The New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) lists Route 7 as a single north–south highway with a small gap between the alignments.

The northern section of Route 7 runs north through residential and business areas of Belleville and Nutley into Clifton, where it turns west and crosses back into Nutley, briefly turning to the north to come to its northern terminus.

[1] The route crosses the Hackensack River on the Wittpenn Bridge parallel to Conrail Shared Assets Operations' Passaic and Harsimus Line into Kearny.

It then becomes an undivided two-lane road, heading northwest, narrowing to two lanes before it crosses under Amtrak's Northeast Corridor and passes through the New Jersey Meadowlands.

[1][2] Route 7 continues northwest, widens, with a painted median, as it passes through two large cemeteries on the border of Hudson County (Kearny) to the south and Bergen County (North Arlington) to the north, though the route itself is signed north–south along that border.

[1][2] The intersection of Main St and Rutgers Street in Belleville forms the end of one section of Route 7 (signed north, directionally west).

Though the northern section of Route 7 begins a few blocks south, it is not readily recognized (minimal signing).

[1][2] The second section of Route 7, designated a north–south road, heads north on Washington Avenue from the Second River crossing on the Newark/Belleville border, passing through a business district.

[1] The road crosses Norfolk Southern's Newark Industrial Track line at an intersection with County Route 648 (Centre Street).

[6][7] It served as a part of the Underground Railroad route for escaped slaves to get to Jersey City.

[14] In the 1953 New Jersey state highway renumbering, Route 7 was legislated onto its current alignment, with the northern terminus moved to the Nutley/Clifton border.