Rides inside La Veleta jump 223 percent on the new table

Some Tulum taxi fares that ran 31 pesos under the state's 2019 rates now appear at up to 100 on a printed union table. Nothing on it says who approved the increase.

The document is titled Tarifario oficial, divides the municipality into 24 zones, and comes from the Sindicato de Taxistas Tiburones del Caribe, the union that represents almost everyone in Tulum who does not own a car. It carries no agreement number, no signature, no stamp, and no visible reference to an authorization from the Instituto de Movilidad del Estado de Quintana Roo.

In this state, a taxi tariff is not something an operator writes. Imoveqroo sets it, publishes it, and treats a charge above it as a serious offense under the mobility law. So a passenger holding the new page has no way to tell whether the number in front of them is a rate or a request.

A 31-peso ride to La Veleta now reads 100

The sharpest jumps land in La Veleta. Three of the routes named on the table, measured against the state rates in force since 2019:

• Rides within La Veleta, from 31 pesos to as much as 100, up about 223 percent.
• Centro to Yaax Tulum, from 32 pesos to 70, up 119 percent.
• Centro to the archaeological zone, from 49 pesos to 90, up 84 percent.

That 2019 baseline is not a historical curiosity. In August 2025, Imoveqroo director Rafael Hernández Kotasek told El Quintanarroense that taxis in the state capital were still working from the 2019 tariff and that no increase had been authorized there.

There is a second way to read the same numbers, and it cuts the other way. Quintana Roo Hoy, reporting in July on the union's plan to put up boards, used the stretch between the Chedraui supermarket and La Veleta as its example of short runs reaching 400 pesos. Measured against that, a printed 100 is a discount.

That is the problem in miniature. With no published legal fare, every figure gets measured against a different one.

Solís Alcocer promises QR codes on the Playa del Carmen route

Manuel Enrique Solís Alcocer, the union's general secretary, said the new scheme exists to give passengers greater certainty about what they are paying. He added that the colectivos working the Tulum to Playa del Carmen route will carry standardized fare tables of their own, with QR codes riders can scan to check prices.

The announcement has a long tail. Quintana Roo Hoy reported on July 24 that the union had already sent the boards to be printed and had asked the municipality for permission to place them at the bus terminal, supermarket entrances, and its own bases. "Vamos a exhibir todos los tarifarios y vamos a trabajar con transparencia," the general secretary told the outlet at the time.

Solís went further on Thursday, telling reporters that the boards had been on the vehicles for two weeks and that a phone app built with the California company Flywheel would be available on Google Play within about 10 days. He also said the boards themselves were not new and already carried a QR code linking to a longer price list. The Tulum Times covered that announcement separately and asked whether the fare on the screen would be the union's or the state's.

The table now in circulation is the first look at an answer.

Imoveqroo sets Tulum taxi fares, and no authorization is visible

The union itself has acknowledged where the decision sits.

When it filed a tariff proposal with Imoveqroo last October, one that would have cut fares for residents of the municipality, Quintana Roo Hoy described the institute as the authority that supervises, analyzes, and approves fare adjustments in public transport. The institute would rule on technical studies covering operating costs, route distance, fuel consumption, and economic conditions, the outlet reported, and the fares then in force would remain in effect until it authorized or modified the request.

What an approved tariff looks like here is not a mystery either. Cancún uses a zone grid, and when the local outlet Macronews reproduced it in 2023, it traced the figures to the Diario Oficial de Quintana Roo and set the base at 37 pesos for a trip within one supermanzana. A passenger reads it by crossing the origin zone with the destination zone.

The Tulum table is built the same way. It just does not carry the paperwork that put the Cancún grid in the state gazette.

The Tulum Times found no Tulum tariff published by Imoveqroo and no public comment from the institute on the table now in circulation. Hernández Kotasek has led the agency since January 2025.

Fines reach 700 UMA

The state has enforced this rule before, and it put the figures on the record when it did.

A Quintana Roo government statement on an Imoveqroo enforcement operation in August 2024 set the sanction for charging an unauthorized fare at 151 to 700 UMA, with revocation of the concession available under article 122, section X of the Ley de Movilidad del Estado de Quintana Roo. Rodrigo Alcázar Urrutia, then the institute's director, said no unit holding a state concession was authorized to raise its fare. More than 20 vehicles went to the impound lot during that operation, and he said drivers would pay up to 70,000 pesos to recover them.

At the 2026 daily UMA of 117.31 pesos set by INEGI, the ceiling comes to roughly 82,000 pesos and the floor to about 17,700 pesos.

All of that exposure sits with the concession holder. A passenger who overpays loses the difference, and the driver is the one who would have to answer to the institute.

Ten months since the union filed its proposal

Every step in this sequence was announced. None of them produced a published tariff.

The October filing was followed in November by Solís telling La Jornada Maya that Imoveqroo was expected to authorize and release a new Tulum tarifario before the end of that month, in time for the high season, with QR codes in the units and online. February came instead, and David Ortiz Mena, president of the Consejo Hotelero del Caribe Mexicano, told Noticaribe that Tulum still had no official taxi fare table and that the gap put the destination at risk in a World Cup year.

Then the federal government took an interest. Plan Tulum Renace was announced on July 17 by President Claudia Sheinbaum and Governor Mara Lezama, and 24 Horas Quintana Roo reported on July 23 that it hands the federal infrastructure and transport ministry the job of standardizing taxi tariffs in Tulum alongside Imoveqroo. A week later, the union's boards were at the printer.

The pressure predates the federal plan. The Tulum Times reported last October that the union had come under state scrutiny after years of complaints about what its drivers charge.

Three questions are now waiting on Imoveqroo. Whether it approved this scheme, the date from which it would apply, and, if it did not, which fares are the legal ones for a Tulum taxi today.

The app is due on the Play Store around mid-September. That will let a rider hold the screen up against the board taped inside the car and see whether the two figures agree. Neither one will say which number the state calls legal.

Have you been charged the fare printed on a Tulum taxi board, or a different one? Join the conversation and share your perspective with us on Instagram and Facebook at @thetulumtimes.