Taxis and Transportation: Who Issues a Receipt to the Passenger and When

Passenger transportation is one of the most confusing areas of 54-FZ: a single trip can involve an aggregator, a taxi fleet, a self-employed driver, and the passenger themselves, and every time you need to determine who exactly accepted the money and who is obliged to issue a receipt. We break down typical schemes for taxis, corporate transportation, and intercity trips — and what this means specifically for you as a fleet or carrier.

1. Who Is Required to Issue a Receipt: The "Who Accepted the Money" Rule#

As with all settlements under 54-FZ, the obligation to issue a receipt lies with the party that actually received the money from the passenger, not the one that organized the trip or provided the car. Ordering via an app, vehicle dispatch, and the ride itself are events without a receipt; the receipt is tied to the moment of payment.

Next — each option individually.

2. Self-employed driver: receipt from "Moy Nalog" instead of CRE#

A self-employed individual on NPD (professional income tax) is exempt from using CRE and, instead of a cash register receipt, generates a receipt via the "Moy Nalog" app — this is a legal alternative, but only if the following conditions are met:

1. The driver is registered as a professional income tax payer and provides the transportation service on their own behalf, rather than as an employed fleet driver.
2. The income from the ride is specifically the income of the self-employed driver, not of the fleet or aggregator that merely passed the order to them for a commission.
3. The receipt from "Moy Nalog" is generated immediately after receiving payment and provided to the passenger — via link, QR code, or in printed form.

If the driver is formally self-employed, but in practice works under conditions close to a full-time fleet employee (fixed schedule, car and orders coming exclusively from the fleet, settlements processed through the fleet's POS), the obligation to issue a receipt may rest with the fleet — this becomes a matter of relationship classification, not just NPD status. If in doubt about the nature of your relationship with drivers, check with an accountant or your tax authority: reclassification risks back taxes and penalties, not just CRE compliance issues.

3. Off-Aggregator Cash Payments in the Vehicle — Risks for Fleet and Driver#

The situation where a "passenger ordered via the app but negotiated on the spot to pay the driver in cash without a receipt" is a direct violation of 54-FZ, and it poses risks for both sides:

• For the driver — if they personally accept the money without having their own cash register or the authorization to issue a receipt on their own behalf or on behalf of the fleet, the fact of payment without a cash register is recorded as a violation by the person who actually accepted the money.
• For the taxi fleet — if it turns out that the driver systematically accepts payments bypassing the fleet's cash register, and the fleet allows this (fails to monitor or require cash reporting), the fleet may also be held liable as the organizer of the activity under which 54-FZ is systematically violated.

Fines for non-use of cash registers differ significantly for officials/sole proprietors and organizations — see the detailed breakdown of amounts and enforcement procedures in the article "Fines for 54-FZ Violations". If cash has already been accepted without a receipt and this was revealed during an inspection or internal audit, the correction procedure is carried out via a correction receipt, see "Receipt Not Issued On Time".

The practical solution is to leave no physical opportunity for the driver to accept unrecorded cash: mandatory fiscalization of payments in the fleet app, or a mobile cash register for the driver linked to the fleet, with a mandatory receipt for every trip paid in cash.

4. Taxi fleet with connected drivers: agency remuneration in the receipt#

A common model: drivers are not employees, but are connected to the fleet under a contract (car rental, brand franchise, access to orders), and the fleet receives a share of the revenue as its agency/commission remuneration. Here, it is important not to confuse two different roles of the fleet in a single ride:

1. If the fleet acts as an intermediary organizing transportation on behalf of and in the interests of the driver-principal (the driver is the actual service provider and owner of the ride revenue), the receipt for the transportation itself must indicate the agent tag along with the details of the driver-principal — the general mechanism of the agent tag is detailed in the article "Agents and Commission Agents: Agent Tag in Receipts".
2. Separately from this, the fleet has the right to issue its own receipt for the commission/remuneration amount for platform use, car rental, or franchise — this is no longer an agent tag for transportation, but a standard sale of fleet services to the driver.

Combining these two receipts into one should be avoided — these represent different settlement items and different parties to the transaction with the passenger. The exact scheme (who in the contract is recognized as the principal and who is merely a service provider for the fleet) depends on the structure of the specific contract between the fleet and the drivers — check with your accountant when setting up the model.

5. Corporate trips under a contract with a legal entity: receipt for each trip or acceptance act#

When passenger transportation (employees of a client company) is paid for by a legal entity under a contract, rather than by an individual on the spot, the procedure is different from retail:

• If the settlement occurs between two organizations (a legal entity pays the carrier via bank transfer, under a contract, with deferred payment, or based on monthly totals) — this is not a settlement with an individual within the meaning of 54-FZ, and a CCP receipt for each individual trip is not required; document flow is carried out through acceptance acts and invoices, as in regular B2B relationships.
• If, however, the payment is actually made by an individual — the employee-passenger themselves — in cash or by card directly during the trip (even if the company later reimburses their expenses), this is a standard settlement with an individual, and a receipt for the trip is mandatory at the time of payment, regardless of the fact that the employee will later report to their company with an expense report.

