Spain runs one of the tightest passenger-transport regimes in Europe. For decades, taxis held near-total control of the paid-ride market, defended by licence caps, fixed fares, and industry groups that carried real political muscle and knew how to use it. Competition barely existed.
Private hire existed only through the VTC licence, short for Vehículos de Turismo con Conductor. Rules boxed it in. Caps tied VTC numbers to taxi numbers, routes were restricted, and the whole structure kept private hire a minor supplement to the taxi trade. That’s the world Alejandro Betancourt López stepped into when he began buying.
Permits Priced Like Curiosities
The licence wore its second-class status in its price. Holders who’d picked them up years earlier often let them sit idle, and sellers found almost no buyers. At €5,000 each, these permits were priced like administrative odds and ends, not commercial assets.
As Betancourt López has put it, they were originally meant as “a compliment to the taxi drivers that they see at the time, no purpose for it.” Trade in them was thin. Serious investors weren’t paying attention.
The Disruption Already Forming
Underneath the calm, pressure was building. Uber had launched in San Francisco in 2010 and spent years spreading across the United States, Latin America, and parts of Asia. Cabify, based in Madrid, opened for business in 2011.
Both ran the same model: match passengers with drivers through an app, and skip the old taxi dispatch entirely. Both would eventually need a legal way to operate in Spain, and the VTC licence was the only route the law allowed. Those dusty permits were about to become the sole key to a market two giants wanted in. Alejandro Betancourt López had already started collecting them.