Google Business Profile for taxi firms: set-up and getting found

When someone near you searches for a taxi, the map and the firms listed under it come from Google Business Profiles. This guide covers setting up a Google Business Profile for a taxi or private hire firm the way Google's own rules expect: the name, the service area, the category and verification, then the photos, posts and reviews that keep it working.

Get the basics wrong and Google can change your details or suspend the listing. The rules matter more than any trick.

What is a Google Business Profile, and why does a taxi firm need one?

A Google Business Profile is your firm's free listing on Google Search and Google Maps. It holds your name, phone number, website, service area, photos and reviews in one place, and Google says creating one costs nothing.

For a firm that lives on phone bookings, your Google Maps taxi listing is the shop window. A passenger who searches "taxi near me" at the station sees the map, taps a firm and rings it. Google says local results are based mainly on three things:

Google also says there's no way to ask or pay for a better local ranking. Paid adverts that sit above the listings are a separate product, covered in our guide to Google Ads for taxi firms.

The map is getting more crowded. The Department for Transport counted 19,000 licensed private hire operators in England on 1 April 2026, up from 16,300 in 2024.

What name should a taxi firm use on Google?

Use your real-world trading name, exactly as it appears on your cars, website and paperwork. Google's guidelines say the name should match how customers know the business, and that adding unnecessary information to the name can get the profile suspended.

That rules out the usual tricks. Google doesn't allow any of these in the name field:

• Places or services added to the name, such as "Smith's Cars Airport Taxis Bristol" when the firm is Smith's Cars
• Marketing taglines, such as "the friendly local firm"
• Phone numbers, website addresses or opening hours
• Whole words in capitals, unless that's genuinely how the name is written
• "Ltd" or other legal terms, unless your signs and stationery show them consistently

If your firm really is called Airport Taxis Bristol on its signs, cars and invoices, then that's its name. The test is the real world, not the keyword you'd like to rank for.

London private hire firms have a second rule to follow. Section 31 of the Private Hire Vehicles (London) Act 1998 says an advert for private hire in London can't include "taxi", "taxis", "cab" or "cabs" unless the vehicles are London cabs, though "minicab" is allowed. The Act counts every form of advertising in any medium, and breaking it is a criminal offence. So keep those words out of your Google name, description and posts, and ask TfL or a solicitor if you're not sure.

Should you show your address or set a service area?

Most private hire firms should hide the address and set a service area. Google's guidelines say a service area business, one that goes to its customers instead of having them visit, should hide its address. Your passengers book by phone, app or website and the car goes to them, so that describes you unless people walk into your office to book.

The service area rules, from Google's help pages:

• You can set up to 20 service areas, by town, city or postcode.
• You can't draw a radius around your base; you pick named areas.
• The whole area shouldn't stretch beyond about 2 hours' driving from where you're based.
• You get one profile per business. A profile for every town you cover breaks the guidelines.

List the places you pick passengers up from, not every place you drive to. A firm in Swindon that does Heathrow runs doesn't need Heathrow in its service area to do them.

Which taxi business category should you choose?

Choose the one category that finishes the sentence "this business is a..." for what you mainly do. Google's guidelines say to use as few categories as possible, to choose the most specific one, and never to use categories as keywords. You can't invent your own; you pick from Google's list.

Type "taxi" into the primary category box and choose the closest match from the list Google shows. If most of your work is chauffeur or executive jobs, or airport transfers, look for the category that says so, because Google says your categories affect your local ranking. Add a second category only for a real, separate part of the business.

Settle it at the start. Google warns that adding or changing a category can mean verifying the business again.

How do you verify a Google Business Profile for a taxi firm?

You verify by proving to Google that you run the business, using whichever method Google offers your profile. You can't pick the method: Google decides it from your business type, public information, region and opening hours.

1. Sign in with a Google account the firm will keep. A shared company email address is safer than a driver's personal account.
2. Search for your firm on Google or Maps and claim it, or add it if it isn't there.
3. Choose "Get verified" and follow the method shown: a phone call or text, an email, a live video call, a recorded video or a postcard.
4. Wait for Google's review, which Google says takes up to five working days and sometimes longer.

Two traps catch taxi offices. A phone code won't reach an automated menu: Google says interactive voice response systems can't get the code, so if your line goes to a menu or a divert, take the call on a phone you can answer in person. And if Google posts you a card, don't edit your name, address or category while you wait, or the code stops working. Google says most codes arrive within 14 days and they expire after 30 days.

For a video, Google asks you to show where you are, branded equipment or marketing material, and proof that you manage the business, such as keys or staff-only areas. A liveried car parked outside the office, with the street sign in shot, covers the first two.

What should you add once the profile is verified?

Fill in every field, because Google says complete and accurate profiles are more likely to show up in local results. The ones that matter most for a taxi firm:

• Phone number. A local number under your direct control. Google doesn't accept premium-rate numbers, or numbers that send callers somewhere other than your business. Keep the number passengers already know. If you add answering software, the number can stay put: Dispatch AI, for example, answers through a call divert on your own line.
• Website. Your own site, so the name and number match what Google shows. Our guide to what a taxi website needs to get bookings covers the page passengers land on.
• Hours. A grey area for taxi firms. Google asks for your regular customer-facing hours, but its guidelines also list "transportation services and airports" among businesses that shouldn't give hours. If you set hours, make them the hours people can actually book, and add special hours for bank holidays.
• Description. What you do, where, and for how long. Google doesn't allow links in the description, and it shouldn't be about offers or prices.
• Photos. JPG or PNG files between 10 KB and 5 MB, ideally 720 by 720 pixels, in focus and without heavy filters. Use your logo, a cover photo, your actual cars and your office, and drivers only with their permission. Videos can run to 30 seconds.
• Posts. Updates, offers and events show on your profile in Search and Maps. A post is the right place for a fixed airport fare or a new service. Google archives posts after six months unless you give them a date range, and can reject a post carrying a phone number it can't link to you.

How do reviews affect your Google Maps taxi listing?

Reviews feed the prominence factor: Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help your local ranking, and that replying shows customers you value their feedback. You have to verify the profile before you can reply.

Google is strict about how you get them. Offering anything in return for a review, such as a discount or a free journey, counts as fake engagement. Google can then stop the profile getting new reviews for a set period, hide the existing ones, or show passengers a warning that fake reviews were removed. UK law has been tougher still since the review rules in the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 came into force on 6 April 2025.

Our guide to getting more Google reviews the right way covers both sets of rules, with a way of asking that stays inside them.

How do you keep the profile accurate?

Google fills gaps from elsewhere. Its guidelines say it decides how to show your address using information from other sources, and that it can pick up category information from your website and from mentions of your firm around the web. So the profile is only as good as everything else about you online.

Once a month, search for your own firm and check the name, number, area and photos. Reply to new reviews. Make sure your website, Facebook page and directory listings use the same name and number. Our guides to SEO for taxi firms and getting recommended by AI assistants explain why that consistency counts beyond Google Maps too.