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Ride-hailing in China: licences, fares and invoices
What has to be licensed before a car can take you, how the fare is assembled, what the invoice says, and where a complaint goes.
Living page — numbers read from the sources on 2026-10-12, re-checked quarterly.
Three documents have to exist before a car can legally take a paying passenger in mainland China. The company behind the app holds a platform licence. The car holds a transport certificate. The driver holds a driver certificate. The text behind this is the Interim Measures for the Administration of Online Ride-hailing Business Services, issued on 27 July 2016, in force from 1 November 2016, amended twice since (Ministry of Transport, consolidated text PDF; order 2022 No. 42, 30 November 2022). Fares are set by the company, though one clause lets a city switch to a guided price. What the rules fix is what gets published, and when.
The three documents
The platform. A corporate legal person, with a database connected to the taxi authority’s supervisory platform and servers in mainland China, and a settlement agreement with a bank or payment institution if it takes electronic payment (Article 5). Foreign-invested platforms meet the same conditions plus the foreign-investment rules. The authority has 20 days to decide, extendable by 10 (Article 7). No business starts before the licence is issued and an internet filing is made with the provincial communications authority (Article 10).
The vehicle. Seven seats or fewer, with a satellite positioning device that records driving and an emergency alarm device (Article 12). Standards on size, age and price are local, so one model can qualify in one city and not the next. The transport certificate follows once the vehicle is registered for hire.
The driver. A driving licence held at least three years; no traffic-accident or dangerous-driving crime, no drug record, no drink-driving record, no full 12 points in the last three consecutive scoring cycles; no violent-crime record; plus whatever the city adds (Article 14). The city-level authority issues the certificate after an exam covering a national subject and a regional subject, with the certificate issued within 10 days of the results (Taxi Driver Practice Qualification Regulation, MOT order 13 of 2011 as amended in 2016 and 2021). The holder registers before working, and the registration runs three years.
| Document | Held by | Issued by | Penalty for operating without it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Online ride-hailing business licence (经营许可证) | The platform company | City-level taxi authority, after provincial clearance of its online capability | 10,000 to 30,000 yuan on the company (Article 34) |
| Transport certificate (运输证) | The vehicle owner | City-level taxi authority, once the vehicle is registered for hire | 3,000 to 10,000 yuan (Article 34); the platform pays 5,000 to 10,000 for each order run on an unlicensed car, rising to 30,000 if serious (Article 35) |
| Driver certificate (驾驶员证) | The driver | City-level taxi authority, after the national and regional exams | 200 to 2,000 yuan (Article 34); the platform pays 5,000 to 10,000 for each order run with an unlicensed driver, rising to 30,000 if serious (Article 35) |
Who is allowed to run a platform
The Ministry of Transport counts licensed platforms monthly through its ride-hailing supervisory data-exchange system. As of 31 July 2026, 402 companies held a licence, one more than the month before, and the system recorded 1.047 billion orders in July, 323 million of them taken by aggregator platforms (MOT, published 27 August 2026).
That bulletin prints the regulator’s own quality measure, and the definition is narrow: the order compliance rate is the share of orders in which both driver and vehicle hold a licence. It measures paperwork. The ministry lists the ten platforms with the most orders, and then the central cities, ranked by that rate, each month.
| Figure | Value | As of | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Licensed platform companies | 402 | 31 July 2026 | MOT bulletin, 27 August 2026 |
| Orders recorded in the month | 1.047 billion | July 2026 | same |
| Orders through aggregator platforms | 323 million | July 2026 | same |
Registering, the interface, the money
The app that finds cars in the mainland is listed as “DiDi China: Ride Hailing”, its developer describing it as “Ride in Chinese mainland, HK” (Google Play, listing updated 18 September 2026; Apple). In the developer’s words: an English interface supporting login with a global mobile number; in-app messaging translated between English and Chinese; several payment options including international bank cards; round-the-clock in-app English customer service. The listing prints no list of countries whose numbers work, and I opened no account to test it.
