Last updated: January 2026
The Washington, D.C. metropolitan region comprising the District, and neighboring areas within Virginia and Maryland are served by a wide variety of transit services that operate under the umbrella of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), or Metro.
The core of the system is Metrorail, with six color-coded rail lines that span the region. Metro also operates the region’s Metrobus service. In addition, the adjacent counties in Virginia and Maryland operate their own bus services with connections to Metrorail stations.
The region is also served by Capital Bikeshare, the nation’s first successful bikeshare system, and one of the nation’s largest. The District as well as other counties in the region have extensive bike lanes. The District also has a bus circulator network providing local services around town. Car sharing and e-Scooter are also popular. Finally, on-demand microtransit services are provided throughout the region by Via.
Commuters are supported by strong regional transit connections and new tap-to-pay technology. Keep reading for everything you and your employees need to know to get riding.
Does DC have a commuter benefits mandate for employers?
Yes. DC employers are covered by two separate laws that impact commuter benefits that they must provide to their employees. The first, called the DC Commuter Benefits Law, became effective in 2016 and requires employers in DC to provide their employees with tax-free transit or vanpool benefits consistent with the federal commuter tax benefit law.
In 2020, DC enacted a Parking Cashout Law, which became effective in 2023 and requires employers that provide free or subsidized parking to their employees to offer an equivalent amount to those affected employees to pay for their transit or vanpool expenses if they give up their parking benefit. DC is the only city that has a parking cashout law.
Who is affected by the DC Commuter Benefits and Parking Cashout Laws?
The DC Commuter Benefits Law applies to all employers who:
- Have 20 or more full-time employees.
- Are located within the District of Columbia.
- Are either for-profit organizations or non-profit organizations.
Within those employers, the DC Commuter Benefits Law applies to both full-time and part-time employees who either:
- Perform 50% or more of their work in the District of Columbia, or
- Have employment based in the District of Columbia, perform a substantial amount of work in the District, and perform less than 50% of their work in another state.
The Parking Cashout Law applies to employers covered by the DC Commuter Benefits Law and who also offer parking benefits, a subsidy, employer-paid or free parking, to any of its employees.
What’s required of employers under these laws?
The DC Commuter Benefits Law requires employers to offer their employees one of the following:
- Employee-paid, pre-tax benefit: Allow employees to use their pre-tax income, up to $340 per month in 2026, to pay for transit or vanpool expenses.
- Employer-paid benefit: Provide a tax-free subsidy for transit or vanpools up to the federal monthly cap of $340.
- Employer-provided transportation: Provide a shuttle or vanpool service at no cost to the employees.
Employers must also follow noticing requirements to avoid paying fines. To ensure employees can reasonably find information about their program options, employers must:
- Notify employees of the available transit benefit program using email, memos, newsletters, etc.
- Inform employees as to how to apply for and receive the transit benefit, as well as how to submit a complaint to the Department of Employment Services.
- Provide a point of contact for covered employees to learn more about their transit benefits.
Employers must also maintain records to show that they’re in compliance with the DC Commuter Benefits Law for a minimum of three years and be responsible for providing that documentation to the Department of Employment Services upon request.
The Parking Cashout Law requires employers to implement one of the following:
- A subsidy for transit or vanpooling expenses, as provided in the federal commuter tax benefit law, in an amount equal to or greater than the market value of the parking benefit offered to the employee.
- A Clean Air Compliance fee of $100 per month for each employee offered a parking benefit.
- A transportation demand management plan that whose goal is to reduce auto commuting by 25% by the employer’s employees.
Employers who are subject to the Parking Cashout requirement must submit a report every two years to the DC Department of Transportation.
goDCgo has more information on the DC Commuter Benefits Law and the Parking Cashout Law about compliance requirements on their website.
What kinds of pre-tax benefits satisfy the requirements of the DC Commuter Benefits Law?
