Uber Now Keeps More Than Half Your Fare in Some Cities, Columbia Study Finds

More of your Uber fare is going to the company than to the driver. Uber's take rate — the percentage of each fare the company retains — has risen above 50% in some cities this year, according to a new analysis by Len Sherman, an executive in residence and adjunct professor at Columbia Business School. That is well above the 15% to 20% share Uber took roughly a decade ago.

Sherman's analysis examined nine years of ride-hailing data for three Uber drivers working in Dallas, Miami, and Tampa — collectively completing approximately 50,000 Uber trips. The findings offer one of the most detailed independent looks at how Uber's financial relationship with its drivers has shifted, and help explain why so many drivers say it has become harder to make money on the platform in recent years.

A Decade of Divergence: How Upfront Pricing Changed Everything

About ten years ago, Uber took no more than 20% of each fare, and its payouts to drivers moved in lockstep with the fares it charged passengers. That relationship began to diverge in 2019, when Uber cut driver payouts. The decoupling became particularly pronounced in 2022, when Uber began using upfront pricing — a system that sets fares and payouts individually for each trip rather than charging a set amount based on time or distance.

The Profit Engine Behind Uber's Expansion

"This is still the profit engine for Uber," Sherman told Business Insider. The growing take rate in its ride-hailing business, he argues, is what has powered Uber's expansion into new verticals like hotel bookings and its broader financial turnaround under CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. Uber's ride-hailing business generated $29.7 billion in gross bookings in 2025, accounting for roughly 90% of its adjusted EBITDA for the year.

"Whether Uber gets to stay there is now a question for riders, drivers, and regulators who, at long last, have the numbers in hand to consider their choices."

— Len Sherman, Columbia Business School

Uber Disputes the Numbers

Uber has pushed back on Sherman's estimates. In a January blog post, the company said it kept 21% of each fare on average in the third quarter of 2025 — less than half of what Sherman calculated. The company called it "false" that it became profitable by raising prices while taking an ever-larger share of the pie. Uber does not regularly report its take rate as a standalone metric.

Sherman argues the discrepancy stems from how Uber calculates its own figure — diluted by subscription tiers, pickup orders, and large corporate accounts with negotiated rates. For standard on-demand rides, the kind most drivers and passengers rely on, the effective extraction is far higher than the company's headline number suggests.

Higher Than eBay, Higher Than Etsy

Uber's 50% take rate is significantly higher than that of other digital marketplaces. Secondhand platforms like eBay and Etsy report keeping between 10% and 15% of each sale. "Whether Uber gets to stay there is now a question for riders, drivers, and regulators who, at long last, have the numbers in hand to consider their choices," Sherman wrote in his report.