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For our investigation we interviewed drivers working illegally, and took, over the course of six months, 210 trips using apps (108 of which – around 50 percent – were made using licensed apps). We also interviewed officials and gathered the views of experts in the field.
Shortly before 7:30 am one day, I decided to try one of the smart ride-hailing apps used in Jordan. A few minutes later, the driver pulled up and we sped off along the nearly empty roads between the villages of northern Irbid. The journey felt like a car chase. Mohammed* took us down lanes closed to traffic and avoided the main public roads. When we were just a few meters from our destination, we spotted a traffic officer. Before we reached him, the driver said, “If he asks you something, say you’re my sister,” and kept repeating that his name was “Mohammed,” so I wouldn’t get confused or forget.
Drivers using unlicensed smart apps pour out an endless stream of instructions and advice to passengers, so that they feel they are complicit in a crime they did not commit. Drivers tell you to “sit in the front” and claim to be your brother, your son, or some other relative, depending on how old you are or how you look. Additionally, you are constantly interrupted by voice messages in the “closed groups” drivers use to warn each other about traffic police or any other officials who might issue tickets. “Police patrol at the lights”… “Detectives at the roundabout—take another route”… “Watch out for the plainclothes police.”
In the course of this investigation, I spoke to many drivers working illegally in Jordan, either on unlicensed ride apps or without a passenger license.
Twenty-four-year-old Saleh* switched to smart apps after working in clothing retail, which, as he puts it, “didn’t bring in enough.” The idea came from his brother, who initially lent him his car so Saleh could earn a “small sum” to support his family and pay off part of the loan for the car he later bought.
Saleh thought that working as a driver using apps would be his refuge from poverty and unemployment in a country where the unemployment rate is over 20 percent. But a refuge turned into a “trap” that almost cost him his life. Still under 30, Saleh has had some nasty experiences at work. “One night, I got asked to go to some remote area and I got scared while I was on the way there. When I dropped the passenger off and started to pull away, a whole group of people attacked me.. they were like a gang.” Saleh managed to get away by driving off quickly. “But who can I complain to?” he asks.
Saleh works for an unlicensed app, one of many openly operating whole “fleets” of cars. The Land Transport Regulatory Commission (LTRC) announced that it would start licensing apps in 2018, and granted the required permits to seven companies.
In a previous interview, LTRC spokeswoman Abla Washah told ARIJ: “The concept of transporting passengers via smart apps is new to Jordanian society. Initially, it was done illegally.” She pointed out that the growing demand for this method of connecting drivers and passengers prompted the Jordanian authorities to respond by licensing them. As such,Jordanian lawmakers started the process of regulating ride-hailing smart apps.
There are (officially) 11,600 vehicles in Jordan operating through smart apps. The numbers are kept down both to meet the needs of the market and so as not to harm the income of conventional yellow cab drivers, according to Abla Washah.
MP Walid Al-Masri, a member of the Parliamentary Public Services and Transport Committee, says that there are over 50,000 unlicensed drivers working on smart apps. This is the same figure quoted by Yousef Abu Odeh, a member of the Smart Apps Drivers Committee. He says dozens of apps are operating without a licence, partly because new licences are being withheld and partly because the permits that are issued are distributed unevenly. According to him, Uber and Careem receive the lion’s share.
Of the seven companies originally granted passenger transport licences, only four are currently operating: Uber, Careem, Petra Ride and Jeeny. Commenting on this drop in the number of companies licensed to transport passengers, Yousef says, “Three companies pulled out of the market because of the unfair distribution of permits, which left four. So they currently have a monopoly on the market. There are no competitors.”
Twenty-two-year-old Saif started working on smart ride-hailing apps three years ago after failing to find a job, because he had no national identity number. And this was the reason he chose to work on one of the unlicensed apps, as the service provider of the app (the driver) must be a Jordanian national.
Some unlicensed apps, and sometimes even licensed ones, may be lax about the basic requirements for drivers, like having no criminal record, being free of disease, or even being of a minimum age. And the registration process is often straightforward, requiring just a phone call to a local representative and payment of a nominal fee – between 20 and 50 dinars ($28-$70). As soon as the driver’s account is activated, they can begin work immediately with some apps, according to Youssef Abu Odeh, a member of the Smart Apps Committee. We witnessed this ourselves during the investigation.
