* The calculations use average data for Russia

Starting investments:

6,000,000 ₽ (taxi fleet for 10 taxis)

Revenue:

Net profit:

Payback period:

What do you need to start a taxi business and how can you make money from it today? The market situation, the most profitable car brands for taxis and calculations for organizing a small taxi fleet.

The taxi market has been developing rapidly in recent years. And, despite the fact that competition in this business segment is increasing, this business is a financially profitable project. The use of leasing schemes allows you to reduce investments, and the involvement of aggregators allows you to easily provide a taxi fleet with customers. You can enter such a business without experience and gradually increase the number of cars, constantly increasing your profit.

The current situation in the taxi market

The volume of the Russian taxi market is more than 500 billion rubles. The leader in taxi business revenue is Moscow with revenue of more than 2 billion rubles annually. This is almost half of the entire Russian market. From the point of view of federal districts, the clear leader is the Central District, which generates revenue of about 180 billion rubles per year. Moscow is inferior to St. Petersburg in terms of revenue, but in terms of the number of registered cars, these cities are almost equal - they have about 7.5 taxis per 1000 residents. This industry employs almost 600 thousand people throughout the country. Due to the crisis in the Russian economy, the number of employees in this industry is projected to increase by more than 100 thousand people.

The share of illegal taxis on the market is about 15%, and this figure is constantly decreasing, which is due to the improvement in the quality of transportation by large taxi companies and the reduction in the cost of travel for customers. Large players in the taxi market are fighting for their clients; for example, over the past few years, the average taxi speed has decreased from 10 minutes to 4-5 minutes. The average cost of a taxi trip over the past few years, according to market analysts, has decreased by about 35%. And this is despite a sharp rise in prices for all the main costs of transportation, such as the cost of cars, the cost of gasoline and spare parts. What made such savings possible? First of all, this is tougher competition among major market players. The cost of attracting a client has decreased slightly. But the main savings come from lower wage costs for drivers, who have to work more for less pay.

The entire taxi market is divided into two large segments - the taxi companies themselves and aggregators who do not have their own cars, but only search for and transfer clients to taxi companies.

Among the aggregators in Russia, Yandex.Taxi, Gett and Uber are the leaders. Among the taxi companies are Rutaxi, Saturn and Maxim, which are large federal networks.

Based on the results of the market analysis, we conclude that despite the growth in the number of cars and revenue, there is no economic sense in creating a separate taxi fleet with its own dispatch service. This is due to the almost complete market penetration by large players who can support huge advertising budgets and low travel costs. The market is so busy that investing in a small taxi fleet with its own dispatch service is only possible in very tiny settlements where major players are not present. And, if such places still remain, it won’t be for long. In our opinion, such investments are not justified.

How can a small taxi company make money by taxi?

Due to the fact that creating your own dispatch service for a small company is currently not profitable, you can, having a fleet of cars, connect to any aggregator and carry out orders on its behalf.

The diagram looks like this. You purchase several cars, hire drivers and enter into an agreement with one or more taxi aggregators. They will advertise, provide a dispatch service and provide you with clients at the rates they approve. You will pay the aggregator for each client or for a certain period of cooperation with him.

Aggregators work only with legal entities or individual entrepreneurs. As a rule, it is not profitable for a driver to open an individual entrepreneur to provide taxi transportation services using one car.

Exist two main schemes for working with drivers.

First scheme is based on the fact that you find a driver and agree with him on a certain plan, which he will rent daily. Essentially, you are renting out a car. As a rule, to avoid vehicle downtime, two daily drivers work on one vehicle. The cost of renting a car that you provide a driver depends on the class of the car, its mileage and what fuel it runs on. Naturally, renting a car on gas costs a little more, since this is associated with a rather expensive re-equipment of the car, but the driver recoups the costs by reducing the cost of fuel. As a rule, the cost of such rental for a driver per day per day is about 1300 - 2000 rubles per day for the regions.

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Second scheme is based on the fact that you provide a car and pay the driver a salary for the number of hours worked. In this case, you also connect the driver to your aggregator account, refuel the car, wash it and service it. According to the salary scheme in the regions, a driver earns from 1,500 to 2,500 rubles per day.

There is another scheme for working with a driver, when a taxi company attracts a driver with a car and takes a certain percentage of his revenue. Usually it is 4-6%. But such a scheme, probably due to the adoption of the law on self-employed people, will become disadvantageous for drivers. Since the law has already been adopted in the first reading, there is not long to wait and we will not consider this option. Many companies that worked on this principle are changing their business model.

