Bilbao offers 10 free accessible-taxi licences, two reserved for women drivers

In short: Bilbao City Council has opened applications for ten new accessible-taxi licences at no cost beyond the municipal fee of 1,899 euros, two of them reserved for women drivers. The city's accessible fleet will grow from 29 to 39 vehicles, and whoever is awarded a licence will have up to eight months to buy the car, adapt it and pass the municipal inspection. Behind the headline is a useful lesson for any taxi driver starting from scratch or expanding their fleet: a cheap paperwork fee doesn't mean a cheap start.

The call for applications, reported by Agencia de Noticias, is part of the effort to get Bilbao's taxi fleet up to the 5% minimum of accessible vehicles required by Royal Decree 1544/2007. On paper, it's good news for the city's mobility. On the bank account of whoever applies, it's the start of several months of spending before the first steady income arrives.

What the call for applications says, in numbers

• 10 new licences for accessible taxis, out of a total fleet of 775 in Bilbao
• Zero-cost award: no licence fee, just the 1,899 € municipal charge
• 2 licences reserved for women drivers
• 15 working days from publication in the Official Gazette to submit an application
• 1 month to commit to buying and adapting the vehicle after being awarded a licence
• 2 months maximum to start the service
• 8 months maximum to have the vehicle adapted and inspected
• Licences are non-transferable: they revert to the Council if the activity is discontinued

With the ten new licences, Bilbao's accessible fleet grows from 29 to 39 vehicles. That's a real leap forward for anyone who needs an accessible taxi, and it's also why these licences can't be sold or transferred: it's a public service the city wants to keep control over.

The real cost isn't the fee, it's the car

1,899 euros sounds like very little for a taxi licence, and for the paperwork itself, it is. But that figure is just the entry ticket. An adapted vehicle —with a ramp or lift, approved anchor points and space for a wheelchair— starts from a base price well above a standard car, and on top of that come the technical adaptation, type approval and the municipal inspection the call itself requires.

Meanwhile, the fixed costs of any new registration keep running: the self-employment contributions, insurance for a public-service vehicle, financing or leasing if it's not paid in cash, and the accountant's fees. Eight months is plenty of time to adapt a car without rushing, but it's also eight months of expenses before the meter has started to offset them.

The first months without steady income

Anyone starting out with a new licence —accessible or not— goes through a phase where spending runs ahead of income: learning the areas, building a client base, working out which time slots pay off and, for those working with platforms, how much commission each one takes. It's the phase where it matters most to know, week by week, whether the business adds up or whether something needs adjusting before the gap grows too big.

That first stretch is also the hardest to track in a notebook or from memory: there's the platform invoice, the adaptation expense, insurance, fuel and self-employment contributions, all mixed together. Without a clear record from day one, it's easy to confuse revenue with profit, right when the margin is at its tightest.

Keeping track from the very first kilometre

This is where Taxio comes in: it logs every ride, every expense and your real profit from day one of activity, without waiting for a full year of data to know whether the business works. For anyone weighing up whether it's worth adapting a vehicle or expanding their fleet, that week-by-week visibility —not quarter-by-quarter— is what lets you decide with data instead of guesswork. If the accessible licence is the first of several, the fleet view shows each car's performance separately, and at the end of the quarter everything comes out ready for your accountant as a PDF or Excel file.

The 1,899-euro fee is paid once. Keeping the books has to happen every day, from the first kilometre of the new licence until it stops being new.