Covered employers must offer eligible employees the opportunity to use up to $340 a month for eligible transit or vanpool expenses. Transit services that are available to employees include:
- Metrorail and Metrobus
- DC streetcar and Circulator
- Maryland Rail Commuter (MARC) commuter rail service from Maryland
- Virginia Railway Express (VRE) commuter rail service from Virginia
- Amtrak
- Via on-demand microtransit
- Arlington Transit (ART) buses (Arlington County, VA)
- Loudoun County Transit commuter buses (Loudoun County, VA)
- OmniRide Express buses (Prince William County, Va)
- Montgomery County Transit Services (buses) (Montgomery County, MD)
- Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) Commuter Buses
- TheBus (Prince Georges County, MD)
Pre-tax transit funds cannot be spent on:
- Capital Bikeshare membership or individual CapBike rides
- Buying or maintaining a personal bicycle
- Taxis, Uber, Lyft or other ride-hailing services
- Parking, including at transit stations
Other transit incentive programs
Employers and their employees can take advantage of several regional incentive programs to offer commuter tax benefits for transit and vanpooling. In Maryland, employers are eligible to receive a tax credit of up to $100/employee per month for providing commuter tax benefit subsidies for transit, vanpooling, or other non-auto commuting modes. In Montgomery County, employers who subsidize their employees use of transit get reimbursed for subsidies they provide their employees over $25 up to the full $340/month. Both Fairfax and Loudon Counties in Virginia provide a $50 incentive to employees to try commuting by transit.
What are the penalties for non-compliance?
Employers who do not comply with the DC Commuter Benefits Law can be fined. The employer is subject to increasing monthly fines per employee for not offering them a transit or vanpool benefit. The schedule for fines is:
- $100 for the first month
- $200 for the second month
- $400 for the third month
- $800 for the fourth and all subsequent months
Employers who are subject to the Parking Cashout Law are assessed a Clean Air Compliance fee of $100/month for each employee who is offered a parking benefit and is not given the option of receiving an equivalent amount for their transit or vanpool expenses or who doesn’t have an approved transportation demand management plan.
Can employers receive passes in bulk, or discounted passes from DC’s transit agencies?
While WMATA does not offer discount passes for employers, they do have programs to allow employers to buy bulk passes and distribute them to their employees. You can read more here.
Why are commuter benefits good for employers?
- Employers can reduce their payroll taxes because the payroll set aside for pre-tax transit benefits are not taxable income. Payroll deductions save employers directly.
- Pre-tax benefits make employers more competitive for top talent.
- Commuter benefits make employers more willing to embrace return-to-office mandates.
- Incentivizing transit usage reduces demand for parking, which can be expensive for employers to provide.
- Pre-tax transit benefits are a relatively low cost, high impact, and demonstrable commitment to carbon reduction and environmental sustainability. Jawnt can help you measure and report the carbon your organization is saving by supporting transit.
When did Tap. Ride. Go. launch in Washington D.C.?
In May 2025, Metro successfully launched a new way to pay to ride, in addition to its pre-existing SmarTrip fare card. Known locally as Tap. Ride. Go., the new fare payment system is available at all Metrorail stations and accepts a simple tap from a contactless debit or credit card (Tap. Ride. Go. will be available for use on Metrobuses and at Metro parking facilities in the future). Riders can pay by tapping a physical debit and credit cards, or a mobile card in their Apple or Google Wallet.
As an employer, Tap. Ride. Go. opens the world of possibilities for commuter benefits. Employers can work with any commuter benefit provider they choose, and load money onto their preferred commuter debit cards.
The Jawnt Pass, for example, is a commuter debit card that is optimized for use with tap-to-ride technology. With the Jawnt Pass, employers can:
- Load stored value onto each employee’s card every month, not just a monthly pass.
- Customize the amount of value loaded per employee. Perhaps employees coming in five days a week receive more than those coming in only twice.
- Set up subsidies. Perhaps employees receive a 50% match up to their first $100 a month of transit benefits.
- Adapt to real life. If an employee doesn’t ride as much transit as usual one month, they can be simply topped up to their preferred amount rather than getting their full subsidy. Reduce the risk of banking an unusable balance, and roll back unused funds when employees leave.
- View detailed enrollment and utilization data. Self-serve reports give real-time insights into how employees are using their transit funds (within reasonable limits on location and privacy).
Want to learn more?
Jawnt’s team of transit planners and benefit administrators are available to help you understand your options, requirements, and find a solution that will satisfy employers and employees alike. Drop us a line today to get started.
