Germany licenses passenger transport under the Personenbeförderungsgesetz (PBefG), and it treats the two halves of the trade in fundamentally different ways. One is capped by a market-protection test. The other is not.
If you are founding a passenger transport business in Germany — or assessing the German market from outside it — that asymmetry is the first thing to understand, because it determines whether your business plan is achievable at all. Everything below is drawn from the statutes and from a licensing authority’s own published requirements. The German-language version, written for a German operator, is also available.
Taxi licences can be refused for market reasons. Private hire cannot.
Section 13(4) PBefG:
Bei Taxen ist die Genehmigung zu versagen, wenn die öffentlichen Verkehrsinteressen dadurch beeinträchtigt werden, daß durch die Ausübung des beantragten Verkehrs das örtliche Taxengewerbe in seiner Funktionsfähigkeit bedroht wird.
For taxis, the licence must be refused where public transport interests would be impaired by the proposed service threatening the functional capacity of the local taxi trade. The authority weighs demand for journeys, taxi density, the earnings and cost position of the trade, and the number and causes of businesses closing.
This is a needs test — a Bedürfnisprüfung — and it has no equivalent in UK licensing. It means you can satisfy every personal and financial requirement in the statute and still be refused, purely because the local market is judged saturated. In practice several German cities operate waiting lists, and taxi licences trade as assets between operators for reasons that have nothing to do with the official fee.
Mietwagen — private hire under § 49 PBefG — is not subject to this test. There is no cap and no needs assessment. Meet the requirements and the licence is granted.
That is why virtually every new chauffeur, airport-transfer and executive transport business in Germany starts as a Mietwagen operation. The trade-off is operational: no ranks, no street hailing, no job that was not received at the business premises, and the Rückkehrpflicht — the obligation to return to base after each trip unless a further booking has already come in.
The equivalent UK split is hackney carriage versus private hire, and it is far less severe: England and Wales cap hackney plates in many districts but impose nothing like a statutory market-protection test on private hire operators. I set out the UK route separately in starting a taxi business in the UK.
The four statutory conditions
Section 13(1) PBefG applies to both licence types. The licence requires that:
- the safety and operational capability of the business are assured (die Sicherheit und die Leistungsfähigkeit des Betriebs);
- no facts exist demonstrating the unreliability of the applicant or the managing director;
- the entrepreneur or managing director is professionally qualified — evidenced “durch eine angemessene Tätigkeit in einem Unternehmen des Straßenpersonenverkehrs oder durch Ablegung einer Prüfung”, that is by appropriate experience in a road passenger transport undertaking or by passing an examination;
- the applicant has their seat or establishment in Germany.
Conditions one and three are where applications actually stall.
The capital threshold: €2,250, and how it is derived
Financial capacity is a calculation, not a judgement. The derivation runs through three documents, which is why the figure is so often quoted without a source.
§ 2 of the Berufszugangsverordnung für den Straßenpersonenverkehr (PBZugV) requires, for taxis and private hire, that the undertaking’s equity and reserves are not less than “ein Viertel der in Artikel 7 Absatz 1 Satz 2 der Verordnung (EG) Nr. 1071/2009 genannten Beträge je eingesetztem Fahrzeug” — one quarter of the amounts named in Article 7(1), second sentence, of Regulation (EC) No 1071/2009, per vehicle deployed.
Article 7(1) of that Regulation states €9,000 for the first vehicle and €5,000 for each additional vehicle.
A quarter of each gives €2,250 for the first vehicle and €1,250 for every further vehicle.
The City of Düsseldorf states exactly this in its own published requirements — “für das 1. Kfz mindestens 2.250 Euro, für jedes weitere Kfz 1.250 Euro” — evidenced by a certificate from a tax adviser or bank.
Do the arithmetic for your intended fleet before you apply. Five vehicles means 2,250 + 4 × 1,250 = €7,250 of demonstrable equity. That is an entry threshold, not working capital: vehicles, insurance and wages sit on top of it.
