Prague has put a maximum fare back on metered taxis. Price order 3/2026 sets 70 crowns (£2.42) to start, 42 crowns (£1.45) a kilometre, and 7 crowns (£0.24) a minute of waiting. Sterling is the Czech National Bank rate for 21 October 2026, 28.938 crowns to £1, to the nearest penny.
The city posted the order on its notice board on 21 October. The document is dated 20 October and takes effect the day after publication, which is 22 October. It cancels price order 2/2026 of 29 July 2026, the measure that ended the previous cap on 30 September. Price order 3/2026
What the ceiling covers
The maximum is the final price, including VAT. Nothing further may be added. A driver may charge less.
The starting charge is taken when the job begins. It covers hire of the cab, help getting in and out, loading and unloading luggage, the receipt, and information such as the route. Waiting is time stopped at a junction or moving slowly in traffic, and the meter adds it on its own. A wait caused by a breakdown, or by the driver, must not be charged, including where another cab finishes the trip.
The order covers a vehicle the law requires to carry a meter, and only a trip that starts and finishes inside Prague. Combustion-engine and electric cabs share the same three rates. The gap between them was treated as too small for two scales.
Expats.cz reported that Uber and Bolt stay outside the cap. Prague restores taxi fare caps after complaints about high prices
Why it returned
After the cap ended on 30 September, the city received dozens of complaints about fares that were far too high, mostly from foreign tourists. Receipts with those complaints showed a starting charge of 100 to 450 crowns, 80 to 500 crowns a kilometre, and 10 to 50 crowns a minute of waiting. Even a short trip was costing thousands of crowns. The order says the market on its own was not protecting passengers, and that the ceiling is a measure in the public interest which had to be made at once. There is no appeal against it.
Tomáš Havel, director of Prague City Hall, signed the order.
The trade response
Šárka Mrázová, for the Czech Confederation of Commerce and Tourism, welcomed the restoration. "We are glad that public criticism of this strange decision, and customers' experiences which confirmed that conventional taxi drivers were taking advantage, led Prague City Hall to restore the price ceilings." "There is a risk that they will go on taking advantage, and that they will not gladly return to ceilings they have long wanted abolished in order to enrich themselves at the expense of inattentive customers who are used to the transparent prices of taxi apps." The confederation also asked the city to explain in public why it removed the ceilings, and to check metered taxis more often. V Praze opět platí cenová regulace taxislužeb s taxametrem