From Pennsylvania, I-95 entered New Jersey on the Scudder Falls Bridge and ended at US 1 in Lawrence Township, where the freeway then turned south as I-295.

This discontinuity was caused by the 1983 cancelation of the Somerset Freeway, which would have connected the former Trenton segment of I-95 in Hopewell Township northeast to I-287 in Piscataway.

By March 2018, the former I-95 around the north side of Trenton to just across the Scudder Falls Bridge in Pennsylvania became an extension of I-295, with I-295 extended to the interchange by July of the same year.

On September 22, 2018, the ramps connecting I-95 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike opened, allowing a direct freeway route from Philadelphia to New York City and finally completing I-95 as a whole.

Continuing east through a mix of fields and warehouses into Florence Township, the highway passes over NJ Transit's River Line and has an interchange serving US 130.

Continuing north through mostly rural areas, the road heads into Mercer County and comes to the I-195 interchange in Robbinsville Township.

[2] From this point, the road enters areas of heavy industry and comes to the County Route 602 (CR 602) exit in Carteret.

In Union County, I-95 comes to the I-278 exit on the border of Linden and Elizabeth at the western approach to the Goethals Bridge.

[2][4][5] After both the western and eastern spurs cross the Passaic River on the Harry Laderman and Chaplain Washington Bridges, the mainline of I-95 officially follows the Eastern Spur of the New Jersey Turnpike, which has exits to I-280 in Kearny, Hudson County, and the Secaucus Junction train station and Route 3/Route 495 in Secaucus, where it reaches the end of the ticket system.

[2][4] In Ridgefield Park, I-95 continues north as a toll-free highway cosigned with the New Jersey Turnpike and maintained by the NJTA.

[2][5] I-95 forms a hairpin turn around Leonia to the southeast into Fort Lee and heads due south to Route 4.

[13] The New Jersey State Highway Department proposed Federal Aid Interstate Route 103 in 1956, and it was approved in 1957 by the Bureau of Public Roads (BPR).

[15][16][17] The BPR approved the planned alignment north of the Trenton area, which would have run generally northeast to exit 9 (Route 18) of the New Jersey Turnpike.

[19] Originally maintained by NJDOT, ownership of I-95 north of US 46 in Ridgefield Park was transferred to the NJTA in 1992 in order to balance the state budget, thus incorporating it as an extension of the turnpike.

The BPR preferred using the Trenton Freeway (US 1 and Route 174), which was completed to Whitehead Road, but New Jersey and Pennsylvania proposed using the Scudder Falls Bridge and its approach (Route 129), opened in 1961 to Scotch Road, due in part to low design standards of the Trenton Freeway.

[18] There was also meant to be a small connector roughly one mile (1.6 km) in length connecting I-95 with I-287 from the north and designated Interstate 695 (I-695).

[18][25] The truncated route, known as the Somerset Freeway, was intended to terminate in Piscataway at I-287, and I-95 would have continued east along present day I-287 until it intersected with the New Jersey Turnpike in Edison Township.

The NJTA joined environmental and community groups in opposing the Somerset Freeway, as it would provide a toll-free alternative to the New Jersey Turnpike.

[28][29] Due to this opposition, New Jersey Governor Brendan Byrne announced in 1980 that the state would not build the Somerset Freeway.

[2] Until this gap was filled, traffic from Pennsylvania was directed along I-95 northbound (to the Scudder Falls Bridge), then on its continuation as I-295 southbound until its interchange at I-195, which leads eastward to the New Jersey Turnpike.