Is Grab still worth it, or should you switch to Gojek, TADA, Ryde, CDG Zig, Geolah or Trans-Cab? Seven operators now hold a full Ride-hail Service Operator Licence from LTA, and what changed most in 2026 is not the fare. It is the two fixed charges bolted on top of it. Every operator raised its platform fee at the start of the year, and then four of them added a fuel surcharge on top: Grab and Gojek at 90 cents a trip, TADA at 90 cents to S$1.20 and CDG Zig at 50 to 80 cents, all extended to 30 September 2026 and passed to drivers in full. That makes Grab's real fixed cost S$2.10 a trip, not the S$1.20 platform fee most people quote, although Grab's is the surcharge that skips Standard and metered taxi rides. Two more charges never make it onto a comparison table: Trans-Cab's Smile Ride quietly runs its own S$0.60 driver fee to the same 30 September date on top of a platform fee that starts at S$0.80, and Ryde and Trans-Cab both bill a percentage transaction fee for paying by card, enough to cost Ryde the cheapest-app title above roughly a S$20 fare. Bigger still, and missing from every comparison we have seen: pay a metered ComfortDelGro or Trans-Cab taxi fare by credit card and 10% plus GST is added to it, which on a S$20 meter is more than any platform fee on this page. We compared every licensed ride-hailing app in Singapore on fares, platform fees, the fuel surcharge, card fees, driver commission and coverage.
Grab is not the only app licensed to take a booking here, and once you count every fixed charge it is not the cheapest either.
> Quick view: fixed charges per trip through 30 Sep 2026: Ryde S$1.25–S$1.47, Trans-Cab's Smile Ride S$1.40–S$2.10, CDG Zig S$1.50–S$2.10, Grab a flat S$2.10, Gojek up to S$2.60. The catch nobody prices in is the card charge: Ryde bills 1.96% on cashless payment, Trans-Cab 2.78%, and both ComfortDelGro and Trans-Cab add 10% plus GST to a metered taxi fare paid by credit card.
What changed in 2026: two fixed charges, not the fare
If your rides feel more expensive this year even when the app shows a similar fare, this is why. There are now two fixed charges stacked on top of the metered or quoted fare, and most people only know about the first one.
1. The platform fee. Every operator charges one, and most raised it at the start of 2026, largely to fund higher CPF contributions for drivers under Singapore's Platform Workers Act.
- Grab went to S$1.20 per transport ride from 1 January 2026, a 30-cent increase from 90 cents.
- Gojek raised its fee by 20 cents from February 2026, to a range of S$1.10 to S$1.70 (previously 90 cents to S$1.50).
- TADA announced on 25 February 2026 that it would hold its fee structure unchanged for all of 2026, the only operator here to publicly commit to that.
- Ryde raised its fee by 11 cents from 17 February 2026, to S$1.25 on fares of S$18 and below and S$1.47 above that (both including GST), while keeping 0% commission for drivers.
- CDG Zig charges S$1.00 to S$1.30 including GST from 1 January 2026, varying with distance and travel time.
- Trans-Cab is the one nobody quotes, and it is the cheapest to start: its Smile Ride app publishes a ladder from S$0.80 on fares under S$10, climbing in 10-cent steps to S$1.50 from S$30.
2. The fuel surcharge, the one that catches people out. In March and April 2026, as pump prices climbed, four operators added a *second* flat charge on top of the platform fee. Grab renamed its existing 50-cent "Driver Fee" to a Fuel Surcharge and raised it to 90 cents from 7 April 2026; Gojek and TADA followed in April, and CDG Zig introduced its version in March. It was due to lapse twice and was extended both times. In late July 2026 the National Private Hire Vehicles Association confirmed all four would keep it until 30 September 2026.
