Waymo and robotaxis are coming to Spain: when, where and what it means for taxis

In short: Waymo, the self-driving car company owned by Alphabet (Google's parent), now has a company in Spain, though still with no permit, no fleet and no partner. The one that has taken the first real step is Uber: Spain's traffic authority has given it the first authorisation to test 20 level-4 robotaxis in Madrid, with a specialist on board, from late 2026.

Waymo now has a company in Madrid

The news was broken by La Gaceta del Taxi: Waymo Iberia SL appears in the Spanish Companies Register with an address on Calle Serrano in Madrid, €100,000 in share capital and a corporate purpose that explicitly mentions transport with autonomous vehicles.

Having a company isn't the same as having a service. As of today, Waymo has no authorisation to test its cars in Spain, no fleet in the country and no confirmed deal with any platform operating here.

What it does have is scale abroad. On September 1 it opened its service to the public in Denver, San Diego and Tampa, which brings it to 14 US cities and more than 4,000 vehicles, according to TechCrunch. Its next announced steps in Europe are London and Munich.

The DGT's first permit: 20 robotaxis in Madrid

The move that does have a date is Uber's. According to La Gaceta del Taxi, the DGT has granted it Spain's first authorisation for level-4 autonomous passenger cars, which it will run with WeRide and Avomo:

• 20 vehicles in the initial phase.
• Level 4: the system drives by itself, but within defined conditions and a limited area.
• With a specialist inside the car during this first phase.
• Operations planned before the end of 2026.

As Demócrata points out, the permit opens the testing phase: it doesn't mean you can already book a car in Madrid with nobody at the wheel.

When will there be driverless robotaxis in Spain?

The honest answer is that there's no date yet. Madrid's first cars will have a person on board, and nobody has said when that will stop being necessary. Spain also still lacks specific rules for a commercial service without human supervision.

It's worth keeping the two apart: what starts in late 2026 is supervised testing with 20 cars, not an open driverless service.

What it means for taxis

First, scale. Twenty cars in testing against more than 61,000 taxi licences in Spain, according to Ministry of Transport data reported by La Gaceta del Taxi. In the short term, nobody's shift changes.

Second, taxis have a seat at the table. In August, the DGT, the regional governments, platforms such as Uber, Waymo, Bolt and Free Now, and representatives of the taxi sector presented a first set of ten recommendations for bringing in driverless cars, as reported by Motor16 and La Revista del Taxi. They call for a single national law and authority, and one of the ten points is a fair transition, with adaptation periods and professional retraining for taxi drivers and other drivers.

And third, the heart of it is economic. What a robotaxi removes from the equation is the cost of the driver. So more than the technology, what will matter is how much each hour of a human-driven taxi really earns.

How Taxio handles it

Taxio can't predict what will happen with robotaxis, and it won't try. What it does is tell you what each hour really leaves you: you log every ride with its platform's commission and your expenses, and you see your real average euros per hour and your net, not the gross. Whatever competition comes along, that's the number decisions get made with.

Frequently asked questions about robotaxis in Spain