Taxi and private-hire drivers protested on foot outside the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport at Porta Pia in Rome on Monday 26 October 2026, over rising fuel prices. ANSA reported about 300 drivers there from 10am. Taxis on duty stayed in service. The drivers at the protest were off duty, on leave or resting, and no taxis were taken to the square. Italian taxi drivers protest rising fuel costs, threaten strike
URI, itTaxi and Unicoop called the demonstration, and private-hire drivers from Unitrav joined them. It had first been planned for Via XX Settembre, outside the Ministry of Economy and Finance. A joint note from the organisers records the change of place as agreed with Rome's police headquarters, because a large number of drivers was expected and delegations were coming from across Italy.
The document
In a note after the protest, URI, itTaxi and Unicoop said: "In the absence of Minister Matteo Salvini and Deputy Minister Edoardo Rixi, we were received today by officials of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, to whom we handed a document containing the taxi trade's urgent requests and proposals for dealing with the rise in fuel prices. We hope to meet Minister Salvini directly in the coming days for a discussion that can settle the problems we have set out."
Costs and a strike
Carlo di Alessandro of Federtaxi Cisal put the rise in running costs at 25% to 30% since the crisis began. The tax credit had been reduced year after year to the minimum, a practical measure that could affect those costs. A strike was among the forms of protest on the table. Some associations also want professional fuel, with the excise taken off petrol and diesel, and an extraordinary compensation fund. In ANSA's account, most taxis now run on petrol, or are hybrid or electric.
Who stayed away
Uritaxi did not join the protest in Rome. Claudio Giudici, its national president, said the absence followed from a clear distance from the organisations that called the protest and from the positions they have taken in recent years on the future of the sector, and that the union had no wish to play down the trade's economic difficulties. Uritaxi will attend the national meeting of taxi organisations in Florence on Tuesday 27 October. Other taxi unions are due there the same day.
Haulage on Tuesday
Salvini and Rixi are due to meet road-haulage representatives at the ministry on Tuesday. ANSA put last week's emergency support for that sector at €105 million, with structural questions for haulage still open.