A fifth operator does the same thing without the press release. Trans-Cab's Smile Ride adds a S$0.60 "driver fee", introduced on 16 April 2026 and extended to the same 30 September date, and its taxi meter carries a temporary 1-cent increase per unit distance over the same period. Every list of "apps that don't charge a fuel surcharge" we have seen still includes it.
| Operator | Fuel surcharge / driver fee per trip |
|---|
| Grab | S$0.90, but not on Standard or metered taxi rides |
| Gojek | S$0.90 on all trips |
| TADA | S$0.90 on fares up to S$18; S$1.20 from S$18.10 |
| CDG Zig | S$0.50 on fares below S$15; S$0.80 from S$15 |
| Trans-Cab (Smile Ride) | S$0.60, 16 Apr to 30 Sep 2026 |
The one genuinely good thing about it: every cent goes to the driver. All four of the big operators pass the surcharge through in full and take no commission on it, and Trans-Cab's own rate card says its fee goes directly to the driver too.
What this means for the comparison. Grab's true fixed cost per trip is not S$1.20. It is S$1.20 plus S$0.90, or S$2.10 before you have travelled a metre, on everything except a Standard or metered taxi ride, where the surcharge does not apply and you pay the S$1.20 alone. Gojek's is S$2.00 to S$2.60. CDG Zig, which looks mid-table on platform fee alone, is S$1.50 to S$2.10. Trans-Cab's Smile Ride starts lowest of all at S$1.40. And Ryde and Geolah, which were not part of the July extension, add no second flat charge at all.
3. The charge that is on nobody's comparison table: the cashless transaction fee. Two operators bill a *percentage* of the transaction for paying by card, and it is large enough to reorder everything above.
- Ryde charges 1.96% + S$0.24 on local Visa and Mastercard and on Rydecoins, 3.3% + S$0.50 on AMEX, foreign cards and everything else, and a further 3% on top for any foreign card or Alipay.
- Trans-Cab's Smile Ride charges 2.78% + S$0.15 on every booking made in the app.
- Both taxi operators charge far more than either of those on a metered fare paid by card. ComfortDelGro and Trans-Cab each add a 10% administrative charge plus GST to a metered taxi fare settled by credit or charge card, and ComfortDelGro applies it to Apple Pay and Google Pay too. PayLah!, NETS, NETS QR and FlashPay are charged a flat S$0.30 instead, and cash is charged nothing. On a S$20 meter the card route costs about S$2.18 extra, which is more than any platform fee on this page. Note that this is a charge on the *metered* fare: a CDG Zig ComfortRIDE fixed fare carries no administrative charge at all.
No equivalent percentage charge appears on the published fee pages of Grab, Gojek, TADA or Geolah. On Ryde it is levied only on cashless payment, so paying cash avoids it entirely, while the platform fee is charged either way.
Do the arithmetic and Ryde's headline advantage turns out to have a ceiling. On a S$12 fare paid by a local card, Ryde's fixed cost is about S$1.73 against Grab's S$2.10, so Ryde wins comfortably. On a S$25 fare, Ryde is about S$2.20 and Grab is still a flat S$2.10, so Grab is now cheaper. The crossover sits at roughly a S$20 fare: below it Ryde is the cheapest app here on fixed charges, above it Grab's flat surcharge and CDG Zig's capped one both undercut it. (The percentage is billed on the transaction, so treat these as close estimates rather than to-the-cent figures.)
On a short trip, this stack is a large share of what you pay, which is why the app with the lowest headline fare is not automatically the cheapest once you reach the payment screen. Always compare the final total, not the fare estimate.
How many ride-hailing apps are there in Singapore?
Seven. Every operator that can legally take a ride booking here holds a Ride-hail Service Operator Licence (RSOL) from the Land Transport Authority, and as of 2026 the full list is:
| Operator | Licence status |
|---|
| GrabCar Pte Ltd (Grab) | Full RSOL to 31 Dec 2027 |
| Velox Digital Singapore Pte Ltd (Gojek) | Full RSOL to 31 Dec 2027 |
| Tada Mobility (Singapore) Pte Ltd (TADA) | Full RSOL to 31 Dec 2027 |
| Ryde Technologies Pte Ltd (Ryde) | Full RSOL to 31 Dec 2027 |
| CDG Zig Pte Ltd (CDG Zig) | Full RSOL to 31 Dec 2027 |
| Geo Lah Pte Ltd (Geolah) | Converted from provisional to full, Dec 2025 |
| Trans-cab Services Pte Ltd (Trans-Cab) | Converted from provisional to full, Dec 2025 |
The last two are the change worth knowing about. Geolah and Trans-Cab were awarded one-year provisional licences on 23 December 2024, and in December 2025 the LTA converted both to full three-year licences after they met its regulatory standards. Most "Grab alternatives" lists still stop at five apps. There are seven, and the two newest are the ones actively buying market share with promotions.
