Buenos Aires Taxis

Updated: September 7, 2026

A Buenos Aires city taxi starts its meter at ARS 1,920 and adds ARS 192 for every 200 metres travelled, which works out to ARS 960 per kilometre. At the early-September 2026 rate of roughly 1,500 pesos to the dollar, that is about USD 0.64 per kilometre. A five-kilometre ride across the centre lands near ARS 6,720, close to USD 4.50. Between 22:00 and 06:00 the meter switches to a night tariff and the same trip costs about ARS 8,050. These are the rates published by the city's public services regulator, and they are the only prices that legally apply inside the Autonomous City.

Buenos Aires taxi fares by the numbers

• Flag-fall, daytime (06:00–22:00): ARS 1,920, equal to ten fichas
• Ficha, daytime: ARS 192 per 200 metres, or per minute stopped
• Effective daytime rate: ARS 960 per km, about USD 0.64
• Flag-fall, night (22:00–06:00): ARS 2,300
• Ficha, night: ARS 230, giving ARS 1,150 per km, about USD 0.77
• Extra luggage: ARS 960 per additional piece
• Carried free: hand luggage plus one case up to 90 × 40 × 30 cm
• Typical centre-to-Palermo hop (6 km): ARS 7,680, about USD 5.10
• Waiting time: charged at one ficha per minute while the car is stationary
• Payment on the street: pesos in cash, small notes
• Reference rate used here: USD 1 = ARS 1,500 (4 September 2026)

Those numbers matter more in Argentina than they would elsewhere. Peso fares are revised by the city several times in an inflationary year, so a price quoted in a guidebook or on a competing site is often a year out of date and reads far too low. The arithmetic below is built from the published tariff rather than from remembered fares, which means you can recompute any route yourself the moment the rate changes. Black-and-yellow cabs are metered, plentiful and, by the standards of most capital cities, remarkably cheap. The habits that trip visitors up are rarely about the price on the meter. They are about cash, change and knowing which trips are metered at all.

How much does a taxi cost across Buenos Aires?

The table below applies the published formula to common city routes. Distances are road distances, not straight lines, and every figure assumes free-flowing traffic with no stationary time on the meter.

Treat these as a floor rather than a promise. Ten minutes stuck on Avenida 9 de Julio adds ARS 1,920 to a daytime fare, which on a short hop can be more than the distance charge itself. That is not a driver inflating the price. It is the tariff working as written.

How does the Buenos Aires taxi meter work?

Fares are built from a unit called the ficha. The meter drops with ten fichas already on the clock, the bajada de bandera, and then adds one ficha for each 200 metres covered or each minute the car spends stationary. Distance and waiting are charged from the same counter, never both at once, so a taxi crawling forward in traffic accumulates on whichever measure is currently moving.

The night tariff is not a percentage added at the end. The ficha itself changes value from ARS 192 to ARS 230 between 22:00 and 06:00, so both the flag-fall and the running charge rise together, roughly twenty per cent across the whole trip. A journey that begins at 21:50 and ends at 22:20 is charged at the rate in force as the meter ticks, which is why late-evening fares sometimes look inconsistent to visitors comparing notes.

How do I estimate a fare before getting in?

Multiply the kilometres by 960 and add 1,920. That single line covers almost every daytime trip inside the city. For a night journey, multiply by 1,150 and add 2,300 instead. A rough distance from any mapping app is enough, because the sum is dominated by the per-kilometre charge on anything longer than about two kilometres.

The estimate holds well on avenues and badly in congested microcentro streets during weekday afternoons, where waiting time can add a third to the total. If your figure and the meter diverge by more than about twenty per cent on a clear road, something has gone wrong with the route rather than the tariff, and the fix is to say so at the time rather than at the destination.

What pushes the fare above the estimate?

• Stationary time. One ficha per minute, the single largest source of surprise on short central trips.
• The night rate. Applied from 22:00 to 06:00, including the flag-fall.
• Extra luggage. ARS 960 for each piece beyond the free allowance of hand luggage and one case.
• Tolls. Passed to the passenger on routes using the autopistas, which mainly affects trips towards the airports or the northern suburbs.
• Leaving the city. Trips beyond the Autonomous City boundary without a return fare can carry a surcharge covering the empty run back, agreed before departure.

Tipping is not part of the arithmetic. Argentines generally round up to a convenient note and leave it there, and no driver will expect a percentage.

