How a Full-Day Taxi Hire Actually Works

If your plan for the day is a single point A to point B trip, like Bar to Kotor and back, the pricing is simple: two one-way fares, each metered on distance under the standard tariff. But a lot of the trips in this guide, especially anything combining multiple stops like the full Bay of Kotor loop or a long haul out to Durmitor, work differently, because the car isn't just driving you somewhere and leaving. It's waiting with you, sometimes for hours, while you tour a town or hike to a viewpoint. That changes how the day gets priced, and it's worth understanding before you book.

The mechanic that makes this work: waiting time

Montenegro's taxi tariff system includes a specific rate for waiting time: the first three minutes at any stop are free, and after that, it's 0.20 euros per minute. That's the mechanic underneath a full-day hire. Instead of the driver dropping you off, disappearing, and coming back later (which would mean paying for that return drive twice), you agree on a plan where the car and driver stay with you, parked and waiting, while you're off in Kotor's Old Town or climbing the steps to the Njegoš Mausoleum. When you're ready to move on, the driver is right there.

Do the math on this and it usually works out sensibly. An hour of waiting is 60 minus the 3 free minutes, so 57 minutes at 0.20 euros, roughly 11 to 12 euros. A couple of hours waiting through a longer stop like Kotor might run closer to 20 to 25 euros. Compared to the alternative, sending the car back to Bar and calling a fresh one later, waiting time is very often the more efficient and predictable option, especially anywhere outside a big town where flagging down a new car on short notice isn't realistic.

How this differs from the base fare

The distance and the initial city-portion of the fare on these longer trips runs under Tarifa 3, "Van grada" (intercity), which is the tier that applies to routes leaving Bar municipality for other towns. We've covered the full tariff structure, including how Tarifa 3 compares to the standard rate, in our airport transfers guide, so we won't repeat the whole thing here. What matters for a full-day hire specifically is that the distance-based portion of your fare works exactly the same as any other trip; waiting time is simply an additional charge layered on top, calculated separately from the kilometers driven.

Planning a day like this

The best approach is to talk through the shape of your day with your driver when you book: roughly how long you expect at each stop, whether you want the car waiting the whole time or would rather arrange a pickup call for later, and whether your route has one destination or several. For a single stop, like spending a full afternoon in Kotor before heading back, waiting is usually the simplest and most comfortable option. For a multi-stop day like the Bay of Kotor loop, it's close to essential, since coordinating separate pickups at three different towns would be a logistical headache for everyone involved.

It's also worth being realistic about your own pace. If you know you tend to linger over lunch or wander further than planned, mentioning that upfront helps set expectations, since waiting time adds up steadily rather than in big jumps, and nobody wants a surprise at the end of the day.

What it costs, roughly

There's no single number here since it depends entirely on your itinerary, but as a planning frame: take the distance-based fare for your route (each of our individual day-trip guides has a rough figure) and add roughly 12 euros per hour of waiting beyond the first few minutes at each stop. For a trip like Durmitor, where the drive itself is already several hours each way, it's worth discussing directly with your driver whether a same-day round trip with waiting time even makes sense, or whether an overnight is the better plan.

Booking

Book through the Greencar.me Taxi app or the App Store. For a multi-stop or full-day plan, it's worth booking a day ahead and mentioning your itinerary at the time of booking, rather than working it out on the fly.

Not sure which trip is worth a full-day hire versus a simple round trip? Our quick guide to matching a day trip to your travel style can help, and the day trips overview covers everything else in this series.