November 13, 2026 1:46PM # Does Licensing Improve Ridesharing? By [Jeffrey Miron](https://www.cato.org/people/jeffrey-miron) --- SHARE Listen to this article Generated with [ ElevenLabs](https://elevenlabs.io/) AI technology. Loading the [Elevenlabs Text to Speech](https://elevenlabs.io/text-to-speech) AudioNative Player... In Libertarian Land, Uber drivers would not need a government-issued license. Ridesharing apps are already incentivized to self-impose employee safety regulations, and [new evidence](https://www.cato.org/research-briefs-economic-policy/occupational-licensing-uber-drivers) suggests that additional government licensing is unlikely to produce much benefit. Using data from New York, New Jersey, and Houston, this study > examines whether licensing adds meaningful consumer benefits in a market where private platforms already monitor performance. In the  > New York City–New Jersey analysis … \[l\]icensed drivers received slightly lower rider ratings than unlicensed drivers: Their average ratings were less than 0.5 percent lower, and they were about 0.9 percentage points less likely to receive five stars. \[The researchers also\] found little consistent evidence that licensed drivers drove more safely. In Houston, researchers compared results before and after deregulation: > These new, unlicensed drivers … were statistically indistinguishable from previously licensed drivers in both rider ratings and measures of hard braking and acceleration. … \[The data provides\] no evidence that Houston’s licensing and screening system selected drivers with safer observable driving behavior. Taken together, these results confirm that introducing occupational licensing restrictions into an already self-regulating market has little marginal benefit. ##### Related Tags [Regulation](https://www.cato.org/regulatory-studies), [Libertarianism](https://www.cato.org/libertarianism) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).