Chicago’s register of licensed passenger vehicles — taxis, liveries, ambulances, pedicabs, down to horse-drawn carriages — holds 16,329 records, and its most striking split is inside the taxi column: 3,518 taxi records carry the status VIOLATION, more than the 2,679 marked ACTIVE. Across the whole register, 7,892 records are ACTIVE — and among those, liveries now outnumber taxis, 4,621 to 2,679. Three of the register’s nine vehicle types have no active record at all: horse-drawn carriages, jitneys, and low-speed electrics. What the status labels mean operationally, the file does not define, and this page reports them exactly as recorded.
Public Passenger Vehicle Licenses, Chicago data portal · 16,329 records retrieved August 20, 2026 · a register snapshot, updated by the city on its own scheduleWhat the register is
- Taxi6,999
- Livery6,502
- Charter Sightseeing1,001
- Ambulance879
- Medicar656
- Pedicab201
- Horse Drawn Carriage56
- Jitney29
- Low Speed Electric6
The file holds one row per vehicle-license record — 16,329 rows, 16,329 distinct record IDs — across the nine types the city licenses to carry passengers. Rideshare vehicles appear nowhere among these nine types; our rideshare analysis reads that industry’s trip records separately. A companion dataset holds 121,449 past records and labels itself “NOT CURRENT DATA”; it is a separate era, counted here and never merged, so this page draws no arc of decline — only today’s register.
The status column, as recorded
- ACTIVE7,892
- VIOLATION4,296
- INACTIVE2,441
- RESERVED914
- SURRENDER613
- REVOKED148
- HOLD / FORECLOSURE(16 and 9)25
Fewer than half the register’s records — 7,892 of 16,329 — carry ACTIVE status. The taxi column concentrates the rest: of 6,999 taxi records, 3,518 sit at VIOLATION, 2,679 at ACTIVE, 588 at SURRENDER, and 144 at REVOKED. The file offers no definitions for these labels — what conduct puts a license at VIOLATION, or whether it can return to ACTIVE, is not in the data — so this page counts the labels and claims nothing about what they mean on the street.
Among the active records
Read only at ACTIVE status, the register’s shape changes: liveries lead with 4,621 active records against the taxis’ 2,679, with ambulances (283), pedicabs (138), charter-sightseeing vehicles (106), and medicars (65) behind them. Three types have no active record at all — all 56 horse-drawn-carriage records, all 29 jitney records, and all 6 low-speed-electric records sit at other statuses. By fuel, the active register runs 5,505 gasoline, 2,202 hybrid — 28 percent — 126 pedal, 31 flex-fuel, 14 diesel, and exactly 14 electric vehicles, which accounts for all 7,892. And 495 of the active records, about 6 percent, carry the register’s wheelchair-accessible flag.
Known limits
A license record is not a vehicle in service: the register counts city licenses at their recorded statuses, and nothing here measures rides given, vehicles on the road on a given day, or why a record carries the status it does. The register is a snapshot of the August 20, 2026 retrieval and moves as the city updates it. Company names appear in the file and are not ranked or listed here. The historical companion file is quoted at its own count and left unmerged — the files state no bridge between their records, so this page computes no change over time from them.
- Source Public Passenger Vehicle Licenses (tfm3-3j95, Chicago data portal), 16,329 rows retrieved August 20, 2026; Public Passenger Vehicle Licenses – Historical (tx35-q6ia, 121,449 rows), counted only.
- Counting One row is one license record (distinct record IDs verified). Type, status, fuel, and accessibility figures use the file’s exact values; the active-only figures filter to status ACTIVE. The two files are never combined. Percentages are computed from raw counts.
Computed by KCM Desk from records retrieved August 20, 2026. If you spot an error, corrections come first.