Municipal licensing
Driving for money is licensed by your city, not the province, and the city decides whether it licenses you or the company you drive for. Here is what each one charges, and who it charges.
Running the same taxi costs $65 a year in London and $233.78 in Toronto. That is roughly 4 times more for an identical business, and the gap is almost entirely a licensing decision rather than a cost of doing business.
| Municipality | What the by-law calls it | First year | Each year after |
|---|---|---|---|
| London | Driver Licence, Cab, Accessible Cab, Limousine | $65 | $65 |
| Whitby | Taxicab Driver licence | $83 | $83 |
| Pickering | Taxicab Driver licence | $100 | Not published |
| Markham | Taxi Driver licence | $111 | $111 |
| Brampton | Taxi Driver licence | $116 | $116 |
| Richmond Hill | Cab driver's license | $136.47 | Not published |
| Windsor | Taxicab Driver licence | $165.60 | $145 |
| Oakville | Taxi Driver's Licence | $206 | $206 |
| Mississauga | Taxi driver's licence | $218.91 | $198.37 |
| Toronto | Vehicle-for-Hire Driver licence | $233.78 | $233.78 |
| Kitchener | No taxi or rideshare driver licence is issued | Kitchener does not licence this trade | |
| Hamilton | Taxi Cab Driver licence | Fees are not published on the licensing page | |
| Barrie | No individual taxi driver licence is issued | Barrie does not issue this licence at all | |
Every figure is traced to the municipality below, with the by-law it came from and the date it was checked.
Because they are not licensing the same person. London licenses the driver once for $65.00 and takes its money from the platforms instead, at forty one cents a trip. Toronto licenses the driver directly for $233.78 and licenses the rideshare driver indirectly for $26.97, paid by the platform on their behalf. Barrie does not licence taxi drivers at all and bills the company by fleet size. The work is identical in all three. Who the city treats as the licensee is not.
The gap between the cheapest and the dearest driver licence is small next to what mobile food operators face, and that is the point. Driver licensing is one of the few things Ontario municipalities price roughly alike. What they do not agree on is who holds the licence, and that decision costs far more than the fee.
Cab driver, taxicab driver, vehicle for hire driver, private transportation company driver. The instrument you need depends on whether you intend to pick up a street hail, sit on a stand, or take app dispatched trips, and in several cities those are separate licences with separate prices.
No. Every municipality here accepts a sole proprietorship registration. None of them require you to incorporate.
Driver licensing is mostly personal rather than corporate. A city is licensing a human being to carry passengers, so it asks for identification, a driving abstract and often a police check rather than incorporation papers. Mississauga is the exception worth reading: it asks for articles of incorporation or business registration if you apply as a company, and requires that the applicant hold 51 per cent of the voting rights.
That 51 per cent condition matters if you were planning to hold a taxi licence inside a corporation with partners or investors. It is a control test, not a paperwork step, and it is the kind of clause that decides a share structure before you have drafted one.
If you want the comparison without the sales pitch, our sole proprietorship versus incorporation guide lays out both sides.
Each entry below shows what the municipality charges, what it calls the licence, what it will not tell you, and where the figures came from.
Halton Region
Taxi Driver's Licence. Oakville charges a limousine driver $318.00 and a taxi driver $206.00 for work a passenger would struggle to tell apart, a gap of more than fifty per cent. It licenses rideshare separately again as a TNC Licence. Replacing a lost driver photo card costs $88.14 including HST, one of the few licensing lines here that attracts tax at all.
| Taxi driver's licenceA limousine driver's licence is $318.00. Replacing the photo card is $88.14 with HST. | $206 |
| First year total | $206 |
What this municipality does not publish
Source: Business Licensing By-law; municipal enforcement licensing rates schedule. Effective 2025-01-01. Checked 2026-09-15. View the source
Waterloo Region
No taxi or rideshare driver licence is issued. Kitchener publishes its entire business licence list in one place, and it runs to thirty categories from auctioneer to theatre without a taxi anywhere in it. The city licenses driving schools but not the people who drive for hire. In Waterloo Region that licensing sits at the regional tier rather than the municipal one, which is why searching a Kitchener address for a taxi licence returns nothing.
| Municipal licenceNone is issued. | Not published |
What this municipality does not publish
The municipality does not cite a by-law number on this page. Checked 2026-09-15. View the source
Durham Region / Greater Toronto Area
Taxicab Driver licence. The only two year driver licence in this comparison, and on an annual basis the cheapest anywhere: $100.00 buys two years, so $50.00 a year against London's $65.00. Pickering inverts the usual pattern in another way too, charging the owner $250.00 a year while the driver pays $50.00.
