RESEARCHED AUTHORITY
Norwich
Norwich Council · Sources checked 13 September 2026
- Driver licensing
- Official route/source found
Applicants must be at least 18 and have held a full UK driving licence for at least 12 months. They must pass the council's knowledge test and an approved driving assessment; hackney applicants also take a wheelchair assessment. The application requires safeguarding training, a doctor-completed medical, DBS evidence, right-to-work evidence and relevant HMRC tax evidence, plus driving-licence, identity, address, photograph and National Insurance documents. The knowledge test moved to a tablet-based test at council offices from 25 May 2026 and requires 80%. The council advises at least six weeks for processing.
- Vehicle licensing
- Official route/source found
The current council overview says a vehicle must be under five years old on first licensing. Full exceptions and testing conditions should be checked before purchase.
- Operator licensing
- Official route/source found
Private-hire operators need a Norwich district base where bookings are taken and records retained for inspection. Right-to-work and applicable tax-check evidence are required; the licence lasts five years and planning permission may be needed.
- Licensing fees
- Official route/source found
The application overview publishes a private-hire operator fee of £945.50. Other fees have not been reconciled against the complete current schedule.
- Taxi tariff
- Official evidence found; detail still to confirm
The council's 12 May 2025 decision implements four hackney-carriage fare schedules. Their starting amounts are £4.40, £4.60, £4.80 and £5.90. The respective initial allowances are 40, 40, 90 and 90 yards; subsequent charges are 20p per started 175, 168, 157 and 137 yards; waiting is 20p per started 36, 36, 30 and 24 seconds. The decision does not reproduce the operative clock-time and calendar boundaries for those four schedules, so this guide does not assign day, night, Sunday, bank-holiday or festive hours to them.
- Mandatory qualifications
- Official route/source found
Applicants must be at least 18 and hold twelve months' full UK driving entitlement. From 25 May 2026 the knowledge test is tablet-based at council offices, with an 80% pass mark. It covers customer care/equality, licence-specific rules, local routes, roads and Highway Code. Hackney applicants need shortest-route knowledge; private hire applicants key locations/landmarks. Driving assessment, safeguarding training, medical and DBS checks are required; hackney drivers additionally need wheelchair assessment.
Withheld or still needing confirmation
- Overview recovered in search; detailed pages intermittently time out. Full driver criteria, exemptions and tariff not verified.
- Current official application pages provide the operative route; this summary does not reproduce every suitability or conviction-policy criterion.
- Preserve prior verified fields.
- The adopted decision does not state the operative time and calendar boundaries for each fare schedule; obtain the current full tariff card before quoting or calculating a journey.
- The combined time-and-distance meter rules require boundary tests before calculator activation.