Where are Spain's cheapest (and most expensive) taxis? Consumer organisation study explains

AN ANNUAL consumer watchdog survey of taxi fares across Spain has revealed the provincial capital cities where a cab is the cheapest and the most expensive – with few changes since the previous study.

The average minimum fare for a cab in a city on a weekday during the daytime is €3.48, although the difference between the cheapest and most expensive of the 56 cities studied is a whopping 125%.

Although taxi fares out in the provinces – outside the cities – may or may not be slightly cheaper, they generally remain on the same scale of expensiveness or cheapness as their capitals, meaning that a cab in or between towns or villages in the provinces of Tarragona or two of the three in the Basque Country will be among the most expensive in the country, as is the case with their capitals, San Sebastián and Vitoria.
 

No room for fraud or bogus taxis – cabs and their meters are easy to spot

Taxis in Spain typically come under the umbrella of their town or city council, which issues licences – although cabbies themselves are self-employed, tariffs set are the same across the board in each town, meaning there is nothing to be gained by 'shopping around'.

Nowadays, practically every taxi takes card payments for any amount, and the digital meter is clearly shown on the dashboard so there can be no confusion – and tourists will have no reason to suspect drivers are 'trying to pull a fast one'.

Drivers will be able to give a close estimate of the price upon request before travellers decide whether to use the service.

Cabs are identical in design, bear 'taxi' signs, and their licence numbers and their regional government logo are prominently displayed, eliminating the danger of anyone getting into a stranger's car or a bogus cab-driver's vehicle by mistake.

Hotels, airports without a taxi rank, and other major set-off points will either call a cab for travellers on request, or direct them to the nearest pick-up if this is just outside.

Cheapest and most expensive on average

FACUA-Consumers in Action says that whilst the cities of Tarragona, San Sebastián (Guipúzcoa province) and Vitoria (Álava province) are the most pricey in Spain, the cheapest in the country as a whole are in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and in the north-African enclave of Ceuta, just across the water from Gibraltar; on the mainland, however, the cheapest city to catch a cab in is Cádiz, meaning that fees across the rest of the province of Cádiz, including the Costa de la Luz area, are likely to be among the lowest on the Spanish side of the Iberian peninsula.

To assess typical prices, FACUA looked at the minimum fees or the cost of travelling one kilometre, the cost of travelling five kilometres, and 10 kilometres, during the day and at night, and at nights on weekends.

They also looked at some airport taxi minimum costs, which were necessarily higher than those around city streets only.

Supplements for nights, including weekend nights, on the minimum fare were at their highest in the city of Málaga, at €6.75, and at their lowest in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, at barely €3.

Out of 56 cities, 30 have not increased their fares since 2019

Fares have gone up since 2019 in 26 of the 56 cities, although in some cases, only during specific time periods – in Madrid, for example, only the night fare has risen, by 2.2%.

The greatest rise since 2019 was seen in the city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, where fares are now 5.2% higher than in 2019, followed by Castellón (3.7%), Huesca, in the Pyrénées of Aragón (2.5%), and Alicante (2.3%).

For the minimum fare, the highest increase was seen in Castellón, which has gone up 12.5% for daytime trips and 10% at night, with the former rising from €4 to €4.50 and the latter from €5 to €5.50.

Getting a taxi during the daytime had the most expensive minimum fare in San Sebastián (€5.33), Teruel (€5), and the capital of the land-locked northern Catalunya province of Lleida (€4.65).

Night-time minimum fees are the most pricey in Málaga (€6.75), followed by San Sebastián (€6.18), and Castellón (€5.50).

The cheapest minimum daytime fares are found in three cities in Galicia in the far north-west – Lugo (€1.88), Pontevedra (€2.09) and Ourense (€2.10).

Across the country as a whole, the average minimum fee for a daytime trip between Monday and Friday is €3.48.

Per-kilometre and through-the-door rates

The average price per kilometre after the minimum is 94 cents, an increase of 0.8% on 2019 fares, or €1.16 at night, a rise of 0.7% on 2019.

Cities with the most expensive rate per kilometre travelled after paying the minimum fare are Barcelona (€1.18), Castellón (€1.15), and jointly, Madrid, Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Ourense (€1.10).

The highest prices per kilometre after the minimum fare for night travel were found in Barcelona and Zaragoza (€1.41), and the two Galicia cities of Santiago de Compostela (€1.40) and Lugo (€1.39).

Travel at night per kilometre after the minimum fare is cheapest in Cádiz (70 cents), Ceuta (71 cents) and San Sebastián (73 cents), and daytime travel per kilometre after the minimum price is cheapest in Ceuta (71 cents, with no variation between day and night), Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (75 cents) and the other north-African enclave of Melilla, directly due south of the province of Almería, at 85 cents.

In some cities, passengers pay a set fee from the moment they get in the car and the 'available' sign is switched to 'occupied', although not in every case.

This fee is applied on top of the minimum, or onto the per-kilometre tariff which kicks in once it exceeds the minimum fare.

The average through-the-door price went up 1% in 2020, averaging €1.93 in the daytime and €2.63 at weekends or at nights.

San Sebastián, once again, had the highest of these in the daytime, at €4.23, followed by Teruel at €3.80 and Tarragona at €3.50, whilst at night, the most expensive is in Tarragona, at €4.70, followed by Girona on the Costa Brava at €4.60 and San Sebastián at €4.49.

For those cities with a through-the-door tariff added to the per-kilometre rate – applicable once this exceeds the minimum – the cheapest in the daytime is Ceuta, at 90 cents, followed by a wide margin by Castellón, at €1.25, and Guadalajara, capital of the Castilla-La Mancha province to the north-east of Madrid, at €1.34.

At night, the lowest of these is in Castellón, where it does not change from the daytime rate of €1.25, followed by Santa Cruz de Tenerife at €1.56, and Sevilla at €1.66.

Airport rates

Airport minimum rates are typically considerably higher than minimum city rates – as soon as the taxi leaves or enters the terminal gates, a set fee applies, even just to travel to the next street.

The highest of these is in Santiago de Compostela, at €21, and in Barcelona, Madrid and the western Extremadura city of Badajoz, almost on the Portuguese border, the minimum is €20.

Rates per kilometre apply once the minimum airport fee has been exceeded, and these vary across the country – as an example, for Valencia, this remains at €12.

In many cases, though, the city metro runs close to or even straight into the airport terminal, meaning taxis are most likely to be needed for very late-night arrivals after the metro ceases.

Most airports in Spain are also served by buses during the daytime, although services diminish and often stop altogether at night.