Taxi fares increase again in Budapest from Monday

Budapest taxi fares from Monday are increasing by 10 percent, with the basic fare rising to HUF 1,100 (EUR 2.90) and the per-kilometer fare to HUF 440 (EUR 1.16), while per-minute fare will go up to HUF 110 (EUR 0.29).

On 25 January, the City Assembly amended the taxi price regulation at the proposal of Gergely Karácsony, the mayor. The fuel price cap was scrapped at the start of December, leading to a big increase in costs for taxi drivers, according to the justification of the measure.

There were other proposals on the table

Novekedes.hu, the news outlet of Hungary’s National Bank, said that taxi organisations City Taxi, 6×6 Taxi, Főtaxi, NSZ, OTSZ, Taxi 4, and BKIK submitted two joint proposals about the price rise last December. In the first one, they suggested increasing the base fare from HUF 1,000 to HUF 2,000 because of the fuel price cap termination. Meanwhile, other fees would have remained unchanged.

In the second one, they proposed a general 10 percent increase. That is what the Budapest City Council accepted. The council members could not support the former because it would have made short-term rides disproportionately expensive.