| Taxicab driver licence, two year termCovers two years rather than one, so the annual equivalent is $50.00. A taxicab owner pays $250.00 renewed annually and a broker $150.00. | $100 |
| First year total | $100 |
What this municipality does not publish
The municipality does not cite a by-law number on this page. Checked 2026-09-15. View the source
Greater Toronto Area
Vehicle-for-Hire Driver licence. Toronto runs two routes to the same work and prices them nine times apart. A vehicle for hire driver licence, covering taxicab and limousine, is bought by the driver for $233.78. A private transportation company driver licence cannot be bought by the driver at all: the platform applies for it and pays the city $18.32 plus an $8.65 Accessibility Fund fee, so $26.97 a year, on the driver's behalf.
| Application feeNon refundable. | $55.53 |
| Licence feeRenewal is $158.76, which with the accessibility fee makes the same $233.78. | $103.23 |
| Accessibility Fund Program feeNo longer reduced. Adjusted by CPI as calculated by the city's Finance Division. | $75.02 |
| First year total | $233.78 |
What this municipality does not publish
Source: Toronto Municipal Code Chapter 546, Licensing of Vehicles-for-Hire. Effective 2026-01-01. Checked 2026-09-15. View the source
Greater Toronto Area
Taxi driver's licence. Mississauga licenses the driver, the owner and the platform as three separate things, and the distance between them is the story. Driving costs $218.91. Holding an owner's licence from the priority list costs $1,225.68. Operating as a transportation network company costs $22,510.18 a year.
| Taxi driver's licence, newRenewal is $198.37. | $218.91 |
| First year total | $218.91 |
Proof of registration: Articles of incorporation and/or business registration documents if applying as a company, and where the applicant is a corporation it must hold 51 per cent of the voting rights. That is a control test on your share structure, not a requirement to incorporate.
What this municipality does not publish
Source: Public Vehicle Licensing By-law. Checked 2026-09-15. View the source
York Region / Greater Toronto Area
Cab driver's license. Richmond Hill charges the same $88.24 to drive a cab or a limousine, then adds a photo identification card and a one time examination, so the first year costs more than the licence line suggests. Against that, an original cab owner's licence application is $5,640.95, one of the largest single municipal figures in this whole dataset.
| Cab driver's licenceA limousine driver's licence is the same $88.24. | $88.24 |
| Owner or driver photo identification | $16.42 |
| Driver examination, per sittingCharged again for each resit. | $31.81 |
| First year total | $136.47 |
What this municipality does not publish
Source: Tariff of Fees By-law 94-23, Schedule E. Effective 2024-01-01. Checked 2026-09-15. View the source
York Region / Greater Toronto Area
Taxi Driver licence. Markham charges a flat $111.00 to drive a taxi and the same $111.00 to drive a limousine. Every vehicle for hire licence it issues expires on 30 April regardless of when it was taken out, so a licence bought in March is worth six weeks.
| Taxi driver licenceA limousine driver licence is also $111.00. A late charge of $57.00 applies after 30 April. | $111 |
| First year total | $111 |
What this municipality does not publish
Source: By-law 2012-137, Licensing, Permit and Service Fees (consolidated to 1 January 2025). Effective 2025-01-01. Checked 2026-09-15. View the source
Southwestern Ontario
Taxicab Driver licence. Windsor is the only municipality here that makes training a condition of applying rather than a discount on the fee. An applicant must complete the Taxicab, Limousine and Paratransit Association driver education programme before they may apply at all, and the city sends them to a licensed broker to arrange it. It also prices a livery driver lower than a taxicab driver, $110.00 against $145.00, for work most passengers would not distinguish.
| Taxicab driver licenceA livery driver licence is $110.00. Renewal is the same as the new fee in both cases. | $145 |
| Photo identification cardIncludes HST and is renewed every two years. A replacement is $35.00. | $20.60 |
| First year total | $165.60 |
What this municipality does not publish
Source: Public Vehicles, Licensing and Regulation of, By-law 137-2007 as amended. Checked 2026-09-15. View the source
Peel Region / Greater Toronto Area
Taxi Driver licence. Brampton sells the driver licence in terms of one to four years and holds the price almost exactly linear, $116.00 a year however long you buy. The interesting number is elsewhere: moving a taxicab plate into a corporation you yourself control costs $441.00, which is a real and rarely mentioned cost of incorporating a taxi business.
| Taxi driver licence, one yearTwo years $234.00, three years $350.00, four years $466.00. Buying longer saves almost nothing. | $116 |
| First year total | $116 |
Proof of registration: By-law 101-2025 s. 18(2): a sole proprietor supplies a business name registration, and s. 18(6) accepts a Master Business Licence in its place. Incorporation is never required.