Paying inside the app is a separate question from which wallet the bank allows; Paying in China as a foreigner sets out the limits.
Support is officially in-app. DiDi’s global contact page, read in English, points readers to in-app customer service or a support page for their country and prints no passenger number; its Chinese rendering prints those numbers, +86 400 0000 999 for passengers and +86 400 0000 666 for drivers (contact page, rendered 12 October 2026). The mainland site footer carries the same two numbers beside the company’s own ride-hailing business licence number (site footer, last modified 23 March 2026).
How a fare is assembled
Article 3 puts ride-hailing fares at market price, except where a city government decides a guided price is warranted. The Ministry of Transport and the National Development and Reform Commission fixed what gets published: the platform publishes its pricing and surge mechanisms through its own website and app, publishes the fare structure and the calculation and surcharge rules, keeps the surcharge standard reasonable and relatively stable, keeps the statement of account clear, and accepts public oversight. Changes to either mechanism are published at least seven days ahead (full text, 交运规〔2019〕17号, signed 30 October 2019; the ministry’s reading of it).
DiDi’s published mechanism shows the arithmetic: the total is assembled from basic charges, running charges and specific charges (DiDi pricing report, dated 25 December 2019).
| Fee item | As the platform’s document defines it |
|---|---|
| Flag-fall (起步价) | Two forms: one covering a set initial distance and time, as a street taxi works; one covering nothing, after which distance and time charges accumulate |
| Minimum charge (基础费) | A floor for the trip, taken when distance charge plus time charge falls below it |
| Distance charge (里程费) | Billed per 0.1 km, rounded to the nearest 0.1 km |
| Time charge (时长费) | Billed per minute, parts of a minute not counted; not charged together with the slow-speed charge |
| Slow-speed charge (低速费) | Triggered below a speed threshold, billed per minute; not charged together with the time charge |
| Long-trip charge (远途费) | Added on the distance beyond a set threshold, per 0.1 km |
| Holiday service fee (节假日服务费) | A temporary surge charge when holiday demand outstrips supply |
| Specific charges (特定费用) | Remote dispatch, late waiting, cancellation, tolls, parking, cleaning, lost-property return, child seat, staff selection, airport meet-and-greet, airport fast-track; each triggered by a situation and paid to the driver, with tolls and parking collected at what the driver advanced |
Parameters are set by time band and zone: five daily bands, weekday and weekend, high and low season, and zones split between the main urban area and suburban counties.
| Price the rider sees | As the platform’s document defines it |
|---|---|
| Estimate (预估价) | Built from predicted distance and time; called a reference and not a promise |
| Amount due (应付价) | Computed from the distance and time actually taken |
| Amount paid (实付价) | The amount due less discounts |
| Fixed price (一口价) | The estimate times an adjustment factor, less discounts; holds unless the destination changes or the route detours |
The report’s closing paragraph commits the company to publishing these mechanisms before 1 January 2020; it gives structure, not current amounts.
The invoice is a legal duty
Article 20 requires the platform to set its fare reasonably, mark prices clearly, and give the passenger the corresponding taxi invoice. Article 19 adds that the driver’s name, photograph, phone number, service rating and the plate number reach the passenger.
What lands on the paper is documented for the business product: DiDi’s corporate help centre lists electronic, special VAT and general VAT invoices and states that the service appears as domestic passenger transport under the line “运输服务客运服务费” (DiDi enterprise help centre, 2 July 2019); what a fapiao is, and how one is checked, is in the invoice piece. The same page ties input-VAT credit on such rides to the joint finance, tax and customs announcement on deepening value-added tax reform, effective 1 April 2019. I found no equivalent page for the consumer app.
Where a complaint goes
Platforms have to run a complaint system and authorities have to publish the results. Article 19 requires a service rating system and a passenger complaint-handling system; Article 29 requires the taxi authority to publish each platform’s basic information, service-quality assessment and complaint handling for its area; Article 35 makes a missing or unoperated complaint system a finable matter.
