Rules for taxi, ride-share and hire-car industry operators.
Key information
The commercial passenger vehicle service levy is a $1.20 charge on every taxi, hire-car and ride-share trip in Victoria.
Money from the levy helps pay compensation to former taxi and hire car licence holders. It also helps improve transport services for people with disabilities.
Who pays the levy depends on how the trip started and whether the driver is employed by the vehicle owner.
- For booked trips, the business that takes the booking pays.
- For rank or hailed trips that start when a passenger gets into the vehicle at a taxi rank or hails it from the street, the driver pays unless:
- the driver is an employee, the vehicle owner pays
- the driver has a formal affiliation agreement with a booking service provider, that provider can pay the levy for the driver’s unbooked trips.
The levy applies to any trip that starts in Victoria.
If you are responsible for paying the levy, you must register with us. Our online tool will help you check whether you are responsible.
Register for the levy
If you need to pay the levy, you must register with us before the end of the first quarter you start operating. There are 3 types of registration:
- rank and hail work (unbooked services)
- booking service providers
- services that lodge returns and pay on behalf of others.
Read more about registering for the levy.
Registering for the levy is different to registering with Commercial Passenger Vehicles Victoria (formerly Taxi Services Commission). Contact Commercial Passenger Vehicles Victoria for information about your licensing and regulatory obligations.
Lodge returns and pay the levy
After you register, you must lodge a return every quarter using the online portal.
Your return must show how many trips the levy applies to.
You must keep records of all trips to complete your returns. Keep these records for 5 years.
If you did not complete any trips for the quarter, you must lodge a nil return.
You can change a return or update your registration details in the online portal.
Read more about lodging returns and making payments.
If you don’t lodge a return or pay the levy on time, we may send you an assessment notice and charge interest and penalties. You can object to an assessment through the online portal.
We monitor compliance to ensure fairness for all operators.
If you stop operating, you must cancel your registration and lodge a final return within 14 days.
Trip types, fares and GST
GST applies to the full fare of any trip. If the levy is passed on to customers through higher fares, it becomes part of the fare and is subject to GST. The GST component is not paid to us.
The levy applies:
- to each separate charge in a multiple hire (fare) trip, where passengers share a vehicle and each pays a separate fare
- once for a trip with several stops
- to each vehicle used in a single booking
- to passenger trips on motorcycles where a fare is charged
- to a business that takes a booking and passes it to another business.
The levy does not apply if:
- a customer makes a booking but the trip does not happen.
- the trip is a delivery service (e.g. food delivery) or on a bus.
