The Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has asked ride-hailing platforms to remove prompts from their mobile applications that encourage customers to tip the driver at the time of booking, the Deccan Herald reported on Thursday.

The ministry said that such prompts violate the 2025 Motor Vehicle Aggregator Guidelines, which state that passengers have the option to give drivers a tip only after the trip is completed.

Several vehicle aggregator platforms prompt users to tip drivers before booking a ride. These prompts include options such as “Advance Tip” and “Choose an Add-on”, with some suggesting that tipping could help secure a ride faster or increase the chances of a driver accepting the booking.

The platforms must not display any feature, message, payment option or other interface element before the ride ends if it could directly or indirectly suggest that paying extra may result in faster ride confirmation, greater chances of driver acceptance, quicker allocation, shorter waiting times or better service, the Deccan Herald quoted the ministry as saying.

The 2025 guidelines prohibit any tipping feature or mechanism that is “misleading, manipulative, or otherwise in violation of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019”, the ministry noted.

The rules also state that the driver must receive the full tip amount, with aggregators not allowed to deduct any portion of it.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

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