Taxis in Israel: a visitor’s guide

How do you get a taxi as a visitor to Israel?

With Hello Taxi you book ahead in the app or by telephone, and on WhatsApp for a ride now. At Ben Gurion Airport there is also a licensed taxi rank at Terminal 3, on the pavement of the ground floor outside gate 03; it is open around the clock, and those rides are paid by the meter.

Three ways to book, and English works on all three — though not in the same way on each:

Booked by WhatsApp for a long trip between towns, or booked for a large vehicle, the fare is the price the driver offers rather than the meter. The same is true of a long trip between towns booked by telephone. For a ride now you receive price offers from drivers and pick one; for a ride booked ahead you get a message the moment a driver takes it.

How is the fare worked out?

By the meter, under the official price order for taxis, which sets three tariffs — A, B and C — by the day of the week and the hour. Tariff A is the lowest and C the highest.

Two kinds of ride are not on the meter. A large vehicle — more seats, or a wheelchair lift — is priced by the driver however you book it. A long trip between towns is priced by the driver when you book it on WhatsApp or by telephone; in the app that happens only between two towns on our own list, so an ordinary app ride to or from the airport stays on the meter.

Tariff A is the lowest and tariff C the highest. Source: the taxi price order.

The same ride, from the same address, is not the same price at 04:30 as at 10:00, because the early one falls under a higher tariff. The order also sets fixed additions — for ordering a taxi, and for rides leaving Ben Gurion Airport — and it has no charge for luggage or for an extra passenger. In the Hello Taxi app you see an estimated price range before you confirm, and the meter at the end of the ride is the fare.

Can you book a taxi in English?

Yes, on all three, but they get there differently. The WhatsApp assistant answers in English from your first message. The telephone line opens in Hebrew and moves to English — or French, or Russian — once it has heard you speak it, so do not hang up on the Hebrew greeting. The app opens in Hebrew and has an English setting, which you change once.

A useful habit either way: give the name of the place and the town together, the way an Israeli would say it to a taxi driver — "the Dan Panorama hotel, Tel Aviv", "Terminal 3", "the Western Wall" — rather than only a street number.

What do you need to use the app?

A phone number, and the one-time code we send to it. You choose how the code arrives: a text message, a WhatsApp message, or a call that reads it out.

One honest caveat. Our sign-in is built around Israeli numbers. If you use a foreign number, type it in full with its country code and a plus sign in front: typed any other way it is read as an Israeli number, and the code goes nowhere with no error to tell you why. We have also not tested that a code reaches a foreign mobile number. If it does not arrive, do not keep trying: write to us on WhatsApp at +972 53-900-0023 instead, which needs no sign-in at all, or call +972 2-376-7000.

In the app you choose "Later" and a time for a ride booked ahead, and you can ask for "6+ seats", "10+ seats", "Extra baggage" or "Wheelchair access", among others. Asking for more seats or for wheelchair access takes the ride off the meter and on to the driver's price. There is also a filter for a driver who speaks English, and one for Russian. There is no box for notes and no passenger count. Anything else, tell the driver in the chat once they have taken the ride.

How do you pay Hello Taxi for a ride?

Cash to the driver, or a card. In the app you choose cash or card before you pick a driver; a saved card is shown by its last four digits, and the phone wallet appears on devices that offer it. On WhatsApp, choosing to pay by card sends you a link to a secure payment page. On the telephone line the assistant asks whether it is cash to the driver or a card on the call.

On WhatsApp the order depends on the ride. A short ride in town paid by card waits for your payment before it reaches a driver. On a long trip between towns the drivers send their prices first, you pick one, and the payment link follows the ride you chose. If a card is not approved, the ride waits — you can pay with another card, or say "cash" and pay the driver — and if neither happens it is cancelled.

What happens on Friday, Shabbat and festivals?

Hello Taxi takes no rides from candle-lighting on Friday until Shabbat ends on Saturday night, and it is closed in the same way on every holy day of rest. The hour moves every week, because it follows sunset:

These are the minutes Hello Taxi itself stops and starts again, worked out by the same system that closes the service and rebuilt every time this page is updated. The hour follows the sun — 40 minutes before sunset on Friday, 40 minutes after sunset on Saturday — as one time for the whole country, taken from the sun over Jerusalem. Your own community's candle-lighting time may differ by a minute or two; go by your own.

The Jewish rest days close whole days too, and some of them land on what would otherwise be a working day — Sunday is a normal working day in Israel. These are the ones that catch a visitor out:

Worked out on 23 September 2026 by the same system that closes the service. A festival that falls on Shabbat closes as one day, together with it; a festival next to Shabbat runs into it as one unbroken closure of two or three days. The middle days of Sukkot and Passover are ordinary working days. Remember that Sunday is a working day in Israel, so a rest day that lands on one closes what would otherwise be a normal day.

For a flight or a trip on Saturday night, book before Shabbat begins with a pickup time after it ends. Under the official tariff, Friday and the eve of a festival move to tariff B from 16:01 and to tariff C from 21:01. There are no trains on Shabbat either.

Arriving at Ben Gurion Airport: which terminal, and where are the taxis?

All international arrivals land at Terminal 3, and the licensed taxi rank is outside gate 03 on the ground floor, by meter. Terminal 1 has domestic flights and some international departures, so check which terminal your departure leaves from.

The train from the station inside Terminal 3 to Jerusalem Yitzhak Navon takes about 22 minutes and runs about every half hour, with none on Shabbat; the Jerusalem station is about 80 metres underground, which matters with suitcases. A taxi goes from the terminal to your door.

For a very early departure, book the day before rather than late at night: a ride booked for a later time is offered to each driver in the hours he has asked to hear about rides, so one entered late at night usually waits until the morning. If you booked in the app, send the driver your flight number in the chat once they have taken the ride and agree where to meet; if you booked on WhatsApp or by telephone, give the flight number when you book.

More detail: the Jerusalem to Ben Gurion Airport guide and our airport page.

Can you book a taxi for somebody else?

Yes — and the ride carries the telephone number of whoever booked it, so the driver calls you, not the passenger. You book it the ordinary way, in the app, on WhatsApp or by telephone, using your own number.

That is the right way to send a taxi to an older relative or to a guest, but tell the passenger which car is coming, because the driver will be ringing your phone rather than theirs.

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