Glasgow City Council’s Licensing and Regulatory Committee decided unanimously on Wednesday 11 November 2026 that taxi drivers must accept card payments. From 1 February 2027 the new conditions apply to a taxi driver licence that is granted or renewed. A licence runs for three years. A passenger who wants to pay cash can still do so.
The conditions
The agreed wording is in the report on mandatory card payments in taxis, which was before the committee at its meeting in the City Chambers.
"The driver of a taxi, while in charge of a taxi as such, must at all times, accept credit/debit card and contactless payments via a card payment device and provide a printed or handwritten receipt for those payments upon request.
"The driver of a taxi shall ensure that the card payment device is fully working before accepting any fares. Should there be a network outage affecting card payment devices or any other technical issue with the working of the card payment device, the driver of a taxi shall inform passengers as soon as they become aware."
A driver or operator who does not already have a card device buys one, from a provider of their choice. The licensing authority bears none of the cost. The conditions sit on the taxi driver licence.
The convener
Councillor Alex Wilson, SNP, who chairs the committee, said his inbox is normally quite full of people complaining about the first cab on the rank not taking them home because it is not accepting card payments. Younger members of the public no longer use cash. They would rather tap a phone or a watch to pay.