Describing one of the widely used unlicensed apps, Youssef says: “It offered things other companies didn’t. The other ones would just focus on Amman and the suburbs.” The app in question, by contrast, covers all Jordan’s governorates, and this is also clear from the advertisements for several of the other unlicensed apps.
Drivers working on licensed apps say 29 percent of what they make on each trip goes to the company. So on a trip for which the passenger pays two dinars, the licensed company takes about 60 piasters from the driver.
Alaa Theban, operations manager at Petra Ride, says that unlicensed apps take a lower percentage of the fare from the driver. Because those apps do not pay licence fees or operating costs, it is natural that they do not deduct as much from drivers. In addition, drivers must pay the LTRC around 400 dinars ($564) per year for a license.
Tens of thousands of drivers rely on things like social media pages, advertisements, and digital groups and company offices to allow them to carry on their illegal work.
“Don’t worry if it’s hot, Tkram Ride will keep you cool,” “Our beloved Ajloun and its villages is where we’re from, and now the fastest and most affordable passenger transport service from the Tkram Ride app is at your fingertips.” Slogans like these appear on the Tkram Facebook page. This is one of several unlicensed apps whose advertisements are proliferating on social media sites in Jordan.
Not only that, but some companies or apps in Jordan, like Zain Car, which has a Facebook page, use well-known young faces to market themselves.
The TaxiF app uses YouTube to promote itself.
These apps do not operate only in the digital space, but also have charging points (points where drivers can charge their cards to work on the app) that are well known by drivers.
Ironically, at a time when drivers are trying to avoid security checkpoints, just a few meters away from the traffic police, we spotted offices and charging points for illegal apps, with the app’s name or logo clearly visible.
Abla Washah, the spokeswoman for the LTRC, says that only licensed companies should have offices, but field work we carried out for this investigation showed that one unlicensed app at least had a physical office.
On one of the field trips, the driver’s photo appeared on the app and behind him was a large sign which read “Zain Car Services”. It is also easy to find TaxiF charging points using Google Maps.
Abu Sanad, who calls himself a TaxiF representative in Amman, Madaba, Zarqa, and surrounding areas, says they have been trying since 2019 to obtain a licence for TaxiF, which is a European company. The authorities have stopped issuing any more licences, he says, so the company tried to acquire companies which were struggling but had valid licences, but their offers were turned down.
In 2024, Al-Mustaqbal Transport Services, a licensed Jordanian company, applied in vain for a licence for TaxiF.
Yousef Abu Odeh, of the Smart Apps Drivers Committee, says that the TaxiF app is spreading across the Kingdom. And drivers are not limited to working only through the app on their phones. Company representatives also organize work through known charging points that drivers visit.
It is not only unlicensed apps that are breaking the law; even some licensed apps allow drivers to work without a permit to carry passengers. On a number of the field trips made for this report, drivers either admitted they did not have such a permit, or failed to display it on their cars.
We contacted an official from Petra Ride, one of the companies licensed to operate in Jordan, to ask about its drivers working without permits. He replied: “That did happen in the beginning, but now we comply fully with the regulations of the authority managing this sector.”
He added: “I’ll give you an example. A driver might get a permit that’s valid from January 2025 to December 2025, but during this period, their driving licence or vehicle licence may expire, or the car may become unlicensed or subject to some legal restriction. If something like that happens, we automatically suspend the account of any driver whose driving licence or vehicle registration has expired, to ensure the safety of those using the app. The account remains suspended until the office can review and update the required information..”
Despite what he says, we came across one driver working for a licensed company who had no licence.
And according to a representative of one of the unlicensed apps, the situation is the same for both, so even licensed drivers are operating illegally: “You could take your car (to any of the licensed apps companies), and they’ll register it for 50 dinars and off you go. they won’t even look at the car.”
In 2024, the Ministry of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship announced it had blocked 24 unlicensed ride-hailing apps. Today, according to statements by ministry spokesman Shorouq Hilal, 42 unlicensed apps were blocked in mid-September 2025.
Not all apps were blocked, but TaxiF was, according to the drivers we met.
