Taxes · · 9 min read

Driving for Uber, Bolt or Wolt: taxes in 2026

Drivers and couriers in Czechia: which trade licence you need, when the 60% expense rate applies, 2026 rates, and the VAT registration the platform fee triggers.

You drive for Uber or Bolt, or deliver food for Wolt, and only now are you asking what happens at tax time? You are not alone. Plenty of drivers and couriers start out for the extra money and then discover that the app sends them nothing at the end of the year resembling the income certificate an employer would hand over. That is logical: to the Financial Administration you are a business, not an employee of the platform, and completely different rules apply than to a job. This article sums up what you need to know — from the trade licence and the expense percentage to the trap most drivers miss: VAT on the fee that Uber or Bolt deducts and invoices from abroad.

Taxi service or free trade? It depends what you carry

The first question to answer is whether you carry people or things. The answer decides which živnost — Czech trade licence — you need.

  • Passenger rides (UberX, Bolt and the like) count in Czechia as a taxi service: the licensed trade "road motor transport" under the Trade Licensing Act, plus a separate taxi driver permit under Act No. 111/1994 Coll., on road transport. You are not legally allowed to drive without it, whatever a particular app may imply.
  • Delivering food or parcels (Wolt, Foodora and similar) is treated differently: it is a free trade (typically "production, trade and services not listed in Annexes 1 to 3 of the Trade Licensing Act"), which the trade licensing office registers far more simply and quickly than a taxi concession.

Whether you carry people or parcels, both have one thing in common: you work as a business, not as an employee of the platform. The money flows differently, though. Uber and Bolt find you passengers and deduct a fee for it. Wolt says on its courier pages that it takes no commission from couriers' earnings — it pays them for each delivery and issues the invoices on their behalf.

You are not a platform employee — the income falls under § 7

Uber, Bolt and Wolt are not your employer. You have no employment contract with them, they pay no social or health insurance for you, and they withhold no tax advances from your earnings. Under the Income Tax Act this is business income under § 7, exactly as for any other OSVČ (osoba samostatně výdělečně činná, the Czech term for a self-employed person). That means you keep your own records of income (and of expenses, if you claim them), you pay your own social and health insurance advances, and once a year you file a tax return.

The exception is a courier who delivers through a partner fleet under an agreement to perform work (DPP): that courier is the fleet's employee, the income is employment income under § 6, and this article does not apply.

The platforms usually give you a monthly summary of the amounts paid out, in the app or in their back office. That is a basis for your income records, but it does not replace a tax return and it does not pay anything on your behalf.

Flat-rate expenses: 60%, not 80% — and only with a trade licence

If you would rather not keep records of real expenses (fuel, servicing, insurance, depreciation and so on), you can claim flat-rate expenses. A driver with a taxi concession and a courier with a free trade licence claim 60% of income (§ 7(7)(b) of the Income Tax Act). The higher 80% rate is reserved for skilled crafts and agricultural production — driving and delivery are not among them, however similar they may look at first glance. The 60% rate applies up to an income ceiling of 2,000,000 CZK a year, so at most 1,200,000 CZK of expenses.

Without a trade licence you do not get the 60% rate. According to the General Financial Directorate's information on transport providers using apps (ref. 13253/25/7100-30116-110541, effective from 1 January 2025), the income of someone who should hold the licence but does not is income from other business under § 7(1)(c), and the flat rate is only 40%, capped at 800,000 CZK (§ 7(7)(d)). On top of that you risk a fine for doing business without a licence.

💡 If you cover a lot of kilometres and your fuel and servicing costs are genuinely high, keeping real expenses with documents may beat the flat rate. Which comes out cheaper is worked through in Flat-rate expenses versus real expenses.

What you will pay in tax and advances in 2026

The personal income tax rate in 2026 is 15% up to a tax base of 1,762,812 CZK; above that threshold the rate is 23%. The basic taxpayer credit is 30,840 CZK a year and reduces the calculated tax in full even for someone who was in business for only part of the year — it is not reduced by months.

If this is your main activity, you also pay monthly social and health insurance advances. For 2026 the minimum social insurance advance is 5,005 CZK a month — that figure applies retroactively from January 2026 under amendment No. 90/2026 Coll., so if you actually paid the higher advance of 5,720 CZK from January to June, you have an overpayment that will be settled. The minimum health insurance advance is 3,306 CZK a month.

