Taxi in Amsterdam: how it works and what it costs

Four ways to get a taxi in Amsterdam

There is no single answer to how you order a taxi here, because four different things are all called a taxi in Amsterdam and they work differently the moment something goes wrong.

• Book ahead, online. You enter the pickup address and the destination, you see what each vehicle type costs, and you pay before the ride starts. That is what this site does, and it needs no account and nothing installed.
• Walk up to a rank, or hail one. Fine for a short hop. You pay the meter, so the amount depends on how long you sit in traffic.
• Call a dispatch office. The old way, and still handy when you have no mobile data, or when your hotel reception calls one for you.
• A ride-hailing app. Convenient for a single trip, with a price that moves with demand rather than with a meter.

You can also hail a taxi in the street. If you do, check that it carries the official Amsterdam roof light with the TaXXXi logo, which is how the city marks the taxis that may pick you up that way.

Amsterdam taxi prices and what the meter may charge

Metered rides in the Netherlands have a legal ceiling that the national government sets every year. Any company may charge less; none may charge more. These are the 2026 maximums, in force since 1 January 2026.

Note the per-minute rate: the meter counts distance and time together, so the same route costs more at five in the afternoon than at five in the morning. That is how a fare can turn out higher than expected, and it is also why a metered fare for a route has no single number until you know when you travel.

There is also a waiting rate of at most €59.41 per hour, which a driver may only charge if you agreed it beforehand, for instance when the car waits while your meeting overruns.

To see what that ceiling means for a particular ride, fill in the distance and the driving time. The per-minute rate is why the second field matters: leave the distance alone and raise the minutes, and you can watch the same route get more expensive.

For the one route almost everybody asks about, the numbers are on airport to city centre. Staying at the seaside in The Hague? See taxi Scheveningen.

How to tell a licensed taxi from the rest

The City of Amsterdam lists what a certified taxi has: a blue number plate, a light on the roof with the company name and taxi number, a taximeter and the driver's taxi permit in view, and you should be given a printed receipt afterwards. Three of those are checkable in about five seconds, and together they rule out nearly everything that goes wrong.

• A blue number plate. A vehicle registered for taxi work carries one. An ordinary Dutch car has a yellow plate, and a yellow plate on a car offering you a paid ride is the end of the conversation.
• A driver card. Every professional driver holds a licence card with their photo, issued after an exam and a certificate of conduct. In a taxi from the rank or the street, the City of Amsterdam also wants the driver's taxi permit in view; ask if you cannot see it.
• A meter, or a price you agreed in advance. One of the two. Not neither. Keep the receipt: it states the taxi, the driver and the ride.

When you book rather than hail, part of this is settled before you ever see the car. A driver can only take rides once the platform has approved their application and their car. For every driver we review the driver card, driving licence, insurance and vehicle registration one by one, and a document that is about to expire comes up on our list before its expiry date, with a reminder to the driver. And your booking gives you a link that shows the car approaching on a map. The driver's name, car and number plate appear on that link as soon as the ride is assigned, and you can forward it to whoever is waiting for you.

Where the taxi ranks are

There are official taxi ranks throughout the city, and the busiest are at Schiphol and the train stations, which is where you will find a car waiting without arranging anything. The City of Amsterdam keeps a map of all of them. If you would rather not go looking for one, booking ahead brings the car to your door.

Taxis ordered through an app often leave from a separate pick-up point rather than the rank itself, at Schiphol in particular. If you booked, agree the exact spot with your driver instead of assuming. The city's map of ranks is linked at the bottom of this page.

Does Amsterdam have Uber?

Yes. There is Uber in Amsterdam, and it is not the only ride-hailing app operating here. What is worth knowing is not whether the apps are available but what they are: in the Netherlands a ride you book through an app is not a separate, lighter-regulated category of transport. It is taxi transport, under the same law as the car at the rank.

Uber does work in Amsterdam, but it works inside that system rather than beside it. The car carries a blue licence plate, the driver holds a chauffeurskaart issued by Kiwa Register, and the company behind the ride holds a taxi licence. The same three things you would check on any other taxi apply, and they apply to the app ride too.

So the useful question is not taxi against app. It is how the price is formed, and there are three ways:

• The meter, which is capped by law and does not move when demand does.
• A fixed price agreed in advance, which does not move at all once you have it in writing.
• A price that follows demand, which can sit below the meter on a quiet afternoon and above it when a lot of people want a car at once.

That last one is worth thinking about before you rely on it, because the moment you most need a car is usually the moment everyone else does: rain at closing time, or a hall full of delayed arrivals. Whether a particular app has cars near you right now is something only that app can tell you, and it changes by the hour. What does not change is the legal maximum on the meter, and the fact that a price you agreed in advance is still the price when you arrive.

When a taxi is the wrong answer

Amsterdam is a small, dense city with a lot of water and not much room for cars, and a taxi is genuinely not always the fastest way across it.

• Trams, metro and buses cover the centre and the ring, and they are cheaper per person than any car. Between two addresses on the same line, the taxi mostly buys you comfort.
• The train runs from Schiphol into the city and is the cheapest way in for one or two people travelling light.
• A bike is what locals use, and over short distances in the centre it is often quicker than a car. Bear in mind the traffic here takes cyclists seriously as traffic.

A taxi wins when you are carrying luggage, when there are more than two of you, when you are travelling at an hour when little else runs, or when your address simply has no decent connection. On those trips the number that matters is the price for the whole group and the door-to-door time, not the fare per person. Arriving by ship is the clearest case of all: see Rotterdam Cruise Terminal to Amsterdam. Sailing from IJmuiden instead? See taxi IJmuiden. Staying on the coast at Katwijk? See taxi Katwijk. Staying at the beach in Zandvoort? See taxi Zandvoort. Heading for the coast at Noordwijk? See taxi Noordwijk. Going to the island of Texel? See taxi Texel. Travelling from Kerkrade, on the German border? See taxi Kerkrade.

Who actually drives you

An Amsterdam taxi service is one of three things. A taxi company with its own cars and its own dispatch office. An independent driver with a licence, a registered vehicle and their own customers. Or a platform that connects one of the two to you.

This is the third kind. You book with a taxi company or a dispatcher connected to the network, and the ride is driven by one of their drivers or by an independent driver from the same network. WellTransfers does not own cars and does not employ drivers; what it does is show the company or dispatcher which approved drivers are free and nearby, so the booking can go to one of them, and make sure the money afterwards ends up in the right place.

The practical difference for you is that a ride is on somebody in particular. Complaints are recorded against a driver and a company, not into a void. What the network is and what it is not is set out on the English home page.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

Amounts and rules change regularly. Always check the current information with the official bodies.

• Rijksoverheid: maximum taxi fares (in Dutch)
• I amsterdam: taxis and taxi ranks in the city
• City of Amsterdam: taxis and taxi ranks
• Schiphol: Taxi to or from Schiphol airport