The main criterion is who actually provided the funds to the carrier at the moment: the organization under the contract or the individual on site. An analysis of similar logic for settlements with accountable amounts and advance payment schemes is available in the article "Advances, installments, and BNPL".

6. Intercity transportation and buses: ticket as a BSO via the cash register#

A bus ticket or intercity trip is also a settlement with an individual, and with the transition to online cash registers, the strict accountability form (BSO) has lost its independent role as an alternative to a receipt: today, a BSO is generated by the same online cash register as a regular receipt, simply with a different set of mandatory requisites specific to transportation (point of departure/destination, often seat number). In general terms, the procedure is as follows:

1. When a ticket is sold (at a bus station ticket office, in an app, or by a conductor with a mobile cash register), the cash register generates a fiscal document — a BSO — containing transportation details.
2. If the ticket is sold remotely (website, app) and the buyer provided contact details, the document can be sent electronically — the same principle as for a standard electronic receipt, see "Electronic receipt instead of paper".
3. Ticket refunds are processed with a "return of income" (refund) receipt on the seller's cash register — regardless of where the ticket was physically purchased.

For a carrier with multiple bus stations/ticket offices, this is essentially a standard registration of multiple sales locations — there is little difference compared to any other retail business with multiple addresses.

7. In-car cash register: standalone, cloud, or aggregator receipt#

A fleet does not always need a physical device in every car — the option depends on how payments are organized:

In practice, large fleets combine approaches: online in-app payments are covered by a cloud cash register or an aggregator receipt, while cash payments inside the vehicle (where they still occur) are handled by a driver's mobile cash register. Keeping a physical terminal in the car "just in case" when 90% of transactions are online is usually redundant.

8. How to Do This in Cenaly#

• Connecting a fiscal registrar or mobile cash register for the driver / fleet — via Cenaly Hardware Bridge, without being locked to a specific device model.
• For fleets with mostly online payments — a cloud cash register without a physical terminal in every car.
• Agent indicator for "fleet as an intermediary for driver-principal" schemes is configured at the receipt level, separately from the fleet commission — see the general mechanism in "Agents and Commission Agents".
• Digital receipt to the passenger via phone or email — directly from the POS screen, without printing paper in the cabin, history — in POS → Receipts, see receipts and refunds.
• SBP QR payment in the app or on screen — recorded by the same POS as card payments, see "SBP and QR Payment".

9. Frequently Asked Questions#

A passenger paid by card via the driver's terminal — whose receipt is this, the driver's or the fleet's? It depends on whose legal entity/sole proprietorship the acquiring and POS are registered under, to which the terminal is linked: if the terminal and POS are registered to the fleet — it's the fleet's receipt; if the driver as an individual sole proprietor/self-employed person has their own POS and acquiring — it's the driver's receipt. Mixing one party's terminal with another's POS is a source of constant discrepancies and should be avoided.

We are an aggregator and charge an agent fee from fleets — do we need a POS for this fee ourselves? Yes, for its fee (commission for intermediary services), the aggregator issues its own receipt as for a regular service — this is a separate payment transaction, not connected to the receipt for the passenger transport itself.

The driver is a sole proprietor on a patent tax system, do they need to issue a receipt? The patent system itself does not exempt from using a POS register (unlike the professional income tax for the self-employed) — if the driver has no other exemptions, the obligation to use a POS when settling payments with individual passengers remains; a full breakdown of exemptions is in the article "Who needs an online POS".

Is it possible to issue a passenger only a printout from the aggregator app instead of a fiscal receipt? No, if the receipt for transportation must be issued specifically by the fleet/driver (and not the aggregator as a payment agent) — a printout from the app does not replace a fiscal document; a full receipt with POS details is required.

What to do if a driver accepted cash without issuing a receipt, and this was discovered only a week later? Issue a correction receipt for the unrecorded calculation amount as quickly as possible after discovery — detailed procedures and phrasing can be found in the article "Receipt not issued on time".

Related articles: agents and commission agents: agent indicator in the receipt · cloud POS · fines for 54-FZ violations · who needs an online POS · receipt not issued on time

This material is for reference purposes only and does not replace consultation with an accountant or lawyer. Primary sources: 54-FZ "On the Use of Cash Registers", legislation on taxis and the organization of regular passenger transport, Art. 14.5 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation, rules for applying the tax on professional income (NPD). Clarify details regarding your specific operational scheme with the tax authority.