The alternative to the standard regime is paušální daň, the Czech flat tax, which merges the tax and both insurance advances into a single monthly payment and removes the duty to file a tax return. One of the conditions is that you are not a VAT payer. An identified person (the trap described below) may use the flat tax. The monthly bands for 2026 are:

  • Band 1 — 9,162 CZK (income up to 1,000,000 CZK a year; up to 1,500,000 CZK if at least 75% of your income comes from activities with a 60% or 80% flat-rate expense percentage — which is the case for drivers and couriers with a trade licence). This was also cut retroactively from the original 9,984 CZK, so an overpayment of 4,932 CZK arises for the first half of the year.
  • Band 2 — 16,745 CZK (income up to 1,500,000 CZK a year; with the same 75% condition up to 2,000,000 CZK).
  • Band 3 — 27,139 CZK (income up to 2,000,000 CZK a year).

The full set of conditions and bands is in the flat tax for sole traders in 2026.

The trap almost everyone misses: VAT on the platform fee

This is where drivers get caught hardest, because nobody flags it. Uber and Bolt deduct a fee for access to the app from the rides they pass to you — and they invoice that fee from abroad, from the other EU country where the platform is based (the invoice shows who charges it). By receiving such a service from a person not established in Czechia, even an ordinary sole trader who is not registered for VAT automatically becomes an identified person (identifikovaná osoba) under § 6h of the VAT Act. If you drive through a fleet partner (dispatcher), it depends on whom the platform invoices the fee to — if it is the fleet partner, the duty is theirs.

In practice that means:

  • Within 15 days of receiving the first such service you have to register as an identified person for VAT (§ 97 of the VAT Act).
  • On the fee received you have to declare and pay Czech VAT at 21% under the self-assessment mechanism (reverse charge) — and with no right to deduct, because only a VAT payer has that right. For you the tax is a pure cost.
  • You file a VAT return only for the months in which the duty actually arose, by the 25th day of the following month.
  • An identified person is not the same as a VAT payer: you charge no VAT on your domestic rides to end customers and you continue to act as a non-registered trader towards them.

What about Wolt couriers? Wolt does not deduct a fee from couriers, so this trap does not apply to them. A Wolt courier does, however, sell a service (the delivery) to Wolt. Exactly to whom, you will see in the contract and on the invoices Wolt issues on your behalf. If the customer is a Czech company, Wolt brings no further VAT issue. If it is a company from another EU country, it can make you, as a non-payer, an identified person under § 6i of the VAT Act with an EC Sales List to file — in that case check it with a tax adviser.

The self-assessment principle for foreign services is analysed in reverse charge on foreign services, and the full guide to registration and the duties of an identified person is in identified person for VAT — a guide.

💡 This duty is easy to overlook because it does not look like "VAT registration" at first glance — and nobody reminds you of it until the Financial Administration starts matching DAC7 data against your tax return.

DAC7: the tax office can see your platform income

Since the DAC7 directive came in, digital platforms have been obliged to report the income of their service providers to the tax authorities. For sales of goods there is an exemption for small sellers under 30 transactions and 2,000 EUR a year — but for personal services, which clearly cover both driving and delivery, that exemption does not apply and practically every payment made to you is reported. So the Financial Administration has your income from Uber, Bolt and Wolt on file and will sooner or later compare it with what you declared. Counting on nobody noticing makes no sense in this line of work.

What to do as income grows: watch the VAT turnover

Alongside VAT on the platform fee there is the ordinary turnover test for VAT registration from your own activity. If your total turnover for a calendar year exceeds 2,000,000 CZK, you become a VAT payer from 1 January of the following year (since 2025 turnover is tracked per calendar year, not over a rolling 12 months). If you were to cross 2,536,500 CZK, you become a payer the very next day. For drivers working full time across several platforms at once, that line can arrive sooner than expected — which is why it pays to track turnover as you go rather than checking a year late.

