Uber or Taxi in Berlin: What the Federal Court Decided in June

Open the app in Berlin and you see two options that barely differ: a car arrives, a price is attached, so is a number of minutes. The difference lies elsewhere, and it is a legal one.

Here I set out what it consists of, why a court ruling in June has cemented it, and what you actually get from knowing.

Uber is not a taxi company

The first point on which most misunderstandings hang.

Uber does not operate taxis in Germany. Uber is a booking platform, and the journeys are carried out by private hire operators with a driver — the same mode of transport as a traditional chauffeur service.

German passenger transport law separates the two strictly, and it does so in both directions.

A taxi has an obligation to carry. It must take you, within its mandatory operating area and the usual limits. In return it may stand at ranks and be hailed on the street, and it charges an officially set tariff that is not open to negotiation.

Private hire has no obligation to carry and may decline a booking. In return it carries the return-to-base duty: after completing each job it must return to its operating base without delay, unless a new booking comes in on the way. It may not wait on the street for custom.

The legal basis is § 49 PBefG. How that plays out at the premium end I have described under chauffeur services — the mechanism is the same, only the price level differs.

The ruling of 3 June 2026

This return-to-base duty was fought over for years, and the matter was settled in the summer.

On 3 June 2026 the Bundesgerichtshof, Germany’s Federal Court of Justice, confirmed the return duty for private hire vehicles booked through Uber X, under case number I ZR 123/25. The claimant was a Cologne taxi cooperative, the defendant a private hire operator working with Uber.

Both arguments raised against the duty failed. The court held that on a purely domestic set of facts the provision is not to be measured against EU law, and it saw no substantial constitutional doubts either.

For you as a passenger that means the separation between the two modes stays. Anyone hoping private hire cars would soon be allowed to circle the streets like taxis was mistaken.

What the return duty means in practice

Now the part that affects you while you are standing at the kerb.

A taxi that has just dropped a passenger may wait where it is for the next one. A private hire car may not. It has to go back, unless the next booking is already in hand.

Three consequences follow, and you can observe all of them.

The approach is longer, other things being equal. The car does not come from round the corner but potentially from the operating base. In the city centre you barely notice, because the volume of bookings is high enough that the next job arrives en route. On the outskirts you notice clearly.

The empty running sits inside the price. It appears on no invoice as a separate line, but it has been driven and it is paid for.

And spontaneity is out. You cannot hail a private hire car. Every journey goes through a booking.

At a station or an airport the advantage therefore inverts: there the taxi is already standing, and your waiting time is the time it takes you to walk to the rank.

”Uber Taxi”: a real taxi in the same app

And now the point that blurs the clean separation above in practice — one many people do not know about, although it answers the question “Uber or taxi” for Berlin more directly than anything else.

Uber also brokers real taxis in Berlin. Since 2 June 2024 the app has carried a product option called Uber Taxi, through which you book an ordinary taxi journey at a price fixed in advance. According to the company, some two million journeys have since been passed to Berlin taxi drivers.

The model appeals to the taxi side because there is no rigid membership fee, only a brokerage fee on each journey actually passed on.

For you that means the question in Berlin is no longer “app or taxi” but which product within the app. You can order a licensed taxi through the same interface and still get the fixed price and the cashless payment.

The same holds for the competition: FreeNow in Berlin brokers mostly regular taxis, and Bolt is also in the market. The platform therefore tells you nothing about the mode of transport — the product does.

The practical consequence: look in the app at what you are actually booking. Where it says “taxi”, the obligation to carry and the licence apply; where it does not, it is private hire with everything described above.

On price

The comparison is messier than either side claims.

The taxi runs on a fixed tariff. In Berlin that is a locally set combination of base charge, distance and waiting time. The advantage: the price is traceable and is not moved by demand. How it is built up is set out under Berlin taxi fares and in general under taxi fares in Germany.

Private hire prices are set freely. They can undercut the taxi, and at times of high demand they can exceed it. The fixed price quoted before departure is the real gain in comfort: you know what it costs even if you end up in a jam.

How large the gap can get was shown by a comparison that circulated in 2026: for the run from Berlin Hauptbahnhof to the airport, roughly €60 for the taxi stood against about €35 for the private hire car booked through the app. On a comparable Frankfurt route the ratio was around €38 to €26.

Those figures are snapshots, not tariffs — the private hire price moves with demand, and that is exactly the catch. The gap does not always hold. At times of heavy demand — Friday evening, in the rain, when a big event lets out — the relationship regularly inverts, and the regulated taxi tariff becomes the cheaper one precisely because it does not move.

From which follows the only pricing rule that really holds in Berlin: compare at the moment of booking, not from past experience. Both products sit side by side in the same app, and the comparison costs you ten seconds.

One development is worth watching, because it shifts the price structure. Cologne recently introduced a rule under which private hire offers may be at most 20 per cent cheaper than a comparable taxi journey. Municipalities can set such minimum-price rules, and it is not impossible that other cities follow. No such rule applied in Berlin at the time of writing.

When I would recommend which

Four situations where the decision is clear-cut.

At the airport and the main station: taxi. It is there. Every app booking means waiting for a car that has yet to arrive, and finding each other at the agreed meeting point.

Late at night on the outskirts: pre-book. Whether taxi or private hire is secondary — what matters is that a car is booked rather than hoping one passes.

On a fixed budget: the app with the fixed price. If you need a defined sum, for expenses say, a price agreed in advance beats a running meter.

On short journeys in the centre: whichever is closer. Over three kilometres the waiting time decides, not the tariff.

When something goes wrong, the routes differ

A difference that rarely shows in daily use and is decisive when it matters.

With a taxi you are dealing with a licensed trade. Alongside complaining to the operator, the route to the licensing authority is open to you — for disputes about the fare, a refused journey or the route taken, that is the effective lever, because the licence depends on it. Note the licence number displayed in the vehicle.

With private hire through a platform, practically everything runs through the app. That is convenient while the issue is a fare credit, and weaker when it is more than that: your contracting party is the private hire operator, the platform did the broking, and that construction makes responsibility harder to pin down in a dispute.

The same difference applies to lost property, and there it bites hardest: with a taxi the number on the receipt helps, with an app journey you have to go through the trip history in your account. In both cases, the sooner the better.

What to settle on an app journey

The meeting point. This is the commonest friction. Outside large stations and in places with waiting restrictions, the actual meeting point often differs from the map pin. When in doubt, check which point the app names rather than going where you would normally stand.

The fixed price and its limits. It applies to the agreed route. Change the destination en route and it is recalculated.

The receipt. For business expenses you need a proper document showing VAT. On app journeys it arrives by email, and it is the record of the journey actually taken — a screenshot of the quote is not.

And the tip. A tip given in the app does not necessarily reach the driver in full. Cash is the sure route if that matters to you.

If you’d rather book the traditional way than use an app, dispatch numbers and taxi ranks are covered under booking a taxi in Berlin.

All details reflect the position in 2026. The Federal Court’s decision of 3 June 2026 (I ZR 123/25) concerns the return-to-base duty; municipal minimum-price rules differ from city to city and can change. Taxi tariffs are set locally, private hire prices freely. What holds is the basic distinction: the taxi waits for you, the private hire car has to go back. More on individual cities under Cities.