Wait Time Fees

It’s frustrating to be kept waiting, and it’s important that you receive payment for your time and effort spent driving using the app. That’s why we’ve introduced wait time fees for uberX, uberXL, UberSELECT, UberASSIST, UberBLACK, and UberLUX (but not UberEATS or UberTAXI).

Paid Wait Time is a feature that allows driver-partners to be compensated by riders for time spent waiting at a pickup location.

After you’ve been waiting for a rider for 2 minutes, a fee will be charged to them for the time you continue to wait. After you’ve been waiting for 5 minutes, you can choose to cancel the trip or continue to wait. A cancellation fee will still only be charged after you’ve waited for at least 5 minutes.

From May 2, 2018, we also increased the rate for wait time on uberX trips to 60 cents per minute (from 55 cents per minute). We expect that most driver-partners will earn more as a result of this change.

Scenario: A driver-partner arrives at the rider’s pickup location and and waits 3 minutes and 30 seconds until the rider arrives and the driver-partner can start the trip.

Paid wait time starts accumulating 2 minutes after arrival.

Previously, the driver-partner would have been paid for 1 minute and 30 seconds at $0.55 per minute i.e. 1.5 minutes x $0.55 = $0.83.

Now, the driver-partner will be paid for 1 minute 30 seconds at $0.60 per minute i.e. 1.5 minutes x $0.60 = $0.90.

Scenario: A driver-partner had a weekly average 12 minutes of paid wait time with no multiplier for dynamic pricing, and 30 seconds at an average multiplier of 2.

Previously, the base rate would have been $0.55 per minute, subject to any multipliers for dynamic pricing.

With dynamic pricing, the average fare before commission would have been made up of the waiting time, with no multiplier for dynamic pricing, plus the waiting time with an average multiplier of 2 for dynamic pricing i.e. (12 mins x $0.55 = $6.60) + (0.5 mins x $0.55 x 2 = $0.55) = $7.15.

Now, the base rate has been raised to $0.60 per minute and is no longer subject to multipliers for dynamic pricing.

The average driver fare before commission is now made up of the total waiting time charged at $0.60 per minute i.e. (12 mins + 0.5 mins) x $0.60 = $7.50.