Professional qualification: the IHK examination
Most founders evidence professional competence through the entrepreneur examination at the Industrie- und Handelskammer (the chamber of commerce). § 4 PBZugV governs the format: written parts consist “aus Multiple-Choice-Fragen und schriftlichen Fragen mit direkter Antwort sowie aus schriftlichen Übungen/Fallstudien” — multiple choice, direct written answers, and written exercises or case studies. The IHKs administer and mark it, observing Regulation 1071/2009.
One practical detail worth planning around: for taxi and private hire, the minimum duration per written part is one hour, against two hours for other road passenger transport sectors. It is a lighter examination than the full transport manager qualification — but it is still an examination with a pass mark.
The alternative route is appropriate managerial experience in a road passenger transport undertaking. Whether your history qualifies is the authority’s decision. Ask before you assume.
What the licence itself costs
Fees are set federally in the schedule to the PBefGKostV, as ranges, because the actual charge follows the administrative effort in the individual case:
- Taxi licence: €100 to €1,465 per vehicle
- Private hire (Mietwagen) licence: €50 to €500 per vehicle
Düsseldorf publishes precisely these ranges, along with the ancillary charges that catch people in year one: €25 per vehicle change, €150 per vehicle to transfer a taxi licence, €30 per document for a correction, and for exemption permits €100 for the first vehicle and €50 for each further one.
Note the ratio. At the top of the range the private hire licence costs roughly a third of the taxi licence — and it is not rationed. The cheaper route is also the more certain one.
Nothing here is permanent. § 16(4) PBefG sets the validity of licences for “sonstigen Gelegenheitsverkehr mit Kraftfahrzeugen” — other occasional transport by motor vehicle, which covers taxi and private hire — at five years maximum. Renewal re-examines the same conditions; it is not automatic.
What applies from the first booking
Two duties land immediately on a Mietwagen operator, and both are routinely underestimated.
The return-to-base obligation. Under § 49 PBefG you may only carry out transport orders received at the business premises, and must return there without delay after each journey unless a new order arrived before the trip ended. This shapes how you dispatch, and it is the most common enforcement point — the wording, the Abstellort exception and the fine range are in the dedicated Rückkehrpflicht piece.
The order receipt book. § 49(4) PBefG requires the receipt of every transport order to be recorded at the business premises and retained for one year. The statute expressly permits this “buchmäßig oder elektronisch (auch mittels appbasierten Systems)” — in a book or electronically, including by means of an app-based system. Paper and software are equivalent in law. Timestamped records have a second benefit: they evidence that a follow-on booking arrived before the previous trip ended, documenting the exception to the return-to-base duty. I covered the practical mechanics in the digital Auftragseingangsbuch guide.
Do not confuse this with TSE. Since 1 January 2026 a certified technical security device has been mandatory for taximeters and distance recorders. That is hardware in the vehicle. Booking software is not a Fiskaltaxameter and does not replace a TSE — if a vendor markets “TSE compliance” for pure software, establish precisely what they mean.
Where the money is well spent, and where it is not
Spend on the pre-application conversation with the licensing authority. Taking your business premises, intended vehicle count and evidence of professional qualification through with them costs nothing and prevents the two expensive failures: an application that sits incomplete for months, and a taxi application that § 13(4) made hopeless before you started.
Do not spend on software in the first six months. At two vehicles your constraint is winning work, not dispatching it, and a properly kept order book on paper satisfies § 49(4) in full. Buy a system when you start doing things twice. What German suppliers actually charge is set out in what taxi and private hire software costs in Germany, and which products are genuinely built for passenger work rather than freight is covered in dispatch software for passenger transport.
We build RideDesk, so treat that as an interested party’s disclosure. It now has a free tier for 10 transfers a month — and I still tell founders they do not need dispatch software in year one, ours included.
German founding failures are rarely financial. They come from buying a vehicle before knowing which licence was realistic — and in a market where one of the two can be refused on demand-side grounds alone, that order of operations is the whole risk.
General information as of August 2026, not legal or tax advice. Fees, competent authorities and local conditions vary by licensing authority and change — confirm the requirements that apply to you with your authority, and take tax questions to a Steuerberater.
