Getting around, day one

The metered street taxi in China: the meter, the receipt, and your rights

In short

How do I take a metered street taxi in China without getting fleeced?

Take a marked taxi from an official rank, and agree on the meter — never a flat quoted price. Under Shanghai's taxi regulation, as a worked example, the driver must run the meter and issue an official receipt (fapiao), and you may refuse to pay if the meter isn't used or no receipt is given. Keep that receipt: it carries the plate number and a complaint line, and it is what lets you reclaim a bag left in the cab. When a ride goes wrong, dial 12328 — the Ministry of Transport's national, round-the-clock transport service supervision line, which covers taxi complaints and lost property.

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Applies to

Any foreign visitor flagging or queueing for a marked, metered street taxi in mainland China — the first ride before you have set up ride-hailing, or where ride-hailing is thin.

Check before you rely on it

Fares and the taxi-administration office are set city by city; the numbers and the office name here are Shanghai's official example, not a nationwide standard. This is the marked street taxi, not the DiDi ride-hailing app (covered separately) and not the avoid-unmarked-cabs safety warning on the scams page.

Information checked: July 29, 2026

The site already owns the ride-hailing app and the avoid-black-cabs warning. This is the piece in between: the ordinary metered cab you flag at a rank — what the driver must do, what you are entitled to, roughly what the meter should add up to, and the one number to call when it goes wrong.

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The meter, the receipt, and your rights

What the driver must do — and what you can insist on

From Shanghai's taxi regulation, shown as one city's worked example. The meter and the printed receipt are legal duties, not favours; the refuse-to-pay right is the traveller's concrete backstop.

The driver must run the meter and give you a printed receipt

Under Shanghai's taxi regulation a passenger-service driver's duties include operating the meter as prescribed and charging by the standard while issuing a fare invoice (发票, fāpiào). The meter and the printed receipt are mandatory, not a favour — so agree on the meter, never a flat quoted price, before you get in. Fares and this rule are set city by city; this is Shanghai's, shown as a worked example.

Article 24

Source: Shanghai Municipal People's Government (上海市人民政府), www.shanghai.gov.cn — 上海市出租汽车管理条例 (Shanghai Municipal Regulation on the Administration of Taxis), Articles 20, 24, 27, 30, 42 (source dated municipal government-portal page dated 2020-08-13; read July 29, 2026)

You may legally refuse to pay if the meter isn't used

The Shanghai regulation states a passenger may refuse to pay the fare when the hired car has no meter or a meter that is not used, when the driver issues no fare invoice or receipt, or when the car breaks down within the flag-fall distance so the trip cannot be completed. That turns 'insist on the meter' from folk advice into a stated passenger right in that city.

Article 27

The receipt is a controlled document — keep it

The regulation requires operators to charge the price-bureau-approved fares and to use the fare invoice printed jointly by the municipal transport bureau and the tax bureau. That is why an authentic fapiao carries the vehicle's plate number and a complaint line — it is a controlled receipt, not a scrap of paper, and it is worth pocketing every time.

Article 20

Left a bag in the cab? The receipt is how you get it back

Under the same regulation a driver who finds lost property must try to return it or hand it to the company, and a passenger who has lost something may report it to the passenger-service company or the municipal taxi administration office (市出租汽车管理处) on the strength of the fare invoice. No receipt, no plate number, far less to go on — so the fapiao is the single thing to keep.

Article 30

A meter you think is wrong can be sealed and calibrated

The regulation lets a passenger who disputes the fare or the metering take it to the municipal taxi administration office; on a complaint that the meter is inaccurate, the office seals the meter and its attachments on the spot and sends them to the technical-supervision department for calibration. The exact office name and process are Shanghai's; other cities run their own equivalent through their transport authority.

Article 42

What a metered fare looks like (Shanghai example)

How the meter actually adds up

One official worked example so you can sanity-check the meter against something real. These are Shanghai's numbers — other cities publish their own, so treat this as the shape of a fare, not the price everywhere.

Flag-fall

¥14 for the first 3 km (¥16 / 3 km for the Touran and Roewe Ei5 EV models). The meter does not start climbing per-km until you pass the flag-fall distance.

Per kilometre after that

¥2.7 per km beyond the first 3 km.

Long trips

Over 15 km, the per-km rate rises 50%.

Night rate

Between 23:00 and 05:00 the rate floats up 30%.

Slow traffic and waiting

When speed drops below 12 km/h, or you ask the car to wait, every 4 minutes is charged as 1.5 km of the over-flag-fall rate — so a jam still runs the meter.

Holiday surcharge

¥10 per trip during the Spring Festival long holiday; ¥5 per trip during the National Day and May Day long holidays.

