Ontario has specific laws that allow carpools to avoid falling under regulations that would apply to taxis and public vehicles, detailed in the Public Vehicles Act.

The law is designed to differentiate carpooling from commercial activity.

To comply with the Act, you must ensure that:

• the vehicle does not have seating capacity of more than 10 persons
• taking passengers would be incidental to the purpose of the driver's trip
• no fee will be charged or paid to the driver, owner or lessee of the vehicle, except for reimbursing the expenses of operating the vehicle on a non-profit basis
• the driver will not take passengers on more than one one-way or round trip in a day
• the owner of the motor vehicle, or the lessee of a leased motor vehicle, does not own or lease more than one motor vehicle for carpooling (unless the owner of lessee is the employer of a majority of the persons transported in the motor vehicles)
• the vehicle is insured for the purposes of carpooling

Read the full details of the Public Vehicles Act.