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Taxis in Cyprus: fares, apps and airports

How fares are calculated, what is added to the meter manually, how rural taxis differ from city taxis, and where to make a complaint.

Cyprus InformEditorial team

15 May 2017 10 min read

Taxis in Cyprus: fares, apps and airports

Checked: 17 September 2026.

Three taxi regimes and why this breakdown is important

In Cyprus, taxis are not a single service but three distinct categories, as set out in Law 9/82. City taxis operate within the urban road zone and carry up to six passengers; rural taxis, based outside the city limits, also carry up to six. Intercity taxis are designed to carry up to eight passengers and charge per passenger rather than per vehicle.

A historical overview of Cyprus’s taxi industry is a topic for another time; here, we’ll focus on the current regulations. It is based on two things: a road use licence, which is issued separately for each vehicle, and the official fare schedule published by the Department of Road Transport.

This information will be useful for those arriving with luggage, living in a village without convenient bus services, travelling to the airport at night, or disputing the fare at the end of a journey. We’ll go through this step by step: first, the meter and manual surcharges; then rural and inter-city categories; airports; and the procedure for lodging a complaint against a driver.

The meter and city taxi fares

The price of a city taxi is determined by the meter, and its use is mandatory — this is stated explicitly on the official fare schedule issued by the Department of Road Transport. The fare is calculated from the moment you get in, and agreeing on a fixed price instead of the meter reading is a breach of the regulations and grounds for a complaint.

The daytime fare applies from 06:00 to 20:30: a boarding charge of €3.80, €0.95 per kilometre, and a standing and waiting charge of €17 per hour. The night-time rate comes into effect at 20:30 and remains in force until 06:00: a boarding charge of €4.80, €1.10 per kilometre, and a waiting charge of €19 per hour. This cut-off time is often confused with the later evening rate, hence the unnecessary disputes.

As of September 2026, the tariff schedule introduced on 1 August 2022 remains in force, and the department has not published any more recent regulations to date. VAT at 9 per cent is already included in these amounts; the standard rate does not apply here. These figures are subject to change, so please check them against the original source immediately before your journey.

Luggage, public holidays and a full car

The meter does not show the full amount. Each piece of luggage costs €1.40; journeys on public holidays cost €2 more; and a full car is calculated using the following multipliers: the fifth passenger adds 20 per cent to the fare, and the sixth adds 40 per cent. These are multipliers applied to the entire journey, not a charge per person.

The public holiday surcharge applies to a specific list of dates: 24, 25, 26 and 31 December, 1 January, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday, and 1 May. As Easter dates vary from year to year, it’s worth checking in advance during the spring whether your journey falls within this short but significant list.

An important detail: the device does not take luggage or the surcharge for the fifth and sixth passengers into account — the driver adds these manually to the fare at the end of the journey. The rules do not provide for a separate charge for air conditioning, and a receipt is issued on request. The surcharges themselves change in line with the main fare schedule.

Rural taxis and how to book them

Rural taxis operate differently, and this is precisely where misunderstandings most often arise. There is no meter at all: the fare is charged per kilometre, with a minimum charge of €3.64. During the day, from 06:01 to 20:30, a kilometre one way costs €0.63, whilst a return journey is cheaper at €0.49 per kilometre.

At night, from 20:31 to 06:00, the rates are higher: €0.75 per kilometre one way and €0.63 for a return journey, with a waiting charge of €18.82 per hour compared to €14.45 during the day. A piece of luggage weighing more than 12 kilograms costs €1.20 during the day and €1.96 at night. The authority reviews these rates, so please check them on the date of your journey.

You can only hire such a car from its base and back to it; you cannot hail one on a city street. There is one exception: a pre-booked pick-up at the airport or port, where the driver is required to present a document confirming the specific booking. Pets are transported in small carriers, subject to an additional charge.

Airports, taxi ranks and booking methods

At Larnaca and Paphos airports, taxis wait in a designated area just outside the arrivals hall on Level 0 on the right; they are supposed to be on duty around the clock, but for night-time flights it is safer to book a car in advance. There is no separate tariff entry for them, nor is there a legally authorised surcharge for pick-up, and the airport operator does not publish prices.

The payment method depends on the taxi itself: for city journeys, the fare is calculated by the meter at the day or night rate, whilst a pre-booked rural taxi is charged at a per-kilometre rate without a meter, and it is worth clarifying this before boarding. As a rough guide: it is 8.5 km from Larnaca Terminal to the city centre, and 14.6 km from Paphos Airport to the city centre.

You can book a car at an organised taxi rank, or you can hail one via an app. The situation here is as follows: the app is a means of hailing a taxi, not a separate category of transport service; there is no such category in the law. You should therefore check not the service itself, but the car – specifically, its licence for road use.

Intercity journeys and unlicensed vehicles

There is an intercity category in the law: up to 8 passengers, the route is approved by the licensing authority, and payment is made per passenger rather than per vehicle. The department publishes neither fares, nor routes, nor a list of operators for this category; consequently, there are no verifiable figures here, and the numbers cited on forums are unsubstantiated.

Amendment 47(I)/2024 has tightened the penalties for providing paid transport without a licence. Inspectors issue a fine of €750 to the driver and €1,500 each to the vehicle owner and the intermediary – including taxi companies, travel agencies, hotels and operators of online platforms and apps. A repeat offence within two years doubles the fines; a subsequent offence quadruples them.

These fines do not apply to passengers, but there is another issue: the authority explicitly warns of the risk of being left without insurance cover in the event of an accident in an unlicensed vehicle. A second common mistake is using figures from the old guide, which quoted a base fare of €3.42 and 8 per cent VAT; whilst the distances listed there are still valid, the fares are not.

What to check before your journey and in the event of a dispute

Before setting off, check the current fare list on the Department of Road Transport’s website and confirm whether your travel date falls on a public holiday. The registers of licensed taxis by district for September 2026 were updated on 11 August; use these to check the vehicle registration number – refer to the most recent publication.

It’s a good habit to take a photo of the number plate before the journey begins. Without the vehicle’s number plate or the driver’s professional licence number, a complaint is pointless. If the meter has not been switched on or the fare does not match the published rate, calmly record the details and ask for a receipt showing the date and number.

Complaints should be sent by post to the Department of Road Transport, setting out the circumstances; the police and the department’s regional offices in Nicosia, Limassol, Larnaca and Paphos also handle such matters. This must be done in writing: there is no telephone helpline offering on-the-spot refunds, so the matter is resolved based on the evidence gathered, rather than through an argument at the car park.

Continue planning

Official sources

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