DoorDash will pay $131.5 million to resolve claims that it underpaid New York City delivery workers or failed to pay them on time, in a settlement announced Tuesday by Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Details on the million-dollar settlement and what DoorDash said

Mamdani, Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice Julie Su and Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) Commissioner Samuel A.A. Levine announced the settlement at City Hall, calling it the largest worker settlement in New York City history and the largest settlement involving food delivery workers in the United States.

“When a worker earns a wage, they deserve to be paid that wage — not tomorrow, not after a lawsuit, but on time and in full,” Mamdani said.

“Simply put, we screwed up,” the San Francisco-based company said Tuesday in a statement on its website after settling with the city.

“Our mistakes meant some Dashers were underpaid or paid late. While these mistakes weren’t intentional, that doesn’t make them okay. We pride ourselves on operational excellence at DoorDash – and this was not excellent, nor was it acceptable.”

When asked about DoorDash characterizing the underpayments as mistakes, Mamdani pushed back, describing the violations as “sustained” and “rampant” across roughly a quarter-million workers. “I’ve never heard someone describe a $131.5 million settlement in that kind of language,” he said.

The $131.5 million settlement with the city includes $12.3 million for Dashers who were underpaid or paid late. Another $83 million will resolve a dispute over how DoorDash calculated pay for time workers spent logged into the app between deliveries. The city’s consumer protection agency will also receive $16.7 million in fines.

DoorDash on why it happened and how they are fixing it

The settlement comes as New York City continues to scrutinize the way food delivery apps compensate workers. USA Today reported that the city has accused DoorDash and rival Uber Eats of shortchanging workers by more than $550 million in tips.

DoorDash said some payment problems stemmed from technical bugs and complicated delivery situations, including orders that crossed city limits, involved multiple pickup or drop-off locations, or were partially completed or canceled. The company also said some errors occurred when Dashers provided incomplete or inaccurate banking information, according to the company’s website.

Additionally, DoorDash said it has fixed the technical issues and strengthened its compliance program to prevent similar problems from happening again.

The company also acknowledged that it had disagreed with the city over how to calculate pay for Dashers’ online time but agreed to settle the dispute.

When will Dashers receive payments?

Affected Dashers will be contacted about the settlement “in the coming weeks,” according to DoorDash. Each worker will receive at least $10, even if the amount they were originally underpaid was less.

DCWP’s settlement administrator will send emails in late October to each worker DoorDash underpaid between April 2022 and June 2026, detailing the amount they are owed.

DoorDash said the payment problems were not intentional but acknowledged that workers should have been paid correctly.

“Dashers should be paid in full, on time, every time,” the company said. “We are sorry to the Dashers we let down.”

For more information about the settlement, visit here.