Accountant for taxi drivers

A taxi accountant records the ADS licence correctly as a fixed asset (account 205, without amortisation), applies 10% VAT to your fares, recovers VAT on the vehicle by exception, secures the fuel excise refund and reconciles your revenue with the taximeter readings. The accountant also helps you decide on the operating status: self-employed taxi driver as a sole proprietor, EURL or SASU.

The first structuring choice a driver makes is not an accounting one, it is a legal one. The business is mainly operated under three forms: the sole proprietorship of the self-employed taxi driver (artisan taxi), the EURL and the SASU. None of them is better in absolute terms. The right status depends on four parameters that we quantify before any registration: your target income, your social security regime, the ownership of the ADS and your transmission strategy.

The self-employed taxi driver as a sole proprietor remains the historical form of the trade. You operate in your own name, the business result is taxed in your hands and, if your licence is transferable, it sits within your professional assets. It is the simplest solution to run day to day, but it offers few levers to manage the level of your remuneration from one year to the next.

The EURL introduces a screen between the activity and the operator. The sole-shareholder manager falls under the social security regime for the self-employed, and the company makes it possible to separate what the business earns from what you actually draw. The SASU rests on a different logic: the president falls under the regime of employees for social security purposes, with a payslip and a social protection built differently. For businesses run through a company, we balance remuneration and dividends according to your social regime, because the same operating result does not produce the same net income depending on the form chosen.

Two profiles deserve specific treatment. The taxi renting its ADS or its vehicle does not carry those assets on its balance sheet: rents and fees are booked as expenses, which entirely changes the structure of the income statement and the points to monitor. The taxi under a medical seated-transport agreement invoices part of its fares to paying bodies: collections arrive with a delay and tracking receivables becomes a management task in its own right.

One last point: if your ADS is transferable, contributing it or selling it to a company is never a trivial formality. The operation is framed before registration, not after.

The parking authorisation is governed by the Transport Code (art. L3121-2), deeply amended by the Thevenoud law of 1 October 2014. That date splits the stock of licences into two regimes that have nothing in common.

Transferable or not: everything depends on the date of issue#

For an ADS issued before 1 October 2014, the holder keeps the right to present a successor for valuable consideration: the licence therefore remains transferable, subject to effective and continuous operation for fifteen years from its issue, or five years from the first transfer. For an ADS issued after that law, the text is clear: it is non-transferable, free of charge, operated personally by its holder and valid for five renewable years.

Is the taxi licence amortisable?#

This is the question we are asked most often, and the answer in principle is no. A purchased ADS (pre-2014) is an intangible fixed asset recorded in account 205 at its acquisition cost. It is not amortisable: the right of presentation has no limited useful life, like goodwill or a right to present a client base.

Take care not to confuse amortisation and impairment. Amortisation records a spread and certain loss of value: it does not apply here. Impairment, by contrast, remains possible if the market value of the licence falls durably, for instance under VTC pressure. It is recognised on documented evidence, based on an analysis of the licence market, not through a percentage applied by reflex. For a specific file, the tax treatment of an asset whose beneficial effects would be limited in time is examined case by case under the FTC (art. 39, 1, 2°).

The underestimated risk. Many drivers amortise their licence like equipment. An unjustified amortisation on a non-amortisable ADS exposes you to a reassessment in case of a tax audit, with tax recall and penalties. Conversely, overlooking a legitimate impairment when market value collapses forfeits a deductible charge. The right reflex is neither one nor the other by default: it is a written analysis of the market value, filed in the working papers.

Passenger transport falls under the reduced 10% VAT rate (FTC, art. 279, b quater). Once you are a taxable person liable for VAT, you therefore charge 10% VAT on your fares and you deduct VAT on your business expenses under ordinary conditions.

The counterpart is advantageous and too often ignored. VAT on the vehicle is in principle excluded from the right of deduction for passenger cars. But the taxi benefits from an exception: the official guidance (BOI-TVA-DED-30-30-20) names taxis specifically among the particular public passenger transports for which the VAT on the vehicle is deductible. Two conditions lock this right: the exclusive assignment of the vehicle to particular public passenger transport, and the status of taxable person liable for VAT.

This asymmetry deserves a note: you, the taxi, recover VAT on your vehicle; but a corporate client does not recover VAT on its taxi fare expenses. Knowing this dual regime avoids many billing misunderstandings.

In practice#

In the year the vehicle is renewed, the VAT deducted on the purchase frequently exceeds the VAT collected on fares: the return should anticipate this timing gap rather than suffer it. We check eligibility for the deduction before the first return concerned, in particular the reality of the exclusive assignment: a vehicle used to a significant extent for private purposes weakens the entire deduction. It is a point we document in the file, not a box we tick.