One name people still ask about is not on the list: Uber, which sold its Southeast Asian business to Grab in 2018 and has not operated here since. If an app is not in the table above, it cannot legally dispatch a ride in Singapore.
Which apps actually book a metered taxi in Singapore?
If what you want is a taxi rather than a private-hire car, the choice narrows to three of the seven, and it is worth wanting, because a metered fare is set by the meter and the regulated surcharge table rather than by demand, so it does not multiply when it rains.
- CDG Zig books ComfortDelGro's own Comfort and CityCab taxis on the meter, alongside private-hire cars, buses and Zig Driverless. With the largest taxi fleet in Singapore behind it, it is the most reliable metered booking and the usual pick for an airport run.
- Grab books metered taxis through GrabCab and its Metered Taxi option, and this is exactly where its fuel surcharge stops. The 90-cent charge applies to all transport bookings *except* Standard and metered taxi rides, so a Grab-booked taxi carries the S$1.20 platform fee and no surcharge.
- Trans-Cab's Smile Ride dispatches its own red taxis on the meter. Read the booking fee properly before you compare it: the widely quoted S$2.30 is the off-peak rate. It is S$3.30 at peak and S$8.00 for an advance booking made at least 30 minutes ahead, rising to S$20 on an Alphard. Peak here means 6.00–9.29am and 5.00pm to midnight on weekdays, and 10.00am–1.59pm plus 5.00pm to midnight at weekends and on public holidays.
Gojek, TADA and Geolah do not dispatch metered taxis at all. Ryde has taxi driver-partners, but its rider-facing tiers (RydePOOL, RydeFLASH, RydePET and RydeX) are priced as private-hire bookings rather than on the meter.
A street hail is still the cheapest way into a taxi, but only if you pay it the right way. It skips the booking fee and the platform fee, and then both operators' own fare pages add a 10% administrative charge plus GST to any metered fare paid by credit or charge card, ComfortDelGro extending that to Apple Pay and Google Pay. NETS, NETS QR, FlashPay and PayLah! cost a flat S$0.30, and cash costs nothing. So the saving survives if you pay cash or NETS and largely evaporates if you tap a credit card. Two smaller caveats for 2026: the meter itself is not quite where it was, since Trans-Cab's rate card carries a temporary 1-cent increase per unit distance from 16 April 2026 extended to 30 September 2026, and the usual 25% peak and 50% late-night surcharges still apply on top.
New in 2026: booking a ride from Singapore to Johor Bahru
The biggest structural change this year is not a fee. It is a route. In April 2026 the LTA awarded GrabCar Pte Ltd Singapore's first Cross-border Ride-hail Service Operator Licence (CRSOL), valid for three years from 30 April 2026, and Grab began rolling out the pilot service, Cross-Border SG-JB (Beta), on 4 May 2026. It is the first time you can book a cross-border car door-to-door in a ride-hailing app rather than arranging a private cross-border taxi.
How it works in practice:
- Coverage: anywhere in Singapore, and in Malaysia the zones of Johor Bahru, Iskandar Puteri, Forest City, Kulai and Senai.
- Fares are fixed upfront at the point of booking, not metered. The service launched with an introductory discount of up to 20%, which Grab raised to 30% for the June school holidays from 29 May to 28 June 2026; that window has closed and Grab has not published a current level, so check the quote in-app rather than assuming one.
- Book 6 hours to 7 days ahead. Grab cut the minimum from 12 hours to 6 on 29 May 2026, and now sends a push notification prompting you to book the return leg as soon as the outbound is confirmed. It is still a scheduled service, not an on-demand one.
- 4-seater and 6-seater vehicles, including Premium models.