Youssef Abu Odeh, of the Smart Apps Drivers Committee, says that blocking this particular app, which had tried repeatedly to obtain a license, sends a “bad” message. “TaxiF was blocked after applying for a licence, but at the same time telecom companies and the regulator have allowed other companies that didn’t apply for a licence to go on operating,” he adds.
The Ministry of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship spokesman Shorouq Hilal says that the process of blocking apps does not happen immediately. Once the ministry receives an official notice from the Land Transport Regulatory Commission (LTRC) stating that an app is in violation, it must then contact international app stores, such as the App Store and Google Play, to request that the app be blocked or removed.
But LTRC spokeswoman Abla Al-Washah says that the commission does not recognize these unlicensed apps and does not regard them within its jurisdiction. Responsibility lies, she argues, with the Ministry of Digital Economy and the traffic management authorities.
On the question of how effective it is to block apps, technical expert Omran Al-Salem says that it makes accessing the app more difficult, but rarely stops it 100 percent, especially if the app is already installed on a device, or if users have enough technical knowledge to circumvent the blocking.
Imran adds: “Companies can provide app files (APKs) directly through their websites, or via Telegram or WhatsApp channels. Android users can download and install these files manually, bypassing official app stores. They can also use VPN apps to hide their IP address and route their internet traffic through servers in other countries. This makes it impossible for local service providers to know where the real connection is, thereby bypassing IP and DNS blocking.”
With regard to blocking advertisements on Facebook and other platforms, the technical expert emphasizes that the Jordanian government does not have the authority to block ads, because these platforms are located outside the country. And “the Jordanian government cannot issue direct orders to Facebook or Google to block or censor content.”
Abu Sanad, who claims to represent TaxiF in several areas in Jordan, says that adverts for TaxiF, for example, come from servers outside Jordan, making it difficult to block them. He also says that these adverts do not mention Jordanian dinars and refer to “TaxiF for Oman,” clearly suggesting they are operating from abroad.
Despite the official ban on accessing the TaxiF app from online stores, Abu Sanad insists that the company is still functioning and making profits. And the drivers we met confirmed this.
Abu Sanad explains that TaxiF circumvents the ban on downloading the app from stores by providing drivers and customers special access links via social media and search engines: “If a customer wants to download it, they can usually do it usingGoogle, or usinglinks we send them on social media.”
The LTRC initially set an upper limit of around 13,000 licenses. But the distribution “was not done at all equally,” according to officials of app companies we met.
Just two companies, Uber and Careem, received the largest share of licenses – 6,000 each, compared to 1,000 shared equally between Petra Ride and Jeeny. This distribution mechanism, which favours two companies that now hold the largest share of the market (noting that Uber has taken over Careem Networks Free Zone LLC), has made it difficult for their smaller competitors.
The system serves the interests of large companies that have come to monopolize the smart ride-hailing app market in Jordan.
When asked about the reason for this unequal distribution, the LTRC said that Uber and Careem were international companies with broader expertise and experience. As such, the commission initially decided to grant them most of the licences. Petra Ride, meanwhile – owned by Jordan’s Bustanji Investment Group – was said to be a new company and that the number of licences given to it would be increased later on. But so far this has not happened.
Petra Ride’s operations manager, Alaa Theban, says he continues to apply for an increase in licences, but each time receives promises but no action: “Right now we’re pushing the idea of floating licenses, whereby a specific company isn’t given a set number, but instead 20,000 licenses are distributed across all four licensed companies, with each company receiving the number that suits it.”
Despite the plethora of regulatory bodies monitoring violations in this area, from the security services to any entity with judicial authority, it falls on the driver alone to bear the consequences. These are either fines starting at 100 Jordanian dinars ($140), and going up for any repeat violations within the year, or impounding of the vehicle.
In this chaotic landscape, unlicensed smart ride hailing apps continue to promote their services with slogans like “the fastest, cheapest, safest,” not heeding any legal consequences. By contrast, the number of vehicles licensed to operate on ride hailing apps has fallen to 11,666.
One time I opted to use a licensed app for my trip. It was a five-star experience. It was a five-star experience. For thousands of drivers for whom working on apps has become their only source of income, what they demand above all else is that the apps they work for be licensed. After all, paying off car loans, rent and daily expenses cannot wait for a regulatory decision.
* We have changed the name of our sources to protect their privacy and to avoid exposing them to legal repercussions.