It is impossible to determine which scheme, the first or the second, is more profitable for the taxi fleet. As in any business, financial results depend mainly not on the model of its organization, but on the quality of the business organization. Naturally, the salary model requires more attention to business, clearer control over the driver’s work, but often extends the life of the car.

Naturally, car maintenance and repairs in both described schemes are carried out at your expense and under your control. Aggregators carry out complete and strict quality control of orders. For any driver violations, he will be immediately fined or blocked. Aggregators often provide driver training.

What cars are advisable to purchase for a taxi fleet?

Of course, the cheaper we buy a car, the faster it will pay for itself and start making money. However, cheap cars, as a rule, have a shorter service life, which is very important for taxis, due to the fact that the cost of spare parts is constantly rising. Aggregators also issue the best orders, taking into account the class of the car and its mileage or age.

Therefore, it is necessary to find a middle ground that will allow you to save on initial costs and ensure sufficient cash income from this car. Let's consider which main brands of cars are profitable to use in a taxi.

Let us turn to the practice of existing taxi companies, which have not only calculated the effectiveness of purchasing a particular brand, but have also verified the correctness of their calculations in practice over the years.

In 2017, companies purchased more than 29 thousand cars for use as taxis.

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Volkswagen Polo and Hyundai Solaris are in first place by the number of cars purchased for taxis, their share is approximately 13% of all cars purchased for use in taxis.

The third and fourth places are occupied by Skoda Rapid and KIA Rio with 11% and 10.7% respectively. The top ten most popular cars purchased by legal entities for use as a taxi also included: Skoda Octavia (6.4%), Ford Focus (6.1%), Renault Logan (5.6%), Volkswagen Jetta (2. 8%), Renault Kaptur (2.5%) and Nissan Almera (2.3%).

The main criteria for choosing a car for use in a taxi are its initial cost, fuel consumption, maintenance cost, convenience for the driver and the client. You can consider purchasing a used car, but the cost of maintaining it is usually much higher, especially given the significant mileage when working as a taxi.

Legal aspects of operating a taxi company

To begin with, let’s decide which organizational and legal form is better to use for a taxi fleet - individual entrepreneur or LLC. We are not talking about one car, which is operated by the driver himself, but about a taxi fleet, which has 10-15 cars.

There is no fundamental difference between an individual entrepreneur and an LLC for a taxi fleet. Registration of an individual entrepreneur is a little simpler, but not significant. The reporting of an individual entrepreneur is somewhat simpler, but keep in mind that the individual entrepreneur is responsible for his obligations with all his property, and accidents on the road are different and not all of them can fit into the insurance amount. Therefore, if you do not have any special reasons for choosing an individual entrepreneur, we recommend opening an LLC.

It is more important to immediately decide on the choice of tax regime. There are several tax regimes available for taxis: UTII (single tax on imputed income), patent taxation system or simplified taxation system. Please note that UTII can be applied to individual entrepreneurs or legal entities who have no more than 20 vehicles for transportation.

It should be noted that the amount of taxes for each mode will be different depending on the region of registration of the taxi company. You can do this yourself on the website of the Federal Tax Service of Russia.

Let's calculate the cost of a patent for 10 cars for 2018 for a city, for example, Rostov-on-Don. A patent can be used by individual entrepreneurs whose average number of employees during the tax period does not exceed 15 people for all types of business activities carried out by an individual entrepreneur, which fits into our conditions.

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The application of the patent taxation system provides for exemption from the obligation to pay personal income tax and property tax for individuals used for business.

Having entered all the necessary data, we find that the amount of tax when applying the patent taxation system for this type of business activity for 12 months. will be 192,000 rubles, the tax is paid in two payments - 1 payment is equal to 64,000 rubles no later than ninety calendar days after the patent begins to be valid, 2 payment is equal to 128,000 rubles no later than the expiration date of the patent.

Let's calculate the amount of UTII for the same conditions using a special calculator. The amount of UTII will be about 50 thousand rubles per quarter. The amount of UTII tax can be reduced to 50% of the amount of insurance premiums paid for individual entrepreneurs. Further, it all depends on what contributions you will pay for employees.

In our opinion, there will not be a big difference in the amount of tax paid in fact when using UTII or a patent.

