What a taxi driver in France really takes home
A self-employed taxi driver has no salary: you keep what is left of the takings, and the licence decides much of it.
Checked by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · Method and sources
A self-employed taxi driver in France, whether owner or tenant, has no salary. Income is what remains of the meter takings after VAT, vehicle costs, any licence rent or loan repayment, and social contributions. We found no public statistics on taxi drivers’ income that we could cite, so the figures here are estimates from the site’s calculator, based on assumptions you can change. With €1,500 of takings a week over 46 weeks, under the standard (réel) tax regime, the calculator estimates about €2,579 net a month before income tax for a driver who owns the licence, against about €613 for a tenant paying €3,500 a month in rent, the Paris figure published by service-public, the official administration website. An employed taxi driver earns a fixed wage plus a percentage of the meter takings, and cannot be paid below the national minimum wage (Smic).
How much a taxi driver earns: your case
Estimated net per month, before income tax
€2,663
| Net per hour | €13.90 |
| Contributions per month | €1,124 |
| VAT to pay over per month | €523 |
Micro-enterprise, 46 weeks, example vehicle costs: replace them in the full calculator.
Why “salary” is the wrong word for an owner-driver
Service-public puts it simply: an owner-driver (artisan) keeps all the profit, and a tenant keeps all the takings and pays rent. Neither gets a payslip. What they earn comes from six factors that multiply or subtract: the takings on the meter, how the licence was obtained, vehicle costs, VAT, social contributions, and the hours spent at the wheel.
So this page gives no “average taxi salary”. We found no sourced public statistics (from Insee, the national statistics office, Dares, the labour ministry’s research unit, or an official report) on taxi drivers’ income. The amounts below are estimates from the calculator, built on your assumptions and the official 2026 rates. They are not a promise.
The licence changes everything: three cases, same takings
To isolate the licence effect, we ran the site’s engine with identical takings, €1,500 a week, over 46 weeks of 50 hours, under the réel regime (tax on actual profit). Example monthly costs for the owner: fuel €450, vehicle €500, insurance €250, servicing €90, sundries €150. For the tenant we remove the vehicle and servicing, which service-public says the rental firm covers, and add the published Paris rent of €3,500. For the buyer, we subtract from net income the repayment on a 10-year loan at the published Paris price, with a €40,000 deposit at 4.5 %.
| Case | Costs per year | Contributions per year | Net per month | Net per hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Licence owned (free or paid off) | €17,280 | €14,496 | €2,579 | €13.46 |
| Licence rented at €3,500 a month | €52,200 | €3,171 | €613 | €3.20 |
| Licence bought on credit (net minus €1,555 repayment) | €17,280 | €14,496 | €1,025 | €5.35 |
A driver whose licence was free, or is paid off, keeps the most. The tenant pays monthly rent that far exceeds the vehicle costs it saves. The buyer sits in between while the loan runs, then catches up with the owner. Treat the buyer’s row as an approximation: loan interest, which normally reduces taxable profit and contributions, is not modelled.
At €2,000 a week, the same tenant would take home about €1,818 a month according to the calculator. The full buy-versus-rent comparison is on the taxi licence page.
Takings: what the meter shows, not what you hope for
Taxi fares are capped by regulation, and takings depend on things no official text quantifies: the city, your shifts, how much work comes from bookings, and how much from patient transport under the health-insurance agreement. That is why the calculator starts from your weekly takings rather than a number of rides we would have to guess. If you are starting out, ask drivers in your area what their meter shows over a normal week, or rent for a few months and keep your records before committing to a purchase.
Time matters as much as money. At 50 hours a week, the owner in our example nets €13.46 an hour. More hours raise monthly income, but licence rent does not stop during holidays; the full calculator lets you set the number of weeks worked.
VAT and contributions
10 % VAT
Passenger transport carries 10 % VAT under article 279 b quater of the General Tax Code. Below €37,500 of takings a year, the small-business exemption (franchise en base) means you charge none; it ends above €41,250, according to page F21746. Because the meter shows a VAT-inclusive fare, once VAT applies it is taken out of your takings rather than added to the passenger’s bill. In our example that is about €523 a month. Reclaiming VAT on purchases is covered in VAT for taxi and VTC drivers.
Micro-entreprise or réel
Under the micro-entreprise scheme, contributions are a flat share of takings excluding VAT: 21.2 %, plus 0.3 % for craft-trade vocational training (Urssaf, the body that collects contributions), up to €83,600 of takings. No costs are deducted from that base. Under the réel regime, contributions are charged on profit after the 26 % allowance introduced by the reform of the self-employed contribution base, using the craft-trade rates.
For an owner with moderate costs, the two regimes end up close: about €2,663 a month under micro against €2,579 under réel in our example. For a tenant the gap is huge, a loss of about €247 a month under micro against €613 under réel, because rent does not reduce the micro contribution base. The calculator does not model a SASU company, whose contributions we have not sourced.
Employed drivers: fixed pay plus a share
An employee of a taxi firm does not own a licence. Service-public describes the pay in two parts: a fixed wage and a percentage of the monthly takings on the meter. The employer maintains and insures the car. The page gives no amount for the fixed part and no percentage, and we will not make them up: they are in your employment contract.
There is a floor, as for every employee in France: the Smic, €12.31 gross per hour in 2026 according to service-public, about €1,867 gross a month for a full-time 151.67 hours. Employment removes the licence and vehicle risk, and it counts towards a free licence: priority on the waiting list goes to drivers with 2 years of taxi work.
Run your own numbers
The calculator at the top of the page takes three inputs, takings, licence rent and hours, and keeps the other assumptions under the micro scheme. The full net income calculator lets you change everything: regime, weeks, fuel, insurance, vehicle. To compare with private-hire work, see what a VTC driver earns. If you do not have a card yet, start with how to become a taxi driver.