What it costs to move a car with a driver: the cost per kilometre, why a short trip has a minimum and what lies behind a tariff
The cost of moving a car with a driver has three layers: the fixed costs of the year, paid even if the car does not move (depreciation or the vehicle instalment, liability and compulsory passenger insurance, taxes, fees, endorsements, technical inspection, authorisation, accountant and tools); the variable costs per kilometre (fuel or energy, tyres, maintenance, wear, washing); and the cost of the driver's time, which runs whether the car carries a passenger or drives empty to collect them or back from dropping them. The cost per billable kilometre comes from spreading the fixed costs over the kilometres actually charged in the year, adding the variable cost and adding the time. That is why a short trip needs a minimum covering the approach and the return, and a long one spreads the fixed costs over more kilometres and gets cheaper per unit.
Written by Ridelta - Taxi y VTC · reviewed on 27 October 2026
What costs does a car with a driver carry and which ones go unseen?
The visible costs are the ones paid at the filling station or the charger and at the workshop: fuel or energy per kilometre, tyres every so many kilometres, servicing, brakes, oil, washing and the repairs that come with the car's age. They are variable costs because they grow with the kilometres, and a driver usually keeps them in mind because they pay them often. But not even these are well known unless they are written down: the real consumption of a loaded car in city traffic is not the one on the spec sheet, the price of energy changes with where and when you charge, and the maintenance of a passenger vehicle, with its more frequent technical inspection, costs more than that of a private car.
The unseen costs are the fixed ones: the vehicle loses value every month even when parked, and that depreciation, or the finance or rental instalment that replaces it, is the largest cost of the activity for many drivers; the liability insurance with the cover the activity needs and the compulsory passenger insurance, which the law requires for carrying people; the road tax and, when due, the registration tax; the fees for endorsements, inspections and the administration; the cost of the authorisation, whether the instalment of its financing or the return that money no longer yields; the accountant, the phone, the software and the self-employed contribution; and, when working with a platform, the commission or remuneration model it publishes. That sum is divided by the kilometres invoiced, not by the kilometres driven.
Why does a short trip have a minimum and a long one get cheaper per kilometre?
A service never starts or ends where the passenger is. The car leaves the base or the previous service, drives empty kilometres to the pickup, does the trip that is charged and returns empty to the base or to the next service; on a one-way transfer, the return is as long as the outward leg and nobody pays for it separately. That is why the kilometre driven and the kilometre invoiced do not coincide, and the ratio between them, which depends on how services are chained, is the variable that moves the real cost most. A short trip also has a fixed time that does not depend on distance: finding the passenger, loading the luggage, waiting, collecting payment and closing the service.
If those empty kilometres and that fixed time are spread over the few kilometres of a short trip, the cost per invoiced kilometre shoots up, and a tariff strictly proportional to distance would lose money on every short service. Hence the minimum amount that any serious tariff has: it covers the approach, the return and the handling time even if the passenger travels only a few hundred metres. At the other extreme, a long trip spreads the approach, the return and the day's fixed costs over many kilometres, and the cost per invoiced kilometre approaches the variable cost plus time; that is why the per-kilometre rate falls with distance without anyone giving anything away. The fixed price of a pre-booking platform reproduces that curve, as the piece on fixed pricing explains.
How do you work out your own cost per kilometre?
The method has four steps and no figure that holds for everyone. First, add up the fixed costs of a year: depreciation or vehicle instalments, insurance, taxes, fees, authorisation, accountant, tools and the self-employed contribution. Second, estimate the billable kilometres of that year, not the total ones: the days actually worked, the services that fit into each and the kilometres with a passenger in each service, with the share of empty running that your own operation shows. Dividing the first by the second gives the fixed cost per invoiced kilometre, which tends to surprise. Third, calculate the variable cost per total kilometre, with the real consumption, tyres, maintenance and washing written down, and multiply it by the ratio of total to invoiced kilometres to load it entirely onto the ones that are charged.
Fourth, time. The driver has a cost per hour, whether the salary with its social charges in a fleet or what a self-employed driver decides their hour is worth for the activity to make sense, and that cost runs through the whole service: approach, waiting, trip, return and handling. Dividing the year's hours by the invoiced kilometres gives the hours each charged kilometre costs, and multiplying them by the hourly cost gives the time component per kilometre. The sum of the three components is the cost per invoiced kilometre, the only one useful for comparing with a tariff. It is worth recalculating it from time to time with real data, because consumption, the share of empty running and the price of energy change, and worth doing it by type of service, because the cost of a small-hours airport transfer is not that of a recurring morning route.
