By Anita Dangazele
- Since at least 2017, South Africa’s taxi associations have never reduced fares after a fuel price drop, despite 15 million commuters depending on taxis daily.
- Diesel dropped by up to R3.59 a litre from today, 1 July, but no law or regulator compels taxi associations to pass any saving on to commuters.
Every time fuel gets cheaper, South Africans ask the same question. Will taxi fares come down too? The answer, going back at least nine years, is always no.
Diesel dropped by up to R3.59 a litre from today, and petrol by around R2 a litre. The government confirmed the cuts yesterday. If you own a car, you pay less at the pump today. If you take a taxi to work, nothing changes.
It has always been this way. When petrol dropped by R1.27 a litre in 2017, Cape Town taxi associations kept fares exactly where they were. One association chairperson said at the time that chasing fuel prices up and down was not how the industry worked. When fuel dropped in October 2024, the taxi industry welcomed the news but did not reduce fares. When diesel jumped by R6.19 a litre in May this year, associations put fares up within weeks. It has never gone the other way.
The reason is simple. Nobody is in charge of what you pay for a taxi. There is no government office that sets taxi fares. There is no form to fill in, no regulator to appeal to and no complaints line to call. Each taxi association decides what it charges and answers to no one.
This goes back to 1987, when the apartheid government removed all regulation from the taxi industry. Nothing has replaced it since.
Researchers at the University of Fort Hare said in a study this year that taxi fares are set without any fixed rules, and recommended that a complaints mechanism be created so commuters have somewhere to go. It still does not exist.
People on lower incomes in Gauteng were already spending an average of 29% of what they earn on getting to work before fuel prices spiked this year. In May 2026, transport costs rose faster than any other expense tracked by Statistics South Africa, up 9.4% in a single month.
The fuel is cheaper today. The fare is not. It never has been.
Pictured above: Minibus taxis lined up at a taxi rank.
Image source: Supplied