Thus, it is better to choose UTII or patent as a taxation system; which is better, you can easily calculate it yourself for your region, according to the scheme that we showed. If you do not fall under the specified regimes due to restrictions, then choose the simplified tax system.

Registration of a license for the operation of a taxi fleet

Let's consider what is needed to obtain a license to operate a taxi company. Obtaining a license does not present any particular problems. Licenses are issued by the Ministry of Transport. It is best to familiarize yourself with the list of documents for obtaining a license at the administration of the region where you will receive the license, since this list may vary slightly depending on the region of registration. The cost of obtaining a license varies depending on the region and is about 5 thousand rubles.

Please note that to obtain a license you must equip your vehicle with the following requirements:

Always have the original permit for this type of activity in the vehicle.

Checkered stickers.

The interior of the vehicle must be equipped with a taximeter device or a mobile application that replaces it.

The roof of the car must be equipped with a characteristic “taxi” sign with a built-in light element.

There are also the following basic requirements for the driver:

Driving experience of at least 5 years.

The vehicle must be the personal property of the driver or provided to him in accordance with the current leasing agreement.

As you can see, the procedure for obtaining a license usually does not cause problems.

And, one more important legal aspect. Taxi drivers are required to undergo a pre-trip medical examination. Such an inspection, by law, must be carried out by a certified specialist and an appropriate record must be made of the results of each inspection. To conduct such inspections, or record the fact of their conduct, you can enter into an agreement with a third-party organization that has a license for such activities.

Taxi fleet financial indicators

The financial performance of a taxi fleet will be different, depending on the operating model of the taxi fleet itself. Let's say we want to create a small taxi fleet of 10 cars in a city with a population of about one million people. As a dispatch service, we will choose an aggregator, for example, Yandex.Taxi. Hired drivers will work in shifts and pay a plan of 1,700 rubles per day.

The professionalism of drivers is very important for the financial success of a taxi fleet. If drivers often get into accidents or are negligent in operating their cars, then there can be no talk of any positive financial results. The right selection of drivers is the basis of a successful taxi business.

Let's consider what financial indicators in this example can be achieved by us.

Investment (initial) costs for opening a taxi fleet will include the following main elements: costs of opening a company or individual entrepreneur, costs of obtaining a license, rental of a parking lot, costs of a small office and costs of purchasing cars. The cost of purchasing cars makes up the bulk of all costs.

With an average cost of a car of 600 thousand rubles, the cost of 10 cars will be about 6 million rubles. These are significant investments; against their background, the sum of all other initial costs can be neglected. You can reduce the amount of initial costs by purchasing a car on lease. There are many profitable leasing offers for legal entities.

When concluding a leasing agreement, you must make a down payment of about 10% -20%. A leasing agreement is usually concluded for a period of one to five years. The longer the leasing term, the lower the monthly payment, but the greater the overpayment amount for the entire term. Additionally, the lessee can receive significant savings when paying the profit calculation. The lessee also saves on property tax and VAT, if he is its payer.

The specific amounts of tax savings depend on the tax system you choose and can be calculated at any leasing company you contact. In any case, the option of purchasing cars on lease is worth considering, as you can reduce the amount of initial costs by almost 10 times.

Each car will bring you about 51 thousand rubles per month. But this is the amount in the ideal case; in reality, the amount will be 10% - 15% less, and this is provided that the work is well organized. Let's take net revenue from one car in the amount of 45 thousand rubles per month.

The main expenses will be the following: the cost of purchasing an insurance policy, vehicle maintenance, which, given the high mileage of cars in taxi mode, can be monthly, taxes, office maintenance, if necessary, and payment for aggregator services.

The total cost will be about 14 thousand per month per car. Thus, the estimated profit from one car will be about 31 thousand rubles, and the total profit on 10 cars will be about 310 thousand rubles per month. In this calculation, we do not take into account some overpayments on leasing and believe that we are making all investments at once. The payback period for the car will be about 2 years. In fact, the service life of a car in a taxi, subject to high-quality service, is much longer and is at least four years, after which it is more profitable to sell the car at its residual value.

As a result, taking into account the residual value of the car, each car will bring you about 700 thousand rubles in profit over four years, that is, about 14 thousand rubles per month.

Summing up, we conclude that opening your own small taxi fleet is a good business that provides decent profitability and acceptable payback periods. With proper organization of the business, the total income is quite sufficient to ensure the effectiveness of the entire project.

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