- The catch is the return leg, and it is only the pickup. From 5 May 2026 the scheme was relaxed so that *drop-offs* can be anywhere in Singapore and anywhere across the five Johor zones, rather than terminal-to-terminal as originally planned. *Pickups* by a foreign-licensed taxi remain restricted to government-designated points: Toppen Shopping Centre, Midvalley Southkey Mall, Angsana Mall and Larkin Sentral Terminal in Malaysia, and near VivoCity, Century Square, Joo Koon MRT and Ban San Street Terminal in Singapore. So you can be set down at your door, but you cannot be collected from it on the return leg.
Cross-border cars carry a roof-top sign and a cross-border identification decal, and drivers hold licences on both sides. If you are heading to JB for the weekend, this is now worth pricing against the coach and the causeway taxi queue.
How to actually save on every ride
- Compare the final total, not the fare estimate. The platform fee, the fuel surcharge and GST are all added on top. Two apps quoting the same fare can differ by more than a dollar once you reach the payment screen.
- Count every fixed charge, not just the platform fee. Through 30 September 2026 the combined figure is what matters: Ryde S$1.25–S$1.47, Trans-Cab's Smile Ride S$1.40–S$2.10, CDG Zig S$1.50–S$2.10, TADA about S$1.95–S$2.45, Grab a flat S$2.10 and Gojek S$2.00–S$2.60. Ranking the apps on platform fee alone gets this backwards.
- Short trips reward the low-fee apps most. A S$2.10 fixed charge is 30% of a S$7 hop but under 7% of a S$32 airport run, so for quick trips Ryde and CDG Zig have a real structural edge.
- Keep two apps installed. Availability, not price, is what strands you in the rain. Grab and CDG Zig have the deepest fleets; TADA and Ryde are usually cheaper when a car is nearby.
- Check Geolah when it rains. It is the one operator that does not surge, so its relative advantage is biggest at exactly the moments every other app gets expensive.
- Check your GrabCoins expiry. The first deadline has passed, with the earliest converted balances expiring on 31 July 2026, but coins still lapse six months after you earn them, so spend rather than hoard.
- Consider the meter, and pay it in cash. When traffic is light and nothing is surging, a street-hail metered taxi (a Trans-Cab or a ComfortDelGro) skips the booking fee and the platform fee. Do not settle it with a credit card, though: both operators add 10% plus GST to a metered fare paid by card, which is about S$2.18 on a S$20 meter. NETS or PayLah! costs a flat S$0.30, and cash costs nothing.
- Pay cash on Ryde, and watch the fare size. Its 1.96% + S$0.24 transaction fee is charged on cashless payment only, while the platform fee applies either way. Because it is a percentage, Ryde is the cheapest app on fixed charges below roughly a S$20 fare and not above it, so on a long airport run check Grab's flat S$2.10 and CDG Zig's capped charge before you book.
- Book a taxi through Grab if you want one. Its 90-cent fuel surcharge does not apply to Standard or metered taxi rides, so a Grab-booked taxi costs the S$1.20 platform fee and nothing on top.
Related reads
*Licence status was verified against Land Transport Authority news releases. Platform fees, fuel surcharges, card and transaction fees, taxi booking fees, commission rates, cross-border service terms and loyalty terms were verified against operator pages and rate cards on 3 September 2026, including ComfortDelGro's published taxi fares page, Trans-Cab's Smile Ride and taxi fare tables, Gojek's own blog posts on GoCar Nearby (2 September 2026), the Zig by ComfortDelGro dispatch partnership (27 August 2026), yuu Points and current promo codes, and Ryde's Ryde+ subscription pages, alongside Singapore news reports. Two dates are worth watching. The fuel surcharge is a temporary measure that has already been extended twice and is confirmed only to 30 September 2026, with no operator saying what happens after that. And ComfortDelGro's own fares page still prints the original 24 March to 31 July 2026 window for its driver fee even though the National Private Hire Vehicles Association said in July that it would run to 30 September, so check your in-app fare breakdown. Geolah does not publish a rider platform fee rate card; Trans-Cab does, on its own site, and it is the one most comparisons of these apps miss. Fares vary with demand, time of day and pickup location, so always check the final total in-app before confirming a booking.*