The national channel outside the app is 12328, the transport service-supervision line, taking information requests, complaints and suggestions across roads, water, road transport including urban passenger transport, maritime matters, salvage and search and rescue (MOT, 交运发〔2021〕89号, 26 September 2021). Reachable by phone, WeChat, app and website, it takes matters passed on from the 12345 government line; where it keeps its own answering seats it runs 7×24 human intake, and a complaint is called back within five working days of the order being closed.
For this to be checkable the platform reports as it runs: from midnight after licensing, order, operational, service-quality and location data flow to the national system, orders in real time at a delay capped at 300 seconds, location at 60 seconds, static changes within 24 hours (MOT, 交运规〔2022〕1号, 24 May 2022). The system keeps operational data at least two years.
Hong Kong runs a separate regime
Hong Kong built its own law instead of importing the mainland’s. The Road Traffic (Amendment) (Ride-hailing Service) Ordinance 2025 passed the Legislative Council in October 2025, and four items of subsidiary legislation were gazetted on 26 May 2026 covering licence and permit terms, fees and obligations (Transport and Logistics Bureau). One of them caps ride-hailing vehicle permits at 10,000 at this stage. Most provisions took effect on 3 August 2026, with the rest due on 22 August 2027 (news.gov.hk).
The Transport Department began inviting platform applications for ride-hailing service licences on 28 August 2026 under section 55G(1) of the Road Traffic Ordinance, Cap. 374; applications close at noon on 30 October 2026 and the application fee is HK$16,250 (Transport Department, read 12 October 2026). The department says it expects to invite applications for vehicle permits and driver driving permits in the fourth quarter of 2026, after a 12-hour pre-service course opened for enrolment on 25 September 2026, and platform licences are expected from as early as late November 2026. DiDi works there already, with taxis: its Hong Kong site prints operating since 2018, 42,000 registered drivers, 2.7 million completed trips, five-minute average pickup (DiDi Hong Kong, read 12 October 2026). Same three layers as the mainland, different documents, and a cap the mainland measures do not set nationally.
How I checked this
Every figure carries its read date, all read on 12 October 2026. The national measures came from the Ministry of Transport’s consolidated PDF, the amending order from gov.cn, and the monthly statistics from the ministry’s own bulletins. The pricing rule came from the full text of 交运规〔2019〕17号 and the ministry’s reading of it. DiDi’s material came from its own domains, the app description from the two store listings under its developer name. Hong Kong material came from the Transport Department and the Transport and Logistics Bureau. Where a page would not render without JavaScript — DiDi’s pricing report, its contact page and the mainland site footer — I rendered it in a browser instead of reading the raw HTML, quoting only where a quote is marked. I hold no ride-hailing account and tested nothing live.
What I could not check
- Which phone numbers register. The store listing says global numbers can be used. It prints no country list, and I created no account.
- The consumer app’s invoice flow. The invoice types and the wording on the paper come from DiDi’s help centre for its corporate product.
- Card brands in the app. The listing says international bank cards are accepted. Which networks, on which card types, appears on no first-party page I could read.
- A current certificate count. The newest driver- and vehicle-certificate totals I could pin to a date are from October 2024, and only as third-party reprints of ministry data.
- Today’s prices. No city’s current fare parameters appear above; the published ones I could find were superseded.
- Ride-hailing apps as couriers. Search suggestions include using them to move parcels. I found no first-party page describing such a service on a national footing.
- Whether the raised age ceiling reaches this certificate. MOT order 2026 No. 4 lifted an age limit from 60 to 63 in the road-transport practitioner rules from 20 March 2026 (State Council gazette). The taxi driver regulation above was last amended in 2021, and I found no first-party page connecting the two.
- What drivers earn, and what the platform keeps. The commission is a commercial term and no official page I read states one.