VTC regulation by region: what changes from one territory to another since Royal Decree-Law 13/2018 and how a fleet manages it
Since Royal Decree-Law 13/2018, the national VTC authorisation covers interurban trips and urban transport is regulated by each region and, within it, by each town council. The result is a map of differing rules: some territories require the service to be contracted with a minimum notice, others ban showing available cars to the user or hailing in the street, others have created their own urban authorisation, a badge or a register of drivers, and others have barely regulated at all. A fleet must know in which municipality each service starts and ends, which rule governs there and which entitlement its vehicle holds. The sources are each region's official gazette, its transport department and the municipal by-laws, not what is heard around the trade.
Written by Ridelta - Taxi y VTC · reviewed on 27 October 2026
Why is the VTC regulated differently in each region?
The reason is legal before it is political. Urban passenger transport is a power of the regions and the town councils, and the LOTT regulates it only insofar as it affects the system as a whole. While the national VTC authorisation covered any trip, that power lay dormant: nobody needed an urban rule for a service that was already covered. Royal Decree-Law 13/2018 narrowed the scope of the national authorisation to interurban transport and said expressly that the regions could regulate the conditions of urban service, or empower the councils to do so, from the notice required for contracting to the characteristics of the vehicle. What used to be a single rule became as many as there were administrations choosing to exercise their power.
Each has exercised it in its own way. Some regions soon passed a law or a decree-law with a complete regime for the urban VTC; others delegated to their councils, so that the regional capital has one by-law and the neighbouring municipality another or none; others have not regulated and there the urban service continues under the general pre-booking rule. Territories with more tourism and more conflict with the taxi have tended towards more detailed rules; sparsely populated ones, towards leaving the question open. Time adds to that diversity: a rule passed during the transitional period may have been partly struck down by a court or amended later, and what applies today is not what was published then.
What is an urban service and what is an interurban one?
The distinction that orders everything is simple to state: a service is urban when it runs entirely within a single municipality, and interurban when it leaves it, however slightly. Neither distance nor duration counts: a long trip between two districts of a sprawling city is urban, and a short one between two adjoining municipalities of a metropolitan area is interurban. The law also allows the regions to define urban transport areas grouping several municipalities, so that within them a service between two municipalities of the area may be treated as urban. Each fleet needs to know whether one of those areas exists in its territory and which municipalities it includes.
The consequence for the VTC with a national authorisation is direct. A transfer from a city to its airport is interurban if the airport lies in another municipality, which is the usual case, and urban if it lies within the same municipal boundary; a service from a hotel to a station in the same city is urban; a pickup in one municipality with a destination in the next is interurban even if the car never left the built-up area. The same authorisation, the same car and the same driver may do some and not others depending on where the two addresses are. That is why the piece of data a fleet needs from each service, before anything else, is the municipality of origin and of destination, not just the addresses.
What kinds of requirements have appeared in regional and municipal rules?
The requirements that have appeared recur, with variations, in the territories that have regulated. The most widespread is a minimum notice between contracting and the start of the service, so that pre-booking is real and not a workaround for immediate hailing; the figure is set by each rule and has been challenged in court. Next come the ban on driving or parking on public roads while waiting for customers and the duty to return to base or to an off-street car park when finished; the ban on geolocating or showing the user the available vehicles before contracting; and the requirement that the contract be documented with specific details, on top of the communication to the national register.
On another level are the access requirements: an urban authorisation or entitlement of their own, distinct from the national one, to provide service within the municipality or the area, sometimes with a cap linked to the taxi stock or to environmental goals; a badge or plate visible on the vehicle; vehicle characteristics such as maximum age, dimensions or environmental label; a register or accreditation of drivers, with training or an exam; and duties to report periodically to the administration on the services provided. There are also territories that regulate the price, requiring it to be communicated to the customer before the service and recorded, which fits naturally with the fixed price of a pre-booking platform.
Why must a fleet operating near a regional boundary look at two sets of rules?
