Own a taxi
business
abroad.
Akontec forms the company, clears the licensing, places the insurance, sources the vehicles, hires the people and builds the technology — then runs the operation from our centre in India while you own it from wherever you are.
United States & United Kingdom
Sized to your capital
Formation to launch
Run from India after launch
Most people who try this fail at the same four points.
They pick the wrong city, they underestimate insurance, they cannot open a bank account, and they have nobody on the ground when something goes wrong. Every one of those is a solvable problem — if you solve it before you spend the money.
Wrong jurisdiction
For-hire authority in the United States is issued city by city, not nationally. A model that is straightforward in Dallas can be effectively closed in New York. City selection comes before company formation, not after.
Insurance shock
Commercial for-hire auto cover is the largest recurring cost in a fleet, and it scales with vehicle count rather than vehicle value. Buying cheaper cars does not fix the arithmetic. It usually makes it worse.
Banking refusal
A newly formed, foreign-owned company with no US or UK credit history is a hard banking application. It can be prepared properly and it frequently succeeds, but the institution decides, not us, and nobody honest will promise you an account.
Nobody on the ground
Vehicles need inspecting, drivers need meeting, incidents need attending. An owner eight time zones away cannot do that. The operating structure has to include a local contact from day one, costed into the plan.
Three ways to be in this business.
They differ enormously in capital, in licensing difficulty and in who carries the demand risk. We will tell you which one fits before we quote you anything.
Rent to licensed drivers
You buy vehicles and rent them weekly to drivers who already hold their own rideshare approval. They bring the demand through the platforms. You are running a vehicle rental business, which in most US cities needs no operating authority at all.
Sell to businesses, subcontract the driving
You hold the contracts — corporate travel, medical transport, school and staff runs, airport accounts — and fulfil them through already-licensed carriers. Asset-light, no vehicles to buy, revenue from B2B accounts rather than street demand.
Your own app, your own dispatch
Your brand, your rider and driver apps, your dispatch desk, your fares. The largest opportunity and by far the hardest. You carry the for-hire authority, the technology and the cost of acquiring both riders and drivers in the same city at the same time.
Model C is the one most people arrive wanting and the one fewest people should start with. Uber and Lyft solved the cold-start problem — getting drivers and riders onto a new platform simultaneously — by subsidising both sides for years. A new brand entering a US metro faces that same problem without that budget. We will build it if it is genuinely what you want, and we will tell you plainly what it costs to try.
Twelve stages from decision to first fare.
The same spine runs through every venture we set up. Stages four, six, nine and ten are where a transport business differs from anything else, and they are where most of the work sits.
Feasibility & city selection
Weeks 1–2Which country, which city, which model. Licensing regime, insurance market, driver supply and competition are all assessed before a single form is filed.
Entity formation
Weeks 2–4LLC or Corporation in the USA, Limited company in the UK. Registered agent or registered office, EIN or UTR, constitutional documents, ownership register.
Tax & statutory registration
Weeks 3–5Federal and state registrations, sales tax where applicable, VAT and PAYE in the UK, and the annual filing calendar handed to you in writing.
Licensing & operating authority
Weeks 4–10Vehicle-for-hire permits, operator licences, driver approvals and vehicle registrations, prepared and lodged with the relevant city or council authority.
We earn when
you earn.
Three components, and we would rather you understood all three before we ever send you a proposal.
- Setup fee — a percentage of the establishment cost, quoted once the model and city are fixed. Vehicles, property and inventory are excluded from the base.
- Management fee — a flat monthly amount covering the operations desk that runs the business after launch.
- Profit share — a percentage of net operating profit above an agreed threshold, calculated annually against a defined expense schedule.
A percentage-only fee would point us the wrong way.
If we were paid purely as a percentage of what you spend, we would earn more by steering you toward the most expensive version of this business. That is exactly the incentive we do not want.
Taking a share of operating profit puts us on the same side of the table. The model we recommend is the one we think will actually make money, because if it does not, the largest part of our upside does not arrive either.
A profit share is a contractual right under a management agreement. It is not equity, we do not take ownership of your company, and the agreement carries a fixed term with performance exit rights on both sides. There is no perpetual claim on a business you paid to build.
What we will not promise you.
This category attracts a lot of noise. Here is where we stop, in writing, before you have paid us anything.
- We will not promise you a US or UK bank account. We prepare and lodge the application properly. The bank decides.
- We will not promise a specific income, return, payback period or profit. Any figure we show you is an illustrative planning range built on stated assumptions.
- We will not promise that a licence or permit will be granted. Authorities exercise discretion and some cities are effectively closed.
- We will not give you legal, tax, immigration or investment advice. Regulated work goes to independent licensed professionals you engage directly.
- We will not suggest that owning a company abroad gives you any visa, residence or right to work. It does not, in either country.
- We will not sign contracts, hold licences or take payments on your behalf where doing so requires authority we do not hold.
The questions people actually ask.
The full list runs to thirty-odd. These are the four that come up in almost every first conversation.
Can I own a US or UK taxi business while living in India?
Yes. Neither country requires a company owner to be resident or physically present, and both routinely register companies with wholly foreign ownership. What you cannot do is work in the business yourself without the appropriate visa. Ownership and the right to work are two different things, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling you something else.
Do I need a taxi licence for the rental fleet model?
In most US cities, no. If you rent vehicles to drivers who already hold their own rideshare approval, you are running a vehicle rental business rather than a for-hire transport service, and the operating authority sits with the driver and the platform. The UK position is stricter and varies by licensing district, which is one reason city selection is the first stage rather than an afterthought.
How long does the whole thing take?
The asset-light corporate transport route is the fastest. A rental fleet typically runs longer because vehicle sourcing and insurance placement gate the timeline. A branded operator with its own for-hire authority is the longest by a wide margin. We give you a dated stage plan at proposal, and we tell you which stages depend on third parties whose timelines we do not control.
What happens after launch?
Our operations desk takes over the running of the business — driver support and onboarding, booking and dispatch coordination, corporate account servicing, compliance calendar, supplier and insurance renewals, and monthly management reporting. You receive a defined authority schedule setting out what we can decide and spend without asking you, and what is always reserved to you.
Find out whether this fits you
A 45-minute consultation covering market, model, capital and licensing. No obligation, and no sales script.