Transfer driver requirements

Transfer driver requirements fall into five instruments: a professional driver authorisation, a vehicle authorisation, commercial passenger insurance, a background check, and an airport access permit. All five are issued by public authorities, not by LocalsRide. The table below sets out what each one is, then each section covers how it differs across the five countries we operate in.

The five transfer driver requirements that apply everywhere

Whichever country you work in, the same five instruments recur under different names. Drivers who stall during registration almost always hold four of the five and are missing the airport permit, which no licensing authority mentions because it is not theirs to issue.

The last column is where the planning happens. A five-year driver authorisation and an annually renewed vehicle authorisation run on different administrative rhythms, and missing the shorter one takes you off the road regardless of the longer one.

Driver licence requirements by country

Every country requires a professional authorisation beyond an ordinary driving licence. What differs is how you qualify: by examination, by experience, or by purchasing an authorisation that is limited in number.

Spain is the outlier. The scarce instrument there is the VTC authorisation held by the operator, historically capped at one for every thirty taxi licences. The Court of Justice of the European Union held in June 2023 that a blanket cap of that kind conflicts with freedom of establishment unless specifically justified, and the resulting litigation is still working through the Spanish courts. Most drivers therefore enter the Spanish market by working under an existing authorisation rather than obtaining a new one.

Vehicle requirements

The vehicle carries its own authorisation, separate from yours, and it is the one that expires most often.

Two practical consequences. First, an eight-seat vehicle is not an eight-passenger vehicle in most of Europe, because the count includes the driver — a booking for eight passengers needs a nine-seat vehicle. Second, age limits are applied at the moment of application in several jurisdictions, so a vehicle that is compliant today may be ineligible at renewal.

Insurance you must hold

Personal motor insurance does not cover carrying passengers for payment, and a claim made on the wrong policy will be declined. You need commercial passenger cover — called hire and reward insurance in the UK, responsabilité civile professionnelle in France, and filed liability coverage in California.

California is the only one of the five markets that publishes hard minimum figures, and they are set by seating capacity including the driver:

Those limits come from CPUC General Order 115-G as amended on 21 March 2024. The policy must be filed electronically with the Commission itself, not with the DMV, and it must stay on file for as long as the permit is active — a lapse of even a few days is grounds for suspension. Carriers with employees must also file workers' compensation cover.

In the European markets, minimums are set by national motor insurance law rather than by the transport regulator, and the practical requirement is simply that your certificate states passenger carriage for hire and reward. Check the wording, not the price.

Background and safety checks

Airport access permits

Airport access is the one item on this list that no licensing authority mentions, and it catches experienced drivers. A valid private hire licence permits you to carry passengers; it does not permit you to enter, wait on, or collect from airport property. That is a separate arrangement with the airport operator, and every large airport runs its own.

Heathrow illustrates the pattern. Waiting anywhere on airport property other than the Authorised Vehicle Area — approach roads, perimeter lay-bys, petrol station forecourts — risks a penalty. The AVA on Northern Perimeter Road is open around the clock, charges £1 per hour for the first five hours, and requires a valid private hire operator's licence.

Pick-ups are not permitted from the terminal forecourt at all: you collect from Terminal Parking or Park & Ride, having met your passenger inside. Entering a drop-off zone triggers a per-entry charge of £7, read by barrierless ANPR cameras, with a ten-minute maximum stay. Both have applied since 1 January 2026, and the penalty for overstaying is £80, reduced to £40 if paid within fourteen days.

Every airport differs, so treat this as a local check rather than a national one. Before working an airport you have not used, find its ground transportation page and confirm three things: whether a permit or decal is required, where licensed vehicles may wait, and where pre-booked pickups take place. Our airport pages list the meeting point for each terminal.

What you upload when you register with LocalsRide

We verify that you meet the transfer driver requirements set out above. We do not issue any of them.

What we ask for maps onto the five instruments above:

Every one of these carries an expiry date, so upload the current version rather than whichever copy is closest to hand.

Documents are checked before your first booking, and we ask for renewals before they lapse. An expired vehicle authorisation or insurance certificate suspends your account until it is replaced, because a booking completed without valid cover exposes the passenger as well as you.

• Your driver authorisation — the private hire driver licence, carte professionnelle VTC, CAP KB with proof of Ruolo Conducenti entry, or the equivalent in your jurisdiction.
• The vehicle authorisation the car operates under, from the same authority that licensed you where local rules require the two to match.
• The insurance certificate, showing explicitly that it covers passenger carriage for hire and reward. Check the wording rather than the policy name.
• Photo identity and evidence of your right to work in that country.
• The airport permit or decal for each airport you intend to serve, where the airport runs a scheme.

A note on keeping documents current

Most drivers assemble the five instruments once and then treat compliance as finished. In practice the problem is rarely a missing document — it is two documents on different renewal cycles. A driver authorisation running three or five years and a vehicle authorisation renewed annually with an inspection drift apart, and an airport decal on its own schedule drifts further still.

The instrument that lapses is almost never the one you are thinking about. Record every expiry date the day the document is issued, work backwards six weeks for anything needing a medical or a criminal record check, and let the shortest cycle govern your calendar rather than the longest.