How do I pay, and do I need cash?

Street taxis run on cash. Carry pesos in small denominations, because a driver at the start of a shift genuinely may not be able to break a 20,000-peso note, and the exchange turns into a problem you did not need. Some cars now accept cards or a QR transfer through Mercado Pago, but it is not dependable enough to rely on, and asking before you set off costs nothing.

Booking through an app removes the question entirely, since the fare is charged to the card on file. If you are arriving in the country and working out how to hold pesos at all, our guide to paying in Argentina covers exchange, cards and the notes worth carrying.

Are Uber, Cabify and DiDi cheaper than a taxi?

Not usually cheaper, but more predictable. Uber, Cabify and DiDi all operate in Buenos Aires, and their appeal is the fixed price shown before you accept, the card payment and the absence of any conversation about the route. On a clear road the app price and the meter tend to land within a few hundred pesos of each other. In heavy traffic the app is often the better deal, because the fare was agreed before the jam.

Their legal position shifted in May 2026, when the Buenos Aires courts ruled that app drivers must hold the same professional licence and passenger insurance as taxi drivers, with a grace period to comply. The practical effect for passengers has been minimal so far, though supply can thin out at busy hours. Most residents keep both options available and take whichever is closer.

Where do I find a taxi, and how long is the wait?

A lit Libre sign in the windscreen means the car is free. On any major avenue you will normally stop one within five to ten minutes at ordinary hours. Ranks outside railway stations, hotels and large intersections hold a steady supply, and hotel staff will call a radio taxi if you would rather not stand on the street.

Two moments are harder. Rain empties the streets of free cabs almost immediately, and the hour either side of midnight on a Friday or Saturday can leave you waiting. Both are the times an app earns its keep.

How do I avoid being overcharged?

The realistic risk in Buenos Aires is not danger but a padded fare, and it falls mostly on passengers who look uncertain. Four habits remove almost all of it.

• Check the meter is running and reset as you pull away. A driver quoting a flat price for a city trip is offering something the tariff does not allow.
• Know roughly where you are going. A needless loop is obvious on a phone map, and saying so early ends it.
• Watch your change. Swapping a note for a lower-value one is an old trick that still appears, and counting the change back in front of the driver is enough to prevent it.
• Prefer a radio taxi or an app after dark, when the trip is logged against a booking.

The same principles matter more on the airport run, where the sums are larger. Our guide to taxi scams at Ezeiza covers the specific approaches used in the arrivals hall.

When is a taxi the wrong choice?

For trips along a single subte line at rush hour, the underground beats a taxi on time by a wide margin, and the fare is a fraction of it. The D line between the centre and Palermo is the clearest example, where a taxi can take three times as long for twenty times the price. Buses reach almost everywhere the subte does not, though both need a SUBE card, which is worth buying on your first day at any kiosk.

Taxis win on late nights, on trips with luggage, on any route that would need two changes, and in the rain. They lose on straight runs down a subte line during weekday peaks.

Do these prices apply to the airport run?

No, and this is the distinction that catches most visitors. The metered city tariff governs trips inside the Autonomous City. The journey from Ezeiza, 32 kilometres out and around 50 minutes in normal traffic, is sold at a fixed price agreed at a counter in the arrivals hall before you travel, with tolls included. Cooperativa Taxi Ezeiza published that fare at roughly ARS 60,000, about USD 40, as of July 2026.

Aeroparque sits about 8 kilometres from the Obelisco and is close enough that a metered city taxi is normal there, which is why it appears in the table above. For the full picture on the international airport, see our pages on Ezeiza airport taxis, on getting from the airport to the city centre, and on the transfer between the two airports if you are connecting.

How we checked these figures

The flag-fall, ficha value, night hours and luggage charges are taken from the tariff published by the Ente Regulador de los Servicios Públicos de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, the body that sets taxi prices for the Autonomous City. Every fare in the route table is calculated from that tariff rather than quoted from another site, using road distances between the named landmarks and assuming no stationary time. Dollar equivalents use USD 1 = ARS 1,500, the rate on 4 September 2026. The Ezeiza fixed fare is the figure published by Cooperativa Taxi Ezeiza in July 2026. Because the peso moves, the method is the durable part of this page. Recompute with the current ficha and you will have an accurate answer long after the numbers above have aged.

The questions visitors ask most often about city taxis, worked through with the same arithmetic, are answered in the FAQ below.