Ridesharing regulation – bringing legitimacy to the sector

Ridesharing services appeared on the Lithuanian market back in 2015. At that time, the service operated in a grey-zone worldwide. In Lithuania, the status was also unclear, falling under the banner of neither taxi, nor driver-hire service. The project’s goal was to legitimise the service, with the hopes that other markets could follow this approach.

The META team was entrusted to moderate a successful launch in Vilnius. 

It included:

• Organizing meetings with the main municipal and state-level stakeholders.
• Getting approval from the Government’s leadership, enabling the service-provider to proceed to launch. Responsible institutions were encouraged to quickly adopt the necessary regulation.
• Preparing regulatory proposals and argumentation materials on how the legal framework should look.
• Getting support from business organizations.
• Active participation in the legislative process, followed by a publicity campaign.  

In October 2016 Lithuania became the first EU country to adopt ridesharing regulation.

In October 2016 Lithuania became the first EU country to adopt ridesharing regulation. It was also the first country worldwide whose tax administrator signed a memorandum of understanding with a ridesharing company.

The META team continues to monitor ridesharing regulations in Lithuania. We also actively participated in the consideration of the amendments to the original law. These considerations were adopted in 2019.