Source: Shanghai Municipal Transport Commission (上海市交通委员会), jtw.sh.gov.cn — 本市出租汽车运价结构和收费标准 (Structure and charging standards of this city's taxi fares) (read July 29, 2026)

If the meter is off, you're overcharged, or you left something behind

Who to call when a ride goes wrong

One national line above one city office. Dial 12328 anywhere in the country; the city taxi office is where a metering dispute gets a meter sealed and checked.

National

Dial 12328 — the transport service supervision hotline

12328 is the Ministry of Transport's public-welfare transport-industry supervision hotline, and urban passenger transport (城市客运) — the field that covers street taxis — is explicitly one of its areas. Use it to complain about a metering dispute, a refusal or a driver's conduct, or to chase lost property. Where a city keeps a dedicated 12328 seat, it answers 24/7 with a live person, and a complaint gets a handling reply within 10 working days. It is national, so it works whatever city you are in.

Articles 2, 16, 23

Source: Ministry of Transport of the People's Republic of China (交通运输部), Order 交运发〔2021〕89号, on xxgk.mot.gov.cn — 12328交通运输服务监督热线管理办法 (Administrative Measures for the 12328 Transport Service Supervision Hotline), Articles 2, 5, 16, 23 (source dated 2021-09-26 issued by the MOT; effective 2021-10-01; read July 29, 2026)

Shanghai example

The city taxi administration office, for a meter dispute

In Shanghai a fare or metering dispute can go to the municipal taxi administration office (市出租汽车管理处), which on an inaccurate-meter complaint seals the meter on the spot and sends it for calibration. Keep the fapiao — it carries the plate number that ties the complaint to the car. Other cities route this through their own transport authority under their own rules.

Articles 30, 42

In short

Street-taxi questions travellers ask

The meter, the receipt, the fare, and the number to call — the parts a first-time rider gets wrong.

Do I really have to insist on the meter?

Yes. Under Shanghai's taxi regulation the driver must run the meter and issue an official receipt (fapiao), and a passenger may refuse to pay a fare where the meter isn't used or no receipt is given. Fares are set city by city, but the meter-and-receipt norm is the point — agree on the meter, not a flat price, before you get in, and take a marked cab from an official rank.

What if the driver refuses the meter or quotes a flat fare?

Decline the ride and take a marked, metered taxi from an official rank. In Shanghai the regulation gives you the right to refuse to pay a no-meter, no-receipt fare outright. If it has already gone wrong, note the plate number and call 12328, the national transport service supervision line.

Why should I keep the paper receipt?

The official fapiao is a controlled document carrying the vehicle's plate number and a complaint line. It is what lets you reclaim a bag left in the cab (in Shanghai you report the loss on the strength of the receipt) or dispute a fare with the city taxi office. Pocket it every ride.

How much does a street taxi cost?

Fares are set locally, so there is no single national number. As one official example, Shanghai's urban taxi flags at ¥14 for the first 3 km, then ¥2.7 per km, with a 30% night bump between 23:00 and 05:00 and waiting time charged by the minute. Other cities publish their own schedules — read the meter, not a quoted price.

The meter looks wrong — what can I do?

Keep the receipt and call 12328, your city's transport service supervision line, which covers taxi complaints nationwide. In Shanghai a metering complaint goes to the municipal taxi administration office, which can seal the meter and have it calibrated. The exact office and process vary by city, but the 12328 line does not.

Is this the same as using DiDi?

No. DiDi is the ride-hailing app, covered on its own page. This is the marked, metered street taxi you flag at a rank or hail on the street with no app at all — the fallback for your first ride, or where ride-hailing is thin.

Not confirmed

What no opened source would let us say

The claims we could not source from a page we opened are printed here rather than asserted.

No official English-language municipal taxi page was opened for this guide. The meter, receipt, refuse-payment and lost-property rules — and the fare numbers — rest on Shanghai's own official sources, and they are Shanghai's: the fares and the '市出租汽车管理处' office name belong to that city. They are shown as one city's worked example, not a nationwide standard; other cities set their own fares and route disputes to their own transport authority. The 12328 hotline itself is national.
No opened source states a nationwide flat taxi fare, a fixed airport-taxi surcharge, or a per-city tariff for any city other than Shanghai. Only Shanghai's published schedule was opened, so this guide asserts fare numbers for Shanghai alone and tells you to read the meter everywhere else.
The 12328 reply clock (a handling reply within 10 working days for complaints) and the around-the-clock live answering are from the MOT hotline measures, and the measures themselves note that a city may keep a dedicated 12328 seat or merge it into the 12345 government hotline. Whether your city has kept a separate 12328 seat therefore varies — the number is national, the exact answering setup is not.

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