed inspections in total, combining 12 operational inspections and 4 pre-permit inspections. These counts describe the audit fieldwork sample, not all citywide vending activity.
The permit-dataset review found 188 permits with approval-date irregularities, representing 4.0% of 4,659 active permits. In a separate grade-card review, at least 35 sequence numbers, or 2.3% of 1,506 records, did not appear in the permit dataset.
The NYC IBO report counted 16,806 active mobile food vending licenses. Because licenses renew every 2 years, about 8,403 licenses were expected to renew each year. As of October 2023, the waitlist total was 10,992 non-veteran licenses, and 9,878 individuals were on at least one waitlist.
The same report counted 1,844 active legal vendor units as of October 2023, including 775 non-veteran and 1,069 veteran licensees. By December 2023, there were 3,805 active units, including 3,755 active permits and 50 supervisory license permits. These figures use different dates and categories, so they should be kept separate when comparing licensing capacity with active operating units.