A practical sequence for a new driver or courier

  1. Decide whether you will carry passengers (taxi concession plus taxi driver permit) or deliver parcels and food (free trade), and register the trade licence.
  2. Register with the tax office for income tax, and notify your health insurance company and ČSSZ that you have started self-employment.
  3. Choose your regime: 60% flat-rate expenses (with a trade licence) or real costs, or the flat tax if one monthly payment and no tax return suits you better.
  4. If you drive for Uber or Bolt and the platform invoices its fee from abroad, register as an identified person for VAT within 15 days of the first fee and watch which months bring a filing duty.
  5. Record income from each platform as you go, along with expense documents — fuel receipts above all — so that everything is together at year end.

How Taxorio helps

First, plainly, what Taxorio does not do: it does not count ride and delivery takings as income. It takes income only from invoices issued in Taxorio — and rides and deliveries are billed by the platform. The tax estimate and the VAT turnover check therefore leave them out; you add the income to your tax return yourself from the platforms' statements.

It helps you with VAT and with expenses:

  • VAT on the platform fee. You upload the Uber or Bolt invoice as an expense for a service from the EU, and Taxorio works out the VAT you declare as an identified person and prepares the VAT return for filing (the XML export is part of the PRO plan).
  • Expenses. You photograph a fuel, car-wash or servicing receipt on your phone: the AI reads it, recognises the Fuel category and offers the default business-use percentage, which you confirm or adjust. A month's worth of receipts can go in as one batch under Settings → Import data. This matters most if you claim real expenses instead of the flat rate.

In short

Working for Uber, Bolt or Wolt on a trade licence makes you a business, not an employee of the platform — with income under § 7, a 60% expense rate (only 40% without a trade licence) and the job of handling both insurance advances and income tax yourself. What surprises most Uber and Bolt drivers is the duty to register as an identified person for VAT because of the fee the platform deducts from abroad, and the fact that the Financial Administration sees their income through DAC7 reports as a matter of course. Stay on top of both from the first month and you spare yourself an unpleasant catch-up and penalties a year later.

Taxorio scope: Taxorio provides invoicing and income/expense records for Czech sole traders. It is not full accounting or personalised tax advice. For an unsupported or unusual case, verify the treatment with a Czech accountant or tax adviser before filing.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a licensed trade as an Uber or Bolt driver?
Yes. Carrying passengers for payment counts in Czechia as a taxi service: you need the licensed trade "road motor transport" under the Trade Licensing Act and, on top of that, a taxi driver permit under Act No. 111/1994 Coll. For delivering food or parcels for Wolt and similar services a free trade is enough, and it is far simpler to register.
Which flat-rate expenses can I claim as a driver or courier?
With a trade licence, 60% of income, both for the licensed taxi service and for the free delivery trade; it applies up to an income ceiling of 2,000,000 CZK a year, so at most 1,200,000 CZK of expenses. Without the licence the tax administration treats the income as falling under § 7(1)(c), and the flat rate is only 40%. The higher 80% rate applies only to skilled crafts and agricultural production, which do not cover driving or delivery.
Why does an Uber or Bolt driver suddenly become an identified person for VAT?
Because Uber and Bolt invoice their fee for access to the app from abroad, from another EU country. By receiving such a service from a person not established in Czechia, even an ordinary sole trader who is not VAT registered automatically becomes an identified person under § 6h of the VAT Act, has to register within 15 days, and has to self-assess 21% VAT on the fee with no right to deduct. Wolt says it takes no commission from couriers, so this trap does not apply to them.
Does registering as an identified person mean I have to charge VAT to my customers?
No. An identified person is not the same as a VAT payer. You still charge no VAT on domestic rides to end customers and continue to act as a non-registered trader. The duty to pay VAT relates only to the fee received from abroad, not to your own outputs.
Can the tax office see my earnings from Uber, Bolt or Wolt?
Yes. Under the DAC7 directive platforms have to report to the tax authorities the income paid to service providers. The exemption for small providers exists only for sales of goods; for personal services such as rides or deliveries practically every payment is reported, so the Financial Administration has the data to compare against your return.
When does a driver or courier become an ordinary VAT payer?
If total turnover for a calendar year exceeds 2,000,000 CZK, you become a VAT payer from 1 January of the following year. If you cross 2,536,500 CZK, you become a payer the very next day, which is why it pays to track turnover as you go.