What does a taxi in The Hague cost? How the fare is built up

Every ride is calculated the same way: we work out two prices and you pay the lower one. The first is the meter rate: a base fare of €4.31 that you pay once, €3.17 for every kilometre driven, €0.52 for every minute the ride takes, and a minimum of €30.00 per ride. The second is the distance rate, which comes out lower from roughly 20 kilometres: €120.00 at 43 kilometres, plus or minus €1.85 for every kilometre above or below that. All amounts include 9 percent VAT.

The sum for a 10 kilometre ride that takes 15 minutes: €4.31 plus 10 times €3.17 is €31.70, plus 15 times €0.52 is €7.80. Together €43.81. No surcharges, no rounding up.

The per-minute price is there for the time the car is standing still or crawling: a long red light, a traffic jam, five minutes waiting at your door. On an open road the distance dominates; in the city, time counts a little harder.

The table below was pulled with the same Google traffic data that powers the price estimate on this site, measured from The Hague Central Station for an ordinary Tuesday at 10:00, outside rush hour. Leaving from a different neighbourhood shifts the price by a few euros.

One thing stands out: five of these destinations come out at exactly €30.00. That's the minimum fare, and there's a reason behind it.

Rides of less than five to six kilometres come out below €30 on base fare, kilometres and minutes combined. For those rides the minimum fare applies.

That minimum exists because every ride starts with a car driving to you empty and has to go somewhere else again afterwards. For a ride from The Hague Central Station to Scheveningen, the driver first heads to the station, waits, drives the ride, and then stands by the sea with no next customer. The meter rate for those five kilometres doesn't cover that; the minimum does.

In practice: for a short ride in the city you pay €30.00, whether it's 3 or 5 kilometres. Only above six kilometres does the meter pass the minimum and you pay what the ride actually costs.

Because time only costs €0.52 per minute, the price changes little when you ride in rush hour. The driving time rises, the amount barely does.

To Rotterdam Central you're on the road three minutes longer in the morning peak and pay exactly the same: above the crossover point the distance rate applies, and it has no per-minute component, so traffic costs you nothing there. A ride sitting on the minimum, such as to Scheveningen, doesn't change at all: €30.00 stays €30.00, busy or quiet.

There's no night surcharge. A ride at three in the morning costs the same as one at three in the afternoon; only the driving time is shorter because the road is empty.

There's no surcharge for luggage, for extra passengers or for the weekend. The car carries four passengers and two large suitcases, and those four people pay one fare together.

The price you see before booking is calculated on your own pickup address and the traffic forecast for your departure time. If you pay the ride in full up front, that's the price, even if the meter would have run higher along the way. If you settle in the car, you pay for the kilometres and minutes actually driven, at the same rate.

The fare is per ride, not per person. That makes a taxi attractive mainly when you're not travelling alone.

To Schiphol with four people is €120.00 divided by four, or €30.00 per person, from your front door to the departure hall, with no transfers and no wrestling with suitcases on the train. To Leiden Central with two people is €33.46 per person.

If you're travelling alone and not in a hurry, public transport is often cheaper. If you're travelling with luggage, with children, late in the evening or as a group, that sum tips towards the taxi.