What this municipality does not publish
Source: Mobile Licensing By-law 101-2025, Schedule 4 and Appendix A. Checked 2026-09-15. View the source
Southwestern Ontario
Driver Licence, Cab, Accessible Cab, Limousine. The cheapest driver licence found anywhere here, and the only one sold in two year terms: $65.00 for a year or $120.00 for two, with one licence covering cab, accessible cab and limousine rather than splitting them. London recovers the money at the other end instead, charging rideshare platforms 41 cents on every trip, nearly four times what Barrie charges.
| Driver licence, one yearTwo years is $120.00, so committing up front saves $10.00. Replacing a lost driver licence is $40.00. | $65 |
| First year total | $65 |
What this municipality does not publish
Source: Fees and Charges By-law A-62, Schedule 1 (2026). Effective 2026-01-01. Checked 2026-09-15. View the source
Golden Horseshoe
Taxi Cab Driver licence. Hamilton is the only municipality here that will licence a new taxi driver for nothing. The ninety day probationary licence carries no fee on initial application at all, and the full licence fee is waived for the first year for any applicant who completes the Accessible Training course, which the city does not make mandatory. It is a rare case of a city paying people to be better trained rather than charging them.
| Taxi cab driver licence, first year with Accessible TrainingWaived. The reference guide does not print the fee that would otherwise apply. | Not published |
What this municipality does not publish
Source: By-law 07-170, Schedule 25. Effective 2026-01-20. Checked 2026-09-15. View the source
Durham Region / Greater Toronto Area
Taxicab Driver licence. The cheapest driver licence found anywhere in this comparison, at $83.00. Whitby prices the vehicle side very differently: a taxicab owner's licence is $203.00 per vehicle, and a wheelchair accessible taxicab owner pays nothing at all.
| Taxicab driver licenceA taxicab owner pays $203.00 per vehicle, and a wheelchair accessible taxicab owner pays $0.00. | $83 |
| First year total | $83 |
What this municipality does not publish
Source: Consolidated Fees and Charges By-law 7220-17. Effective 2026-01-01. Checked 2026-09-15. View the source
Simcoe County / Central Ontario
No individual taxi driver licence is issued. Barrie is the municipality that does not license the driver. There is no taxi driver line in its schedule at all. It licenses taxi companies by fleet size, from $968.22 for one to ten drivers up to $10,888.98 for four hundred and fifty one or more, and it licenses rideshare the same way, with a further eleven cents charged on every trip. A limousine driver is licensed individually at $479.24, so in Barrie the cheapest way to be a licensed driver is to not drive a taxi.
| Taxi driver licenceNo such licence exists in the schedule. | Not published |
| Limousine driver licenceThe only individual driver licence Barrie issues, and the dearest in this comparison by a wide margin. | $479.24 |
What this municipality does not publish
Source: Transportation Inspection and Approvals By-law 2006-265; 2026 User Fees, Schedule B. Effective 2026-01-01. Checked 2026-09-15. View the source
Treat it as a shortlist, not a quote. Several of these schedules are revised every January, and at least one municipality here publishes figures that are two years old because a newer tariff was not locatable.
Follow the source link for your municipality before you budget, and note the date each figure was checked. We publish what the by-law says and what it does not say, and we do not fill a gap with an estimate. If a number here disagrees with your city, the city is right and we want to know about it.
Do I need a city licence to drive for Uber or Lyft in Ontario?
Yes, but in several cities you will never buy it yourself. Toronto does not issue a private transportation company driver licence to individuals at all. The company applies on your behalf and pays the city $18.32 per driver a year plus an $8.65 Accessibility Fund fee. Barrie goes further and licenses no individual rideshare driver at all, charging the company by fleet size instead. So the answer to what it costs you personally is often nothing, because the platform is the licensee.
Why does a taxi driver pay so much more than a rideshare driver?
In Toronto the same act of carrying a passenger for money costs $233.78 a year as a licensed vehicle for hire driver and $26.97 as a private transportation company driver, and the rideshare driver does not even pay it. That is close to a ninefold difference for the same work in the same city, decided entirely by which instrument you hold. It is the single largest finding on this page and no municipality presents the comparison itself.
Is a taxi licence the same as owning a taxi?
No, and confusing the two is expensive. A driver licence lets you drive. An owner licence attaches to the vehicle and the plate, and it is priced in a different league. Mississauga charges $218.91 for a driver licence and $1,225.68 for an owner licence issued from its priority list, and $1,517.19 to take one over from a previous owner. Richmond Hill charges $88.24 to drive and $5,640.95 for an original cab owner's licence application.
Do I need to incorporate to hold a taxi licence?
No municipality here requires it, and driver licensing is mostly personal rather than corporate. Mississauga is the one to read carefully: it accepts an application from a company, asks for articles of incorporation or business registration if you apply that way, and requires the applicant to hold 51 per cent of the voting rights. That is a constraint on your share structure rather than a reason to incorporate.
How current are these figures?
Every figure was read from the municipality's own published source and carries the date it was checked, most recently 2026-09-15. Ontario fee schedules reset in January, so treat anything here as a starting point for your own confirmation rather than a final quote, and follow the source link before you budget.
Before you apply
Every municipality on this page wants proof your business is registered, and most want it dated within the last year. It is the step people leave until last and the one that costs them a season.
See your options