The end of a job is where a lot of drivers get caught out. Passengers increasingly expect to tap a card or phone, but whether you must accept electronic payments and whether you can charge extra for them are two different questions — and mixing them up can land you in trouble with both the licensing authority and Trading Standards.
Do you have to take cards?
There is still no single national licensing rule that forces every taxi and private hire driver in the UK to carry a card terminal. Conditions sit with the local authority that issued the vehicle, driver and operator licences, so what applies in the next borough or council area cannot be assumed to apply where you work.
London is the clearest mandatory system. Transport for London requires every licensed taxi to take card and contactless payments through a TfL-approved device fixed in the passenger compartment, with printed receipts available on request. A handheld terminal on its own does not meet that requirement and is treated as an unapproved device. Non-compliant vehicles can be hit with an unfit notice, and drivers using the wrong kit risk a review of their fitness to be licensed. The mandate has applied since October 2016, with fixed passenger-compartment devices required from January 2017.
Outside London the picture is mixed. Some councils insist on electronic payment facilities or set rules on receipts and reporting; others leave the method of payment to drivers and operators. Private hire jobs can look different again: an operator or app may take payment at booking, store card details, or leave settlement in the car. Booking terms and the quoted fare should make that clear before the journey starts.
The national ban on card fees
Separate from licensing, consumer law limits what you can add at the meter. Under the Consumer Rights (Payment Surcharges) Regulations, traders are generally banned from charging consumers an extra fee simply because they pay with a personal debit card, credit card or another covered payment method. The wider prohibition has applied since 13 January 2018.
That means a percentage or fixed “card fee” to recover terminal or transaction costs is normally off-limits. Relabelling it as an administration fee does not help if it only appears when the passenger chooses card. TfL makes the same point for taxis: passengers must be able to pay by card or contactless without a surcharge, and charging more than the metered fare is an offence.
Operators can still build payment costs into the general price of the service — alongside fuel, insurance and dispatch — when fares are set. The problem starts when an extra is tied specifically to the customer’s choice of card. Where a regulated meter or tariff applies, any permitted extra has to be authorised in that tariff or by licensing rules, not invented with a sticker next to the terminal.
Broken machines and other grey areas
Equipment fails: batteries die, software freezes and mobile signal drops. Drivers who work under a card-acceptance condition should check the kit before they turn out and follow their licensing authority’s procedure if it goes down. Advertising card acceptance and then steering a passenger to a cashpoint after the event is a bad look — and in London the approved device is expected to work, with handbook guidance covering network-wide outages and when passengers should be told before the job is accepted.
Operators also need a clear line on who carries chargebacks, fraud and unpaid fares. Pushing every disputed transaction onto drivers may look simple on the passenger side, but it can sour recruitment and retention. Cash still matters for many passengers and many drivers; anyone moving towards cashless working should think about accessibility and spell out payment arrangements before a booking is taken.
Complaints about illegal card surcharges can be taken to local Trading Standards. Drivers wanting the official wording can read TfL’s accepting card payments page and the Government’s payment surcharges guidance: TfL accepting card payments · GOV.UK payment surcharges