Getting a Taxi in China: DiDi and Meters

Published 2026-10-15 · 71Asia Tours

On my first trip to China I spent twenty minutes outside a Xi'an metro station trying to wave down a cab while three drivers shook their heads at my hotel's address. On my second trip I had DiDi set up properly, and a car was outside my Chengdu hotel four minutes after I tapped the button. The gap between those two experiences is basically this article.

Set up DiDi before you need it

DiDi is the ride-hailing app almost everyone in mainland China uses, and it works with foreign phone numbers. You have two ways in. The standalone DiDi app has an English interface and accepts international credit cards. Or, and this is what I recommend, use the ride-hailing mini program inside Alipay: open Alipay, search for "DiDi", and it loads in English with your Alipay payment method already attached. No extra registration, no new card to verify.

Either way, do it at the hotel on Wi-Fi, not standing on a curb with luggage.

Which ride type to pick

• Express (kuài chē) is the default private car and the cheapest. It covers almost every situation.
• Taxi (chūzūchē) orders an actual metered cab. Slightly pricier at busy times, but useful when you want an official receipt or a driver who knows the back streets.
• Premium (zhuānchē) gets you a nicer car and a more formal driver. I only bother for airport runs when I'm carrying a suit bag.

One tip on pickups: the map pin is often off by half a block in dense areas. When the driver calls and asks where you are, a sentence in English usually dies fast. Instead of dragging the pin, type the name of a recognizable entrance into the destination field, or stand next to something big and obvious. Hotel front doors work best.

Hailing a taxi the old way

Street cabs are still everywhere, still cheap, and perfectly fine. A licensed taxi has a roof light, a meter, and the driver's ID card clipped to the dashboard. If the roof light is lit, the cab is empty. Raise your hand from the curb; drivers tend to ignore people waving from bus stops.

Daytime flagfall fares, approximate but close enough for planning:

• Beijing: ¥13 for the first 3 km, then about ¥2.3 per km
• Shanghai: ¥14 for the first 3 km, then about ¥2.7 per km
• Chengdu: ¥8 flagfall, and fares climb slowly
• Chongqing: ¥10 flagfall; you will be amazed what ¥30 buys in this vertical city
• Xi'an: ¥8 to start, with most cross-town rides landing under ¥30

Between roughly 5 and 7 pm drivers change shift, and the odds of being refused go way up. Late-night rides carry a surcharge, usually a percentage added on top of the meter. If a driver quotes a flat price "because the meter is broken", that's a negotiation, not a fare. Cross the street and take the next one; in most mainland cities a 15-minute ride costs less than a coffee.

What to watch for

• Touts inside airport terminals and train stations who offer a "taxi" at a flat rate. Walk past them to the official rank or the app pickup zone.
• The meter trick: if it isn't running when the wheels start moving, say "dǎbiǎo" (打表, use the meter), or simply get out.
• Detours: DiDi shows the route in real time, which is one more reason I default to the app in unfamiliar cities.
• Receipts: ask for a "fāpiào" if you need one. Official cabs print them in seconds.

City notes

Beijing and Shanghai: both methods work everywhere, and Shanghai's cabs are the most professional I've come across. In Chongqing, the yellow cabs handle hills that would scare a rental car, but I still use the app there because street names repeat and addresses stack vertically. Xi'an and Chengdu are cheap and relaxed either way. In Zhangjiajie, DiDi works well in the city and in Wulingyuan town, but coverage thins out inside the parks themselves, where shuttle buses own the roads. Lhasa runs on flat-fare taxis: ¥10 covers most of the city, and hailing one on the street is easier than using the app.

Hong Kong, Macao and Taipei

These run on different systems and mostly skip DiDi. Hong Kong's red urban cabs are metered, honest, and take the Octopus card; Uber works too and is often only marginally more expensive. Macao has no Uber at all: metered taxis queue outside hotels, and the light rail plus the free casino shuttles cover a surprising amount of ground. Taipei's yellow cabs are metered and plentiful, and both Uber and the local 55688 app work well; drivers often queue right outside MTR exits.

None of this is complicated once it's set up. The mistake I see most often is leaving the app setup until the moment it's needed, usually at an airport at midnight. Do it the first evening, coffee in hand, and transport becomes the least stressful part of the whole trip.

Written by the team at 71Asia Tours, a China-based tour operator with licensed Spanish- and English-speaking guides. Browse all tours · About us · Our guides · Reviews · FAQ