About orangecab.net: a Reference to Seattle Taxi Fares and Rules

The subject is metered taxi service in Seattle, Renton and the surrounding King County valley: the rate structure, the Sea-Tac departure rules, the licensing split between city and county, and the practical business of receipts, payment and lost property. It is a reading of the ordinances. It does not rank companies or recommend one over another. The centre of it is what the meter charges.

Ground transport in the region has changed shape more than once in the last decade, and the writing here tries to keep up with the version currently in force, which is not the version most often described. The clearest example is the end of the for-hire vehicle category on 31 March 2026, which quietly invalidated a distinction that still appears in most guides to the city.

Every dollar figure is read from the rule that establishes it, and the rule is cited on the page that uses it. The current fares rule is issued jointly by the City of Seattle Department of Finance and Administrative Services and King County Records and Licensing Services, filed as Director’s Rule FOR-HIRE TRANSPORTATION-11-2025 and Public Rule FHT-10-2025-PR, effective 6 August 2025.

Where a number is left to a dispatch agency and not fixed by ordinance, that is stated instead of a figure being supplied. Three cases come up repeatedly: a flat rate between downtown and the airport, the amount of an authorised electronic payment convenience fee, and whatever technology fee a company has been permitted to charge. None of those has a single correct value, and quoting an illustrative one would be worse than saying so. Corrections are welcome at the contact page.

The fuel surcharge is a fourth case with a different shape. Its trigger table is published, but whether a surcharge is running on any given day depends on a fourteen-day average, so the reliable answer is the notice posted on the vehicle.

Two widely repeated statements about Seattle taxis are contradicted here, and both are contradicted by the same document.

The first is the flat rate of roughly forty dollars between downtown and Seattle-Tacoma International. The rule that would have to establish it says instead that it establishes no flat rate in either direction and leaves the option to individual companies. What exists is a twenty-dollar minimum on trips leaving the airport, which is a different mechanism producing a different answer on a short trip.

The second is that card surcharges are banned. A convenience fee for electronic payment is authorised, conditionally: written request from the company, approval by the Director, application across the whole fleet. What the prohibition attaches to is charging it on a cash or voucher payment.

A few of the numbers a visitor comes looking for are fixed by an object other than the rate rule, and each of those objects moves on its own schedule. The reliable copy is the one named here.

• Regulator contact routes. These change without the rule changing, so a matter is best routed by its type: which body handles what is the durable part.
• The fuel surcharge in force today. The trigger table is reproduced here in full; the amount actually running rests on a fourteen-day fuel average and is printed on the dashboard notice in the vehicle.
• A downtown to Sea-Tac flat rate. The rule establishes none in either direction, leaving it to each dispatch agency. Where one exists it has to be shown before the trip is confirmed, which makes the quote in front of you the authority.
• Zone boundaries for zone pricing. Each company draws them on ZIP codes inside the area it serves, and the rate book in the vehicle carries that company’s map.
• The rank position at the airport. Stand location is a Port of Seattle matter under separate authority; the airport page covers how the rank operates and what the fare does there.

The pattern is consistent: a figure appears here when a document fixes it and a citation can carry it. Where the number lives on a dashboard notice, a rate book or a company’s own filing, the page names that object, because that is the copy a driver has to honour.