Taxis in Italy, and the airport fixed fare

Italian taxis are white, metered, and licensed to a specific city, and in practice you cannot flag one down on the street. Drivers are almost always already booked or heading to a rank, and near a taxi stand they are not even allowed to pick you up off the street. So the two ways to get a cab are to walk to a taxi rank, which you will find at stations, main squares and airports, or to use an app.

The apps to use are itTaxi and FreeNow (FreeNow is now part of Lyft), both of which dispatch the same licensed white metered taxis and let you pay by card. One payment note: if you did not book through an app, expect to pay cash. Drivers are technically required to accept cards, but in practice many do not, and you do not want to be arguing about it at the end of a ride.

If you are used to opening Uber and getting a cheap ride, Italy will surprise you. The UberX model, ordinary people driving their own cars, was banned by Italian courts in 2017 as unfair competition to licensed taxis. What remains is Uber Black, a premium pre-booked service using licensed private-hire (NCC) drivers in dark cars, which is comfortable but noticeably more expensive.

So treat Uber here as a chauffeur service, not a budget option. For a normal metered taxi at the regular fare, use itTaxi or FreeNow, or a taxi rank. The same caution applies to any NCC (noleggio con conducente) driver offered to you at an airport: they are legal but un-metered and pricier than a taxi, so know that is what you are choosing.

The single best protection for a visitor is the fixed airport fare. From Rome Fiumicino (FCO), a licensed white taxi to anywhere within the Aurelian Walls, the historic centre, is a flat 50 euros, charged per car for up to four passengers, with no extra for luggage, night driving or holidays. Ciampino and Milan Malpensa have their own fixed fares. Confirm you are getting the fixed fare before the meter starts, and note it applies only to Rome-licensed white taxis taken from the rank.

The scam to know is the abusivi, unlicensed drivers most common at Fiumicino and busy tourist sites. They approach you inside the terminal, often in plain clothes with a car that is not white, and offer a fixed price that turns out to be two to four times the real fare. Official drivers wait at the rank and never approach you, so the rule is simple: only take a taxi from the official rank, and refuse anyone who comes up to you. Into Rome, the Leonardo Express train is a cheap and reliable alternative.

In the city, the meter's starting amount and per-kilometer rate vary by city, time of day and day of the week, and there are legitimate municipal surcharges for nights, weekends, holidays and luggage. Those are set by the city, not invented by the driver, so they are not the scam. On the fixed airport fare, by contrast, no supplements are allowed at all.

Tipping is not expected in Italy, and rounding up to a convenient figure is more than enough. For the wider money picture, including how much cash to carry and where cards work, see the Italy money guide.

Common questions

Quick answers.

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