How to become a taxi driver in Madrid: from the municipal exam to your first shift

To become a taxi driver in Madrid you need to obtain the municipal driver permit, which the City Council grants after checking the personal requirements and once you have passed its exam, and then start working, usually as an employee of a licence holder. You do not need to buy a licence to drive a taxi: that investment is only necessary if you later want to have your own vehicle.

The requirements (category B driving licence, medical certificate, criminal record check…) are set out in detail in requirements for working as a taxi driver. Here we focus on the path: how to prepare for the exam, how to find your first job and what to expect from the first few weeks.

It is worth asking yourself a few honest questions. Do you like driving for many hours at a stretch? Can you cope with heavy traffic, night shifts and weekends? Do you enjoy dealing with different people every half hour? Taxi work gives you independence and variety, but it demands perseverance. If the answers are yes, the next step is the exam.

The exam mainly assesses knowledge of the city, taxi regulations and fares. The City Council’s current call for applications sets out the syllabus, the format and the dates; check it before you get organised.

Street map and routes

This is the biggest part. It works better to study district by district, from the centre outwards, rather than street by street: first the main thoroughfares and squares, then the streets connecting them and finally the places of interest (hospitals, stations, hotels, government offices, trade fair grounds). Driving the routes you are studying in person fixes them in your memory far better than the map does. It is no coincidence that taxi drivers’ sense of direction has interested scientists, as we explain in the extraordinary brain of taxi drivers.

Regulations and fares

Read the full taxi bylaw at least once and then revise it section by section: passenger rights, driver obligations, documents, fares and supplements. Working through practical cases helps a lot: which fare applies at a given time and day, or what to do if a passenger asks for a receipt.

Mock exams

Doing timed practice exams is the best way to spot gaps. You can prepare on your own or at a training school; what matters is practising with questions of the same type as those in the call.

With the permit in hand, the next challenge is finding a licence holder who needs a driver, for example to cover the opposite shift to their own. The most common routes are the trade associations and federations, dispatch and radio taxi services, specialist job ads and, above all, word of mouth among taxi drivers. Before accepting, get in writing the type of contract, the hours, how the takings are split and who covers each expense.

In the first few weeks you learn more than in the whole syllabus. Some advice from people who have been in the trade for years:

• Get to know the airport well. Many jobs start or end at Barajas: learn which airlines operate from each of the four terminals and where the pickup areas are. Our guide to which Barajas terminal to go to is a good starting point.
• Use the GPS as an aid, not a substitute. Customers appreciate you knowing alternatives when there is a traffic jam.
• Take care with booked jobs. Punctuality, confirming the destination and helping with luggage make the difference on scheduled transfers, like the ones we do when you book an airport taxi.
• Learn the surrounding towns. Not every trip ends in the capital; many go to towns in the Madrid region.
• Keep your own figures from day one: hours, jobs and kilometres. It will help you decide whether it would one day pay to have your own licence.

After a while as an employee you will know whether the trade is for you and how much a taxi really earns. If you take the plunge, we explain the process in how to get a taxi licence.