Opening a Taxi or Private-Hire Training Centre in France: the Prefectoral Approval

Training taxi or private-hire drivers in France is not an ordinary training activity. It falls under an administrative authorisation regime: the prefectoral approval of training centres, set out in article R. 3120-9 of the French transport code.

That is a difference in kind from mainstream vocational training. Where an ordinary provider files a declaration, a T3P centre applies for an authorisation — and waits to be granted it.

What the approval actually allows

The acronym T3P stands for transport public particulier de personnes, France’s category for private passenger transport: taxis, VTCs (private-hire vehicles) and VMDTRs, the two- or three-wheeled motor vehicles the public calls motorcycle taxis. The common framework for all three was laid down by decree no. 2017-483 of 6 April 2017, from which the unified examination run by the chambers of trades and crafts derives.

The training market that results breaks into three blocks, and approval does not weigh equally on each.

Exam preparation is the most visible block — and the only one that is not reserved. No text requires a candidate to take prior training: the T3P exam is open to independent candidates. A provider can therefore sell preparation without approval, accepting that it cannot present itself as an approved centre.

Mandatory continuing training, by contrast, is entirely captured by approval. Every working driver must complete, every five years, a fourteen-hour course delivered in person at an approved centre. That double condition — classroom delivery and approval — rules out both unapproved players and fully online offers.

Mobility training for taxi drivers completes the picture: a driver wishing to operate in another département takes a fourteen-hour course at an approved centre located in that département.

In other words: without approval, a provider positions itself on the most competitive and least recurring segment. With approval, it gains a predictable flow, since every driver comes back every five years.

Two divisions to build into the project

Approval is divided along two axes that often surprise providers coming from mainstream vocational training.

By profession. A taxi approval does not allow you to train VTC drivers. A centre targeting all three activities files three applications, examined separately. Nothing prevents combining them, and many centres do, but each perimeter has its own file.

By site. Where a provider operates secondary establishments, each requires its own approval. A network opening a branch does not carry its authorisation with it: it applies for a new one from the prefecture of the département concerned. The logic is that of regulated professions — authorisation is territorial and follows the place where training is actually delivered.

That second point has a direct strategic consequence for mobility training, where competition is not national but local to the département.

The conditions to meet

The conditions are set by the order of 11 August 2017 for taxi and VTC centres, and by the order of 3 October 2018 for VMDTR centres. The assessment bears on the centre’s actual capacity to deliver the training.

Trainers are the most discriminating point. For each subject taught, the centre evidences the qualification of the person teaching it: either through the corresponding diplomas or titles, or through ten years of teaching experience gained within an approved provider. This twin route — diploma or long experience — is settled at recruitment, not at filing.

Premises and teaching resources must suit classroom delivery. Since continuing training is compulsorily in person, a real physical capacity is expected.

Vehicles used for driving instruction must be fitted with dual controls and with additional interior and side mirrors adjusted for both learner and instructor. For VTC training, they must also meet the characteristics required of cars assigned to that activity. This is a capital line to cost out before committing.

The file and where to lodge it

The application is made by the centre’s legal representative, or their authorised agent, and lodged with the prefecture of the département of establishment — the police prefecture in Paris.

Four reflexes save weeks.

First, obtain your prefecture’s guidance notice: depending on the département, the file is handled by the regulation office, the administrative-policing office or a dedicated regulated-professions service, and the list of expected documents is published locally.

Lodge one file per perimeter: one profession, one site. The documents must remain identifiable perimeter by perimeter, even in a grouped submission.

Take care over the teaching section: curriculum, hourly breakdown, identification of the trainer for each subject. That is where the assessment concentrates, and the leading cause of requests for additional documents.

Finally, keep a calendar margin between filing and the first session sold. Assessment involves verifying qualifications and, where applicable, inspecting premises.

A regulated market, in a sector that has shifted

Two bodies of research usefully inform the decision to invest.

On occupational authorisation regimes first: a study by Morris Kleiner and Alan Krueger published in 2013 in the Journal of Labor Economics measured, from a purpose-built national survey, the extent of occupational licensing in the United States — around 29 % of employees reported holding a licensed occupation — and documented an association between licensing and pay levels (see the study). The mechanism applies to a training provider too: a regulatory barrier reduces the number of entrants and protects incumbent positions. That is precisely what makes approval attractive — and why the file is demanding.

On the sector itself: work by Thor Berger, Chinchih Chen and Carl Benedikt Frey published in 2018 in the European Economic Review estimated the effect of Uber’s arrival on American taxi drivers, finding a relative earnings decline of around 10 % for salaried drivers after entry into a market, with no significant effect on their labour supply (see the study). For a training centre, that says two things: the volume of new entrants is sensitive to the sector’s cycle, and the recurring part of the business — continuing training — is what cushions it.

Do not confuse approval with vocational-training status

One last point, and it is the costliest confusion: T3P approval is neither an activity declaration nor Qualiopi.

Approval authorises the regulated activity. The activity declaration number with the DREETS remains the ordinary prerequisite for any training provider. And Qualiopi governs access to public and pooled funding — a subject covered in detail in our article on what T3P approval and Qualiopi each cover.

These three steps do not share a timeline, a cost or a renewal cycle. Running them in series rather than in parallel is the surest way to delay the first funded session.

Take action

Start by settling your perimeter — which profession, which site, which département — then secure your trainers subject by subject: that is blocking point number one. Then obtain your prefecture’s notice, which sets the local list of documents. The T3P training-centre approval page sets out the applicable texts, the period of validity and the steps, and our article on the fourteen-hour continuing-training course covers the segment that makes the whole exercise pay.