How taxi fares are calculated in Madrid

The price of a taxi in Madrid is calculated by adding up four elements: the initial charge when the journey starts, an amount for the distance travelled, an amount for the time the car spends stationary or moving very slowly and, where applicable, the supplements in the official table. The amounts for each item depend on the active fare (weekday daytime, or night and bank holidays) and are set by the City Council. The exception is journeys with a fixed or set price, such as the trip between the airport and anywhere inside the M-30, where the meter does not decide the amount.

Knowing how taxi fares are calculated lets you understand why two similar journeys cost different amounts and make a reasonable estimate before ordering one.

Leaving aside the decimals and the display, the sum the device does can be written like this:

Price = initial charge + (kilometres with the car moving × price per kilometre) + (time stationary or slow × price per hour) + supplements

There is one important nuance: the meter does not charge for distance and time at the same time. While the car is moving above a certain speed, it counts kilometres; when it drops below that speed, at a red light, in a traffic jam or while manoeuvring, it switches to counting time. The switch is automatic and defined in the device’s official configuration. If you want to see how the mechanism works inside, we explain it in how does a taxi meter work.

What each piece is worth

The specific amounts for the initial charge, kilometre and hour change with every fare update, which is why we do not reproduce them here. They are in the table displayed inside every taxi and on the Madrid City Council website. What is stable is the logic: the night and bank holiday fare has higher amounts for all three items than the weekday daytime fare. We explain when each one applies in taxi fares in Madrid.

Imagine the same urban journey made at two different times. We do not give figures, but the reasoning works with any table:

If the same journey were made on a Saturday, the reasoning would be the same, but with the weekend and bank holiday fare, which has higher amounts for every item. And if it starts at a station with a supplement, that would have to be added at the end.

There is no exact calculator, because nobody knows how long you will spend stationary, but you can get quite close with this method:

Not all taxi journeys are charged using the formula above. There are three situations in which the amount is known in advance or has a minimum:

• The airport fixed fare to and from inside the M-30, which does not vary with traffic or supplements.
• The minimum fare from the airport terminals to nearby destinations.
• The fixed price when booking, offered by services like ours for transfers to Barajas.

The differences between these options, and which applies to you depending on where you are leaving from, are in the guide to understanding airport fares. In our case, each area has a published amount: inside the M-30 it is €33, and the other neighbourhoods and towns are listed in our fares by area. You see it when you book your airport taxi, before confirming.

1. Avoid rush hour if your schedule allows: time spent stationary is what pushes the meter up most.
2. Choose the weekday daytime slot for journeys you can move to the daytime.
3. Share the ride. The price is per journey, not per person, so splitting it makes it much cheaper; there are ideas in saving money by sharing a taxi.
4. If there are lots of you, one large vehicle. For groups of five to seven people, a 7-seater taxi saves you paying for two cars.