Taxi Availability / Costs Within Paris

I usually asked my hotel to call a taxi for me, but there are taxi stands all over the city (your hotel may be able to mark them on a map for you). I paid 10 euro for a taxi from the Madeleine to my hotel about 500 meters south of Gare du Nord.

I have never found Paris an easy city in which to get a cab. Taxi stands in my experience rarely have taxis except at some major spots like Bastille. If you stand at a taxi stand, perhaps one comes by. You can hail them on the street if it isn't near a taxi stand, but that is not as easy to do as in say Chicago or New York. Restaurants will call you a cab; the cab will arrive with money on the meter as they charge from dispatch not arrival. It is usually faster to go anywhere by metro in my experience as you avoid city traffic. If you prefer a taxi home from a dinner or theater, it will be easy to have one called for you.

Taxis are well regulated and are generally quite reliable; charges are per meter (plus allowed extras like charging for the 4th passenger or luggage in the drunk).

Taxi's G7 has been very reliable. It will cost about 50-60 euro from CDG to central Paris, and it's well worth 10-20 euro sometimes to go from your dinner spot back to your hotel. They have an English speakers line, as well as an app if you are so inclined. Remember that when you call, the clock starts ticking, so the meter may show 5 or 10 euro when it arrives-this is how they operate.

English phone: +33 (0)1 41 27 66 99

I think I read somewhere that if you call a taxi and it arrives with more than X euros on the meter you can reject it. Does that ring a bell?

A 20-minute ride costs about 20 euros (compared to 1.30E/person to get anywhere in town using a carnet ticket on the Metro or bus).
Drivers may charge higher rates at night, rush hour, and all day Sunday.
Taxi stands are indicated by a circled T on a good Paris map.
When you summon a taxi by phone, the meter starts running as soon as the call is received.
Taxis are tough to find during rush hour, when it's raining, on weekend nights, or any night after the Metro closes.

I was inspired to search for this topic when reading a blog post that mentioned he'd had a 20-euro charge on the taxi meter when it arrived (hopefully not the common case!). He also mentioned the G7 Taxis so I've downloaded the app. One of the options is to schedule a taxi in advance, which is what we're looking for (to get from our apt. to the train station with our luggage, rather than hassle with the many stairs in the Metro).

How does the "meter starts on dispatch" work when such an advance reservation is made? What should we expect??

Is the G7 Taxi app a good option? Is there another we should consider?

FWIW, we walked all day yesterday, through the 6, 7, 1, & 2 arr., and the only taxi stands we saw were on Blv. Haussman -- and we were looking closely since we'd decided that a taxi would be best for our departure. We also watched to see if hailing a cab (green light showing) seemed easy -- never saw anyone do it. So it does appear that depending on a hailed cab at the time of departure isn't a good option for us. And we're not in a hotel so we can't ask someone to do it for us.

When you order a taxi in advance for the airport, the charge starts from when they dispatch the taxi not of course from when you call the night before. For us it has usually been 5or 6 Euros. They do tend to be a bit early and so are charging wait time; we have only had one late; it was for a trip to Orly and he got us there very quickly. We were on a tiny street in Montparnasse that had gotten blocked by a traffic accident. The driver called us to alert us and got us to the airport on time.

you can always find a taxi on the Champs Elysee, big stands of them.

Here's an update on taxi availability in Paris.

I was in Paris for 2 1/2 weeks this past May and was surprised to see many more taxis in the city than when I was there as recently as September 2013. Seemed like they were all over the place; however, there are often no taxis at the designated stands except near train stations. You can flag one down. Just look for one with green lights on the roof-top taxi sign and stand close to a corner where the driver can easily get to you. If the lights are red or off, it means it is not available. Taxis you flag down won't have time on the meters, but if you call one the charges start as soon as it is dispatched. It's always a good idea to write down the address of your destination to show the driver unless your French is excellent.

On the day we left, I called G7 the night before and booked 3 taxis for the next day and each one arrived precisely on time.