How to become a taxi driver in France, from training to your first fare
Eight steps stand between a car licence and your first metered fare, and the exam is not the slowest one.
Checked by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · Method and sources
To work as a taxi driver in France in 2026 you need a category B licence held for 3 years (2 after accompanied driving), a criminal record free of the convictions listed in article R3120-8 of the Transport Code, a favourable opinion from a prefecture-approved doctor and a PSC1 first-aid certificate under 2 years old. You then sit the exam run by the chamber of trades (CMA), €241 in 2026. Training is recommended but optional; service-public puts it at 50 to 300 hours for €400 to €3,000. The professional card costs about €60 and only covers the département (county-level area) where you passed, unless you take a mobility course. The hardest part comes last: you need a licence, called an ADS (parking authorisation). You can wait years for a free one, buy one for €30,000 to €300,000, rent one, or drive as an employee on your employer’s licence.
Your budget to become a taxi driver
Before your first fare, vehicle excluded
€1,911
| Exam and card (regulated) | €301 |
| Training, PSC1, doctor (assumed €50) | €1,610 |
| Licence | €0 |
Four personal requirements
The prefecture (the State’s office in each département) checks four things when it issues your card, so confirm them before you pay for anything. Your category B licence must be at least 3 years old, or 2 if you learned through accompanied driving, and your probationary period must be over; the CMA will not even register you while it runs. A licence from outside the EU is accepted for exam registration only within a year of settling in France, so newcomers should not wait. Your criminal record extract (bulletin no. 2) must not show any conviction listed in article R3120-8 of the Transport Code.
You also need a favourable medical opinion on form cerfa no. 14880, signed by a doctor approved by the prefecture; your own GP cannot sign it. The fourth requirement applies to taxis only: a PSC1 certificate, the basic French civil first-aid course, taken within the last 2 years. VTC drivers are exempt. The CMA lists all of this in its October 2025 access conditions.
Neither the medical opinion nor the first-aid certificate is needed to register for the exam. They come into play later, for the card, so time them carefully: one that expired a few weeks before you apply has to be redone.
Taxi training: useful but optional
You can sit the exam as an independent candidate. Service-public still describes training as strongly recommended, and the syllabus explains why: national and local regulations, business management, road safety, French, English, and a driving test where you operate a meter, a receipt printer and a card terminal while two examiners play passengers. If French is not your first language, the French paper and the local rules paper deserve the most preparation time.
Approved schools, listed on each prefecture’s website, advertise roughly 50 to 300 hours, at €400 to €3,000 according to service-public. Your CPF (compte personnel de formation, the training credit every worker in France accrues) can fund it, and France Travail, the public employment service, may help jobseekers. We do not recommend any school. Compare quotes and ask whether the equipped car for the driving test is included, because the exam fee does not cover it.
The calculator at the top of this page adds up what you will spend before your first fare, using your own quotes. The start-up cost calculator breaks it down line by line.
The chamber of trades exam
Taxi, VTC and motorbike-taxi candidates share the same exam framework, but two of the seven written papers are taxi-only, and one of them tests the geography and local rules of your département. You pass the written stage with a weighted average of at least 10 out of 20 and no paper below its elimination mark, then take a practical test marked out of 20, with 12 needed to pass. You register online with the CMA, at €241 in 2026.
Papers, timings, weightings and the driving-test scale are set out on the taxi exam page, which also has a calculator for your practical mark. One consequence matters here: taxi candidates take the driving test in the département where they intend to work, and that is where the card will be valid.
A professional card tied to one département
With the CMA pass certificate, you apply for the taxi driver card online on Démarches simplifiées, the government forms portal, which works in French only. The prefecture checks your ID, licence, medical opinion, first-aid certificate and exam result. The card costs about €60 and lasts 5 years. There is no deadline after the exam, but if you apply more than 5 years later, service-public says you must add a continuing-training certificate under 5 years old.
The big difference from VTC work is geographical: a taxi card only lets you work in the département where you passed. The authorities can warn a driver who breaks the profession’s rules, or withdraw the card for a period or for good.
Adding départements: taxi mobility
If you move, or your customers live across the border of the next département, interdepartmental mobility lets you extend the card, up to 4 départements. It requires a 14-hour course, 35 hours for Paris, covering the new area’s streets, landmarks and local rules. With the course certificate you request a new card listing the authorised départements, again about €60. The framework comes from the order of 11 August 2017.
Owner, tenant or employee
Service-public describes three ways to work. They need very different sums up front and leave very different amounts at the end of the month.
| Status | Licence | Vehicle | Pay |
|---|---|---|---|
| Owner-driver (artisan) | yours, free or bought | your cost, including upkeep and insurance | all the profit |
| Tenant (location-gérance) | rented, contract of at least 1 year | maintained by the rental firm | all takings, minus the rent |
| Employee | held by the employer | maintained and insured by the employer | fixed wage plus a share of meter takings |
An owner-driver is an artisan, the French legal category for skilled trades, under article L125-5 of the Crafts Code. You set up a business (micro-entreprise, sole trader, single-member company) and register it on the national business register. A tenant is self-employed too, and service-public points out that tenants get no unemployment benefit if they stop. An employee has an ordinary work contract. For what each one actually keeps, see taxi driver earnings, where all three cases are run through the calculator.
