Taxis in Sofia: Fares, Apps and the Scams to Avoid

Licensed taxis in Sofia are cheap: a 5 km ride across the center costs about €5 by day on a licensed company's meter. Whether you pay that depends on the car you get into. Here is how to order a licensed cab without Uber or Bolt, how to read the price sticker, what common rides cost in euros, and the scams I'd watch for.

Taxis in Sofia at a glance

Taxis in Sofia are run by licensed companies, priced by a meter, and capped by the city council.

Uber and Bolt in Sofia

Neither Uber nor Bolt will send you a car in Bulgaria. Uber arrived in Sofia in December 2014 and ran there until October 2015, when it stopped after a court ruling. Bolt's Sofia app offers e-bikes, scooters and food delivery, and no rides by car.

What you get instead is a licensed company cab: yellow or green, metered, and priced on a sticker you can read from the sidewalk before you open the door.

The taxi apps that work in Sofia

Three apps send licensed cabs in Sofia, and I'd install two of them before the flight. A company's cars are not always close by, so the second app is your backup.

TaxiMe

TaxiMe works the most like the ride apps you know. It dispatches licensed cabs, shows you the driver, the car and an approximate fare, and lets you pay in cash or by card through the app. You choose cash or card when you order.

The figure on your screen is a forecast, and the meter has the final word. The driver gives you a receipt at the end of the ride.

Yellow!

Yellow! has its own app and takes orders by phone. It is also the official taxi company at Sofia Airport, with desks in the arrivals areas of both terminals.

OK Supertrans and the OK Taxi app

OK Supertrans is another licensed company, and its app is called OK Taxi. It publishes its full tariff, which makes it a useful benchmark for what a fair Sofia fare looks like.

What a licensed taxi looks like

A licensed taxi is painted yellow, and hybrids and fully electric cars may be green. It carries a fixed TAXI sign on the roof that lights up after dark and a checkered band along the doors. The company's name and phone number appear on the front doors.

Inside, look for the driver's ID on the dashboard and a working meter. Skip any car missing the roof sign or the band, however friendly the driver offering you a lift.

How to read the price sticker

Every licensed cab carries a price sticker on the right side of the windshield, where you can read it from outside, plus copies on the dashboard and on both rear door windows. It shows the company name and six prices:

• the price per kilometer by day in town
• the price per kilometer at night in town
• the price per kilometer outside town
• the call-out charge for a car ordered to your address
• the start charge
• the waiting charge per minute

Sofia's city council sets the band those per-kilometer prices must sit inside. For 2026 it runs from €0.73 to €1.24 a kilometer by day and from €0.84 to €1.52 at night. The meter switches by the clock: the day rate runs from 6 AM to 10 PM and the night rate from 10 PM to 6 AM.

Some stickers use confusing decimals or sit where they are hard to read, so take a moment before you get in and compare the per-kilometer price with the band in the table.

What a taxi ride in Sofia costs

The town fares below are worked out on OK Supertrans's published tariff of late October 2026. Other companies' stickers differ, but all of them must sit inside the council's band.

Even at the top of the daytime band, €1.24 a kilometer, a 5 km ride comes to €6.20 before the start charge. If the meter shows far more than you can work out from the sticker, something is wrong. Photograph the sticker as you get in and keep the receipt, and between them you have what the ride should have cost and what you paid.

Taking a taxi from Sofia Airport

Since July 2026, Terminal 2 has a ticket queue for taxis. Go to the Yellow! desk beyond the arrivals area, request a car at the kiosk, and take the printed ticket to Exit 5, which is marked Taxi. A coordinator there assigns you a car. Yellow! has held the airport contract since the summer of 2023.

A metered ride from the desk to the center costs about €13 to €15 and takes 20 to 30 minutes. The M4 metro does the same trip in about 20 minutes for €0.80, and the best way from Sofia Airport to the city center comes down to your landing time and your bags.

Taxi scams in Sofia and how to avoid them

The broken meter

Every legal Sofia taxi runs the meter from the start charge. A driver who says the meter is broken before you have sat down, or offers a fixed price for a ride in town, is a reason to get out and wait for the next cab.

The night rate in the daytime

Some drivers switch the meter to the higher night tariff during the day. Check that the meter is running before the car moves and that the rate on it matches the time of day on the sticker.

Cabs waiting outside hotels and clubs

Cars parked outside big hotels and the clubs along Vitosha Boulevard sometimes carry their own "VIP" stickers and charge double or triple the normal rate. Walk a block and hail a regular licensed cab, or order one through an app. I'd also skip any car idling in the busiest tourist spots.

Copycat names and logos

Some cars copy the names and logos of the big companies closely enough to fool you at a glance. Match the company name, phone number and app with the firm you meant to use, and book through the company's own app or number.

Paying, receipts and tipping

Ask whether the cab takes cards before you set off, or order through TaxiMe and pay in the app. The driver has to give you a fiscal receipt at the end of the ride.

Keep a few small euro notes and coins for cabs you flag in the street, which often want cash. Money in Bulgaria has been the euro since January 2026, so the fare on the meter and the money in your wallet are in the same currency.

Tipping is light: round the fare up to the next round figure. Tipping in Bulgaria is done in cash, in taxis as much as in restaurants.

Taxis out of town and on day trips

Once the cab passes the sign marking the end of town, the driver switches the meter to the out-of-town price per kilometer on the sticker.

That makes long rides expensive on the meter, and for a day trip I'd agree a fixed price instead. Rila Monastery is 127 km south of Sofia with no reliable scheduled public bus, so a car is the usual way, and a meter running both ways adds up fast. Most day trips from Sofia are cheaper by bus or train if one runs to where you are going.

Taxi or public transport in Sofia

In the center, I'd walk, and for longer trips I'd take the metro, which costs €0.80 for 30 minutes of travel with changes. Taxis earn their fare late at night, with luggage, for Boyana and the hills, and for groups. Four people sharing a €5.25 ride across town pay about €1.30 each.

Getting around Sofia on public transport also costs less than one taxi ride for a full day: card taps stop charging at €2. The Sofia metro stops running around midnight, and after that a taxi or a night bus is the way home.

Taking a taxi late at night

After a night out, order the cab through an app rather than taking one waiting outside the club. I'd sit in the back, send a friend the car's details from the app, and ask to be let out on a bright main street if your door is down a dark side road.

Sofia's nightlife runs until 5 or 6 AM in the clubs, so the night tariff applies to almost every ride home. In the busy center, Sofia is safe to walk late, and the risks on a night out are petty theft and an inflated bill or fare.