Every USVI first-timer asks the same question at some point: should I rent a car, or just take taxis everywhere? Both are viable — but they land at very different price points, and the right answer depends on how you actually want to spend your days. To make it concrete, we ran the numbers on the same trip both ways: two adults, 7 nights / 8 days, based in a resort on St. Thomas's East End (Sapphire Beach — a common condo and resort area, close to Red Hook and the ferry).
The short answer
| Option | 7-night / 8-day cost (2 people, incl. St. John crossing) |
|---|---|
| Taxi-only (official fixed rates + ferry) | ~$599 |
| Rental car (car + gas + parking + car barge, no extra insurance) | ~$623 – $913 |
| Rental car (car + supplemental insurance + gas + parking + car barge) | ~$823 – $1,193 |
Even for a busy, taxi-heavy itinerary like the one below — four beaches, five nights out, and a full St. John day — taxis still come out ahead of a rental car. The trade-off is flexibility: a rental car lets you come and go on your own schedule and reach spots taxis don't regularly serve.
Why USVI taxi fares are easy to plan around
Unlike a mainland Uber or Lyft ride (the USVI has neither), taxi fares here are not metered and don't surge. They're fixed, per-person rates set by the USVI Taxicab Commission for each route — the same fare from the airport to your hotel today as it will be next month. That makes it simple to price out an entire trip in advance. Use our taxi fare estimator to look up your specific hotel and destinations; the sample trip below uses real, published rates.
Taxis are easy to find without pre-booking — stands at the airport, cruise docks, and major hotels are reliable — but if you want a car and driver arranged ahead of time (for a large group, an early flight, or a custom tour), the two taxi associations covering St. Thomas can dispatch one:
- VI Taxi Association, Inc. — the island's oldest, dating to 1942. Office: (340) 774-4550 · Radio dispatch: (340) 774-7457.
- St. Thomas Taxi Association, Inc. — established 1987, runs a large fleet of vans and open-air safaris. Dispatch: (340) 777-9930.
Either can quote a fare over the phone before you book — worth doing if you're arranging a private ride for a big group or an odd-hours airport run.
Sample trip: 7 nights / 8 days, taxi-only
Two adults, based at a Sapphire Beach–area resort, St. Thomas. All fares below are official per-person rates for 2+ passengers, from the current USVI Taxicab Commission schedule.
This itinerary is a realistic, taxi-heavy week: a different St. Thomas beach on 4 of the 7 full days, plus a Red Hook or Charlotte Amalie dinner on 5 of the 7 days — several days combine both, beach by day and dinner out by evening. Day 7 is left free — a resort day with no taxiing at all.
| Day | Trips | Cost (2 people) |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Airport (STT) → Sapphire Beach (arrival) + Red Hook dinner | $70 |
| Day 2 | Coki Point beach day + Red Hook dinner | $84 |
| Day 3 | Magens Bay beach day + Charlotte Amalie dinner | $116 |
| Day 4 | Secret Harbor beach day + Red Hook dinner | $68 |
| Day 5 | St. John day trip (see breakdown below) | $102 |
| Day 6 | Lindqvist Beach day + Charlotte Amalie dinner | $92 |
| Day 7 | Sapphire Beach resort day — no taxi | $0 |
| Day 8 | Sapphire Beach → Airport (STT) (departure) | $34 |
| Taxi subtotal, 2 people | $566 | |
| Total, 2 people (incl. St. John ferry — see Day 5 breakdown) | ~$599 | |
Four different beaches, five nights out in Red Hook or Charlotte Amalie, a full St. John day, and both airport transfers — all with fixed, no-surprise fares (every trip above is a round trip except the two airport transfers, which are one-way). Only the Magens Bay leg ($14/person for 2+) is an official published rate from Sapphire Beach; Coki Point, Secret Harbor, and Lindqvist Beach aren't listed as distinct routes from that specific resort, so those are estimated from comparable short East End hops (all are a 5–15 minute drive from Sapphire Beach). Red Hook ($9/person, estimated) and Charlotte Amalie ($15/person, published) are the same fares used throughout the week.
Day 5 breakdown: the St. John day trip
This is the itinerary's busiest day — a full North Shore taxi loop plus the ferry crossing on both ends:
| Leg | Cost (2 people) | |
|---|---|---|
| Sapphire Beach → Red Hook (to catch the ferry) | $18* | |
| Ferry: Red Hook → Cruz Bay ($8.15/adult) | $16.30 | |
| Cruz Bay → Annaberg (North Shore sugar mill ruins) | $28 | |
| Annaberg → Trunk Bay (the famous underwater snorkel trail) | $20* | |
| Trunk Bay → Cruz Bay (back to the ferry) | $18 | |
| Ferry: Cruz Bay → Red Hook ($8.15/adult) | $16.30 | |
| Red Hook → Sapphire Beach (back to the hotel) | $18* | |
| Total, this day (taxi + ferry) | ~$135 | |
*Sapphire Beach ↔ Red Hook and Annaberg ↔ Trunk Bay are short, common local hops that aren't listed as their own line item on the published USVI/St. John taxi schedule, so they're estimated here from comparable nearby routes. Everything else — Cruz Bay ↔ Annaberg, Cruz Bay ↔ Trunk Bay, and the Red Hook–Cruz Bay ferry — is an official published fare; see our St. Thomas to St. John guide for exact ferry fares and schedules.
~$599 for the week, including the St. John crossing, works out to about $37 per person per day — with four different beaches, five nights out, a full North Shore taxi tour, and both airport transfers covered. Swap in your actual hotel and stops in the taxi fare tool to get your own number.
