What are you buying when you buy a taxi business?
The things that bring bookings: the phone numbers and web domain, account customers and contracts, the drivers who work with the firm, its booking history and reputation, and any cars and premises. Licences are issued to a named holder, so whether they pass to you depends on the authority and on how the sale is structured.
What should you check before buying a taxi firm?
Check every claim against records, not the seller's summary.[1][2]
- Licences: holder, expiry and conditions, and what the authority requires after a change of ownership.
- Booking records: almost every council requires operators to record each booking's pick-up point, destination, time and passenger (286 of 289 councils require the pick-up point), so ask for the full export.
- Accounts and contracts: who signs them, their end dates and whether they can be transferred.
- Money owed: unpaid account invoices and how old they are.
- Drivers: how they are engaged; after Uber BV v Aslam, a mislabelled arrangement is a liability.
- Vehicles: ages against the council's age limit, finance outstanding.
- Systems: whether the booking data can be exported to move it.
How is a taxi business valued?
There is no official formula. Look at what share of bookings comes from accounts and contracts, which can move with the business, against street and app work, which may not; then at the profit those bookings make after drivers and costs.
How do you move the bookings to a new owner or system?
Export the customer list, account records and booking history, keep the phone numbers, and run old and new systems side by side until the new one handles every booking.
See our migration protocol and data portability.
Frequently asked questions
Can a private hire operator licence be transferred to a buyer?
Ask the licensing authority before you sign: licences name their holder, and the authority decides what a change of ownership requires.
Are NYC taxi medallions still sold?
Yes. The TLC publishes monthly charts of medallion sales and transfer prices; see NYC taxi medallions.
Sources
Fees and rules change. Each source is the official page we read, with the date we read it; check it before you apply or pay.
- [1] Department for Transport: Taxi and private hire vehicle statistics, England: 2026, data tables TAXI0104, TAXI0105 and TAXI0108-TAXI0112 (figures at 1 April 2026) (read 2 Nov 2026)
- [2] UK Supreme Court: Uber BV v Aslam [2021] UKSC 5, press summary (19 February 2021) (read 2 Nov 2026)
- [3] NYC TLC: Medallion transfers, monthly medallion sales charts (read 2 Nov 2026)