A fleet based near the boundary between two regions lives that diversity every day. Its interurban services are covered by the national authorisation on both sides, because that authorisation is national in scope, but the national rule requires it to provide services habitually within the territory of the region where it is domiciled, so it cannot in practice become a fleet of the neighbouring territory without changing its domicile. And as soon as it accepts an urban service on the other side of the boundary, the rule that governs is the one over there: its minimum notice, its entitlement, its badge. What is legal on one side of a road may be a serious offence on the other, with the same car and the same passenger.
The inspectorate, moreover, belongs to the region where the service is provided, and applies its rule and its penalty regime to any vehicle it finds in its territory. A fleet operating in two regions therefore has two counterparts and two regulatory calendars, and needs its dispatching system to know, for each service, not only whether it is urban or interurban but in which region and in which municipality it is urban, so as not to assign it to a vehicle without that place's entitlement. The same holds, within one region, for a fleet working in several municipalities with different by-laws: each urban service is governed by the by-law of the municipality in which it runs.
How does a fleet keep informed and what does it do with a service that crosses territories?
Keeping properly informed has three sources, all three official. The region's official gazette publishes the laws, decrees and orders on transport, and the department responsible for transport or mobility usually keeps a page with the consolidated rules, the procedures for the urban entitlement, the driver registers and the badges; it is the first stop. The provincial official gazette and the council's website publish the municipal taxi and VTC by-laws and their amendments. The Ministry, for its part, maintains the national rules and access to the communications register and the register of transport companies. Trade associations help with interpretation, but the rule is the one in the gazette.
With a service that crosses territories, the method is to look first at its nature and then at its points. If origin and destination are in different municipalities, the service is interurban and the national authorisation covers it, in any combination of regions, with the prior communication to the register and respecting the authorisation's territorial habituality; the empty return is not a service and needs nothing. If the customer asks, within that journey, for a stop or a second leg that starts and ends in the same municipality of another region, that leg is urban there and requires its entitlement. And when a fleet receives from a platform a service it cannot cover with its vehicles' entitlements, the right thing is to decline it or pass it to an entitled fleet, not to take the risk; this platform's fleets page states which documents are requested on sign-up.
Frequently asked questions
Is the national VTC authorisation valid throughout Spain?
For interurban services, yes, with the duty to provide services habitually in the region where it is domiciled and to communicate each service to the register. For urban services it depends on what each region and each council requires.
What is the minimum pre-booking notice?
A minimum time between contracting and the start of the service that some regional or municipal rules impose on the urban VTC. The figure is set by each rule and should be checked in its current text, because it has been challenged and changed.
Is an airport transfer urban or interurban?
It depends on whether the airport is in the same municipality as the pickup. If it is in another municipality, which is the usual case, it is interurban and the national authorisation covers it; if it lies within the same boundary, it is urban and that territory's rule applies.
Where do I look up my region's rule?
In the region's official gazette and on the page of the department responsible for transport, and for by-laws, in the provincial gazette and the council's website. Always read the consolidated text in force, not the version published at the time.
What do I do if I get an urban service in a municipality where I have no entitlement?
Decline it or pass it to a fleet entitled there. Providing it is an offence in that territory even if your national authorisation is in force, and the inspectorate that penalises it is the local one.
Sources
- Real Decreto-ley 13/2018, de 28 de septiembre, en materia de arrendamiento de vehículos con conductor: habilitación interurbana de la autorización estatal y competencia de comunidades y ayuntamientos sobre el servicio urbano (consulted on 27 October 2026)
- Ley 16/1987, de Ordenación de los Transportes Terrestres: transporte urbano e interurbano, competencias y arrendamiento de vehículos con conductor (consulted on 27 October 2026)
- Real Decreto 1076/2017: Registro de Comunicaciones de los Servicios de Arrendamiento de Vehículos con Conductor y prestación habitual en el territorio de la autorización (consulted on 27 October 2026)
- Ministerio de Transportes y Movilidad Sostenible · transporte terrestre: normativa estatal de taxi y VTC y acceso a los registros (consulted on 27 October 2026)
How we write, where the figures come from and how we correct an error: editorial policy.
This piece describes kinds of requirements and the method for finding them, not the rule of any specific territory; each region and each council has its own, they change frequently, and several have been struck down or amended after appeals. Before operating in a territory you must read its rule in force and, in case of doubt, consult the competent administration.