Same trip, rental car
A rental car for the same 8 days looks straightforward on the surface — daily rate × 8 — but the USVI adds a few costs that don't show up on a mainland rental quote, including getting the car itself to St. John for the day.
| Line item | Typical cost | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Rental (compact SUV/Jeep, 8 days) | $480 – $720 | USVI rentals run well above mainland US rates — limited local fleet, everything imported by barge, and steady tourist demand keep prices up. Jeeps and small SUVs are the practical choice for St. Thomas's steep, narrow roads. |
| St. John car barge, round trip (1 vehicle) | $83 | To bring the rental to St. John for the day: $80 non-resident round trip on Love City Car Ferries or Big Red Barge Co., plus a $3 port fee charged at Red Hook. (Resident rate is $65 RT if you qualify.) |
| Supplemental insurance (optional) | $200 – $280 | Many credit card rental policies exclude US territories or don't cover driving on the left — worth confirming with your card issuer before declining the counter coverage. |
| Gas | $20 – $30 | St. Thomas is about 13 miles long; a week of day trips runs 80–120 miles total. USVI gas typically runs higher than the mainland average. |
| Parking | $40 – $80 | Magens Bay charges a per-vehicle entry fee, several other beaches have informal lot fees, and metered/lot parking in Charlotte Amalie adds up over a few town days. |
Total, without extra insurance: ~$623 – $913. With supplemental insurance: ~$823 – $1,193. Either way, it's meaningfully more than the ~$599 taxi total for the identical itinerary.
St. Thomas rental car companies
St. Thomas has a mix of independent local agencies (most offer free airport pickup/drop-off) and a couple of national brands:
- Discount Car Rental — one of the larger independent fleets on the island, based near the airport.
- Dependable Car Rental — long-running local operator, airport and hotel delivery.
- Budget Rent A Car — the main national brand with an on-island presence, operating in the USVI for 40+ years.
- Dexter Rental Car — smaller independent fleet, airport pickup available.
Rates and fleet availability shift by season, so get quotes from two or three before booking — especially in peak season (mid-December through April), when the smaller independents can sell out first.
Renting a car on St. John instead
If St. John is more of your trip's focus, it's often simpler to rent locally there rather than barging a St. Thomas rental across — St. John's agencies are clustered a short walk from the Cruz Bay ferry dock, and Jeeps built for the island's steep dirt roads to the North Shore beaches are their specialty:
- Cool Breeze Jeep & Car Rental — two minutes from the ferry dock; (340) 776-6588.
- Conrad Sutton Car Rental — a St. John fixture for 40+ years, one block from the dock; (340) 776-6479.
Renting on St. John avoids the car barge crossing fee entirely — you'd take the passenger ferry over and pick up your rental at the dock instead.
The left-side quirk — and why it nudges rental costs up
The US Virgin Islands is one of the only places in the world where you drive on the left side of the road in a left-hand-drive American car — a holdover from Danish colonial rule that stuck around after the US purchased the islands in 1917. It doesn't add a line item by itself, but it's a real reason rentals end up costing more in practice: it's the main reason many renters buy the optional supplemental insurance above (a first day of unfamiliar driving on unfamiliar roads is exactly when fender-benders happen), and it's part of why local agencies lean on Jeeps and small SUVs — sturdier and easier to place on narrow roads — which rent for more than a compact sedan would. It's not dangerous once you adjust, but it does mean a slower first day behind the wheel and more caution on blind hills and roundabouts — one more reason many visitors are happy to let a taxi driver handle it instead.
Add to that St. Thomas and St. John's terrain: the roads are steep, narrow, and switchback constantly — Crown Mountain and Mafolie Hill are the kind of grades that catch first-time renters off guard, especially in the rain. And on St. John in particular, don't be surprised to round a blind curve and find a donkey standing in the middle of the road. Feral donkeys roam freely across the island — a legacy of the old sugar and farming days — and they have no particular urgency about moving for traffic. Local taxi drivers navigate all of this daily; renters are doing it for the first time, usually on day one of their vacation.
When a rental car is worth it anyway
- Longer stays (10+ days). The daily taxi cost of frequent outings adds up, and a rental's per-day cost drops with weekly rates.
- You want total spontaneity. Chasing a sunset, changing plans mid-day, or hitting a remote beach with no regular taxi service.
- Big groups splitting one car. A rental split five or six ways can undercut per-person taxi fares; run both numbers for your group size.
- You're staying somewhere off the main taxi network. Most hotels and resorts are well covered, but a few remote rentals aren't.
When taxis clearly win
- Trips under 10 days with a normal mix of beach days, town visits, and dinners out.
- Couples and small groups who don't need to carry much gear.
- Anyone who'd rather not adjust to left-side driving on a short vacation.
- Anyone doing a BVI day trip. Ferries and charters handle that leg entirely; a rental car sits idle and still costs money that day.
Price out your own trip
Plug in your hotel and planned stops to get exact, official taxi fares for every leg of your trip — no guessing, no meter.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a rental car in St. Thomas or St. John?
Most visitors don't. If you're staying near your beaches and attractions and doing 3–4 day trips, taxis usually cost far less than a week-long rental once insurance, gas, and parking are added in. A rental makes more sense for stays over 10–14 days or if you want full flexibility to explore on your own schedule.
Is it cheaper to rent a car or take taxis in the USVI?
For a busy 7-night, 8-day trip with beach days, town outings, and a St. John day trip, taxis for two people typically run ~$550–$600 total, including the ferry. A rental car for the same trip, including the car, the St. John car barge, insurance, gas, and parking, typically runs $620–$1,200. Taxis are usually cheaper even for a taxi-heavy itinerary, unless you're driving constantly.
Do USVI taxis charge by the meter?
No. Fares are fixed, government-set, per-person rates for each route, set by the USVI Taxicab Commission — no meter, no surge pricing, and the same fare every time you book that route.