The licence is the real hurdle
No taxi runs without an ADS (autorisation de stationnement), which drivers call the licence or the plate. It belongs to the vehicle, its area is programmed into the meter, and it alone gives you the right to pick up passengers who hail you in the street or queue at a rank.
You can get one in three ways. The town hall, or the Préfecture de police in Paris, hands out new licences free of charge from a waiting list, giving priority to drivers already working for 2 years. The holder of an older licence can sell you theirs at a price they set, which service-public puts between €30,000 and €300,000. A specialist firm can rent you one. You need the professional card to apply for a free licence or to rent one.
Transfer rules, validity, published prices and a buy-versus-rent calculation are on the taxi licence page. The calculator below gives a first answer with your own figures.
Taxi licence: buy on credit or rent?
Monthly repayment over 10 years
€1,555
| Gap with the rent, per month | -€1,945 |
| Interest over the term | €36,549 |
| Years of rent equal to the price | 4.5 |
Default price and rent: Paris orders of magnitude published by service-public. 4.50 % rate: replace it with your own offer.
Outside your area, bookings only
The licence defines a territory. Beyond it, you may not pick up anyone who flags you down: the ride must have been booked first, and you must be able to show proof of the booking at a roadside check, on paper or on screen. Articles L3121-11 onwards of the Transport Code set the principle, and the order of 6 August 2025 lists what the proof must contain: the ADS number, the operator’s name and contact details, the Siren business number, the customer’s name and phone number, the time the booking was made, and the requested pick-up date, time and place.
The same applies to a driver with no licence at all. If the customer’s name or number is missing, you must give the officer a way to reach them on the spot. Logging every booking in an app is the simplest protection.
The car and its compulsory equipment
A taxi seats no more than 9 people including the driver. Service-public lists what it must carry:
- a roof sign reading “taxi” with the name of the town, lit green when free and red when taken;
- a meter recording time and distance, visible to the passenger;
- a card payment terminal;
- a printer linked to the meter for receipts;
- a plate, readable from outside, showing the ADS number and the département or départements where you may work.
The roadworthiness test (contrôle technique) is due in the first year and then every year, with no reminder sent; the meter and roof sign are checked as part of it. Your insurance must cover professional use, with professional liability cover. Fares are capped by a ministerial order and updated in the meter every year under the official fare rules; this site leaves the fare table itself to passenger-facing sites.
Service-public also mentions a smartphone with an app approved by le.taxi, the national taxi availability register. That service has been suspended since 12 June 2026, and the obligations linked to it cannot be met since then.
Taxi-relais: a replacement car
If your car is off the road after a breakdown, an accident or a theft, you may temporarily drive a registered replacement vehicle, known as a taxi-relais. The MesADS website keeps a directory of those available in each département. It covers the period of immobilisation, not a permanent change of car.
Health-insurance work (CPAM agreement)
Outside the big cities, many taxi drivers earn a good part of their income driving seated patients to treatment, paid by the health insurance fund (CPAM). To do so you sign an agreement with the local fund based on the framework agreement approved by the order of 29 July 2025. Its fares have applied since 1 November 2025; the agreement runs for one year, renewable up to 5 years. The CPAM-approved taxi page has the details.
Before 1 January 2027, every vehicle under the agreement must be fitted with geolocation certified by the health insurance, recording pick-up and drop-off times and places, and with SEFI, the integrated electronic billing system that charges the real distance driven. To install SEFI you first need a healthcare establishment card from the Agence du numérique en santé, the digital health agency. If you plan to do this work, cost both devices into your vehicle budget from day one.
The agreement also requires you to offer shared rides when the prescription allows it, for treatments such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy, dialysis, rehabilitation and day hospital care: a detour of no more than 10 km, within 30 km of the destination, and no more than 45 extra minutes of waiting. A patient who refuses pays the fare directly, and the refusal is noted on the invoice.
Once you are up and running
The card expires after 5 years. Renewal requires a 14-hour continuing training course over two days, at least 3 months before expiry, followed by a new application. The course is covered on the continuing training page, and the renewal calendar works out your dates.
A free licence issued since 1 October 2014 lasts 5 years, and renewal must be requested 3 months before it ends. Every year there is also the roadworthiness test, the meter update for new fares, and your tax return, with 10 % VAT on passenger transport once you pass the exemption threshold (see VAT for taxi drivers).
The steps in order
- Check your licence age, criminal record and probationary period.
- Decide whether to train, then register for the exam with the CMA.
- Pass the written papers, then the driving test in your chosen département.
- Take PSC1 and see the approved doctor within the two years before applying for the card.
- Apply for the card on Démarches simplifiées.
- Pick a status and, as owner or tenant, register your business.
- Obtain, buy or rent a licence, or sign a work contract.
- Equip and insure the car, then sign the CPAM agreement if you want patient work.
The CMA exam also leads to private-hire work. If the wait for a licence puts you off, compare with the VTC route, which needs no licence but rules out street hails.