What about the time of day, public holidays and waiting?
The time of day changes the cost in two ways. The first is the driver: night, public holiday or Sunday work carries, in the sector's collective agreements, supplements that make the hour dearer, and for a self-employed driver it means an opportunity and rest cost they must weigh; the second is operational: in the small hours there is no previous or following service to chain with, so the approach and the return are almost always empty and the trip bears the whole weight of the day's fixed costs. That is why a tariff with a night or holiday surcharge is not a whim but the reflection of a higher cost, and a driver who accepts services at those hours without a surcharge is subsidising the customer's price with their own rest.
Waiting is pure time: the car covers no kilometres, so there is no variable cost, but the driver and the vehicle remain occupied and the fixed costs keep running. Its cost is the driver's hour plus that hour's share of fixed costs, and it also has a hidden cost, that of the next service reached late or that cannot be accepted. Any tariff includes a reasonable wait in the price and charges for what goes beyond it; what a platform considers reasonable and how it charges the excess is stated in its published terms, and a driver who knows them knows whether an airport pickup with a delayed flight pays off or not. What they must not do is treat waiting as free in their own calculation.
How do you read a platform tariff to know whether it covers the cost?
A platform tariff is read by breaking it into the same pieces as the cost. There is a minimum amount or a base, a per-kilometre component, sometimes one for estimated time, surcharges for time of day, holidays, vehicle or extras, and a driver remuneration model the platform publishes that defines what share of the price reaches the person driving. With the cost per invoiced kilometre in hand, the comparison is direct: what the driver receives for a service, with its passenger kilometres and its total estimated time, including the foreseeable approach and return, must exceed the cost of that service calculated with the three components. If it falls short on an isolated service it may still pay within a chained day; if it falls short on the average of a month, the tariff does not cover the cost.
Two criteria complete the reading. The first is the minimum: you have to check that the minimum amount the tariff pays for a short service covers at least the approach, the handling time and the return of that service, because that is where a tariff generous per kilometre can hide losses. The second is predictability: in pre-booking the driver knows the service, its price and what they will be paid before accepting it, so they can decline what does not cover their cost and plan the chaining that reduces empty running, which is the most powerful lever on the real cost. This platform's specific terms for drivers are on its page, and the piece on how a driver works explains the model; here there is room only for the method.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my cost per kilometre higher than a private car's?
Because a private car pays no authorisation, passenger insurance, endorsements, accountant or the driver's hour, and because you count only the kilometres you invoice, not the ones you drive. Spreading fixed costs over fewer kilometres raises the cost per unit.
Do I count the empty return in the cost?
Always. It is a kilometre that consumes, wears and takes time and that nobody pays for separately; it is loaded onto the invoiced kilometres through the ratio between total and charged kilometres.
How do I value my hour if I am self-employed?
Decide what you need to take home in a year for the activity to be worthwhile, add the self-employed contribution and the days without income for holidays or illness, and divide it by the hours you actually work. Count the approach, waiting and handling hours too, not only those with a passenger on board.
Is a tariff with a good per-kilometre rate always good?
No. Look first at the minimum it pays for a short service, whether it includes waiting and how it treats the return, and compare it with your cost over the average of a month, not on the best service.
Where are this platform's terms for drivers?
On its drivers page and in the agreement signed on sign-up; the commission or remuneration model and the included waiting are its own, not the sector's, and may change, which is why they are not written here.
Sources
- Real Decreto Legislativo 8/2004, Ley sobre responsabilidad civil y seguro en la circulación de vehículos a motor: seguro obligatorio del vehículo (consulted on 27 October 2026)
- Real Decreto 1575/1989, Reglamento del Seguro Obligatorio de Viajeros: obligación de asegurar a los viajeros en el transporte público (consulted on 27 October 2026)
- Real Decreto 920/2017, inspección técnica de vehículos: periodicidad reforzada para los vehículos de transporte de viajeros (consulted on 27 October 2026)
- Ley 16/1987, de Ordenación de los Transportes Terrestres: autorización de arrendamiento de vehículos con conductor y visado (consulted on 27 October 2026)
How we write, where the figures come from and how we correct an error: editorial policy.
This piece explains a method and its variables, without figures, because the cost of each car and each driver depends on their vehicle, their area, their working day and the way they chain services, and because the prices of energy, insurance and taxes change. It is not tax or employment advice, nor an estimate of earnings.