A taxi's result depends closely on the cost per kilometre: operating costs divided by kilometres driven. The items that make it up are always the same: fuel, insurance, maintenance, tyres, possible leasing. Taken in isolation, none of them looks decisive; added together, they decide your net income. A monthly dashboard prevents drift and prepares the tax return: it is the tool that reveals an erosion of profitability the annual accounts alone would show a year too late.

The excise refund (former TICPE): an entitlement that must be documented#

Taxis benefit from a partial refund of fuel excise, formerly TICPE. The historical basis was in article 265 sexies of the Customs Code; it is now recodified in the Code of taxes on goods and services, at article L312-52.

Several changes must be factored in for 2026:

• jurisdiction has moved from Customs (DGDDI) to the DGFiP for consumption from 2025;
• the claim is filed via an annex to the VAT return, form no. 3310-TIC;
• the weighted flat-rate tariff disappears on 1 January 2026: tariffs are updated per fuel (E5, E10, diesel) and per region;
• the claim is annual, with a claim period of three years.

The refund is won through documentary rigour. Keep all your named fuel invoices and a reliable record of your business mileage: a poorly prepared file means a refund delayed by a full year. We schedule this calculation within the VAT cycle so it is never forgotten.

Points of vigilance 2026#

The year 2026 concentrates several changes on the fuel item: the shift of the excise refund to the DGFiP, the disappearance of the weighted flat-rate tariff on 1 January 2026 and the move through the VAT return require revising your administrative routine from the first affected financial year. Check, before the first deadline, that your fuel supporting documents are complete and usable.

The taximeter is the signature of the taxi: it sets the price of the fare, including street hails and rank pickups. In accounting terms, it is also your best ally, because it is the starting point for substantiating your revenue.

Part of your fares is paid in cash, and that is precisely where rigour pays off. We ask our driver clients for a simple and constant organisation: a regular reading of the meter, a revenue sheet kept day by day, and a periodic reconciliation between declared revenue, cash deposits and card collections on the bank statement. For taxis under a medical transport agreement, add the tracking of invoices issued to paying bodies, whose settlements arrive with a delay.

The stakes go beyond well-kept books. Incomplete revenue records can be set aside in a tax audit, and the administration then reconstructs the revenue from external indications, rarely in the driver's favour. Conversely, a consistent chain running from the meter to the revenue sheet, the bank and the return makes the file hard to challenge.

This mechanism is also what separates the taxi from the VTC driver: the VTC works exclusively on prior booking, with no meter and no street hail, and has no entitlement to the excise refund. The two trades look alike on the road, not in the accounts.

A chartered accounting firm based at 58 rue de Monceau, in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, we support self-employed taxi drivers and company operators, in Paris and throughout France, with replies within 24 to 48 hours. In concrete terms, our engagement covers:

• bookkeeping and review of your accounts on Pennylane, with a revenue substantiation chain anchored to the meter;
• VAT: 10% collected on fares, deduction on the vehicle after checking eligibility, returns filed electronically;
• the excise refund, integrated into the VAT cycle via form 3310-TIC, with a check of fuel invoices and mileage records;
• the treatment of the ADS licence: recording in account 205, analysis of the market value, written position on impairment;
• steering: a monthly dashboard of cost per kilometre and revenue;
• trade-offs: choice of status at creation, remuneration versus dividends in a company, preparation of the sale of a transferable licence.

Representative case (illustrative)#

A self-employed Paris taxi driver, holding an ADS purchased in 2010, comes to the firm with three classic anomalies: his licence was being amortised every year, the excise refund was claimed only irregularly, and the VAT on the renewal of his vehicle had not been recovered. Our work consisted of reclassifying the licence as a non-amortisable intangible fixed asset in account 205, documenting its market value to assess the case for an impairment, structuring the annual excise refund claim via form 3310-TIC and validating the eligibility of the VAT on the vehicle. This example is illustrative: each file is validated on its own supporting documents.

The mistakes we correct most often#

• Amortising the ADS licence like equipment, when it is in principle non-amortisable.
• Forgetting or undervaluing the excise refund, for want of tracking fuel invoices and mileage.
• Losing the VAT on the vehicle by ignoring the exception reserved for particular public passenger transport.
• Applying the wrong VAT rate to fares, when the rate is 10%.
• Leaving cash revenue without a substantiation chain, which weakens the whole file in a tax audit.
• Neglecting cost-per-kilometre tracking, which masks the real erosion of profitability.

Depending on your situation, we direct you to our business taxation support to arbitrate your regime, to our social and payroll team if you employ a driver, or to our company formation offer if you are structuring your activity. To prepare a meeting, our director's remuneration simulator gives a first order of magnitude of the trade-off between remuneration and dividends.

This page provides information on the principles applicable to taxis; a decision specific to your file requires examining your situation, your documents and the law in force. Let us discuss it during a first conversation.

Up to date as of 12 July 2026. Content written by Samuel Hayot, Chartered Accountant and Statutory Auditor, registered with the Order of Chartered Accountants of Ile-de-France and the CNCC.