Is Uber Profitable? The Company's Numbers and the Driver's Ledger
Is Uber profitable? Yes: $5.6 billion in operating income in 2025. Whether driving for Uber is profitable for you depends on costs. Both sides, sourced.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Uber is profitable. It reported $5.6 billion in GAAP operating income on $52.0 billion of revenue for 2025, and $1.9 billion in operating income in the second quarter of 2026.
- Its first full year of operating profit was 2023, at $1.1 billion, after a $1.8 billion operating loss in 2022. Net income swings with tax items and stock revaluations, so operating income is the cleaner measure.
- Uber makes money mainly from fees paid by drivers and merchants on each trip and order. It reports itself as an agent in most markets, so its revenue is a slice of what riders pay, not the whole fare. Advertising and Freight add to that.
- Whether driving is profitable for you is a separate question. Gridwise data puts the average Uber driver's 2025 gross at $23.88 an hour before any costs; the car, fuel and a 15.3% self-employment tax come out of that.
- Uber does not give raises. Your pay moves with fares, demand, local pay rules and, most of all, what your car costs you a mile.
Yes, Uber is profitable. For 2025 it reported $5.6 billion in GAAP operating income on $52.0 billion of revenue, and in the second quarter of 2026 it earned $1.9 billion from operations. It has made an operating profit every year since 2023. Whether Uber is profitable for the person driving is a different question, and the answer lives on your side of the ledger: what the car, fuel and taxes take from your gross.
This guide takes the two halves in turn. Every company figure comes from Uber’s own filings and is dated to its period; the third quarter of 2026 had not been reported at the time of writing.
Uber has made an operating profit every year since 2023
For most of its life Uber lost money. In 2022 it lost $1.8 billion from operations. In 2023 it reported $1.1 billion in operating income, its first full year of operating profit, and the number has at least doubled each year since.
| Period | Revenue | GAAP operating income | Net income to Uber | Gross bookings | Trips |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | $31.9B | loss of $1.8B | loss of $9.1B | $115.4B | 7.6B |
| 2023 | $37.3B | $1.1B | $1.9B | $137.9B | 9.4B |
| 2024 | $44.0B | $2.8B | $9.9B | $162.8B | 11.3B |
| 2025 | $52.0B | $5.6B | $10.1B | $193.5B | 13.6B |
| Q2 2026 | $14.2B | $1.9B | $2.4B | $58.0B | 3.9B |
The second quarter of 2026, reported August 5, 2026, showed gross bookings up 24% year over year and trips up 18%, with 208 million monthly active consumers. Operating income was up 30% on the same quarter of 2025. For the third quarter, Uber guided to gross bookings of $58.25 billion to $60.25 billion.
On these numbers, operating income was about 11% of revenue in 2025 and about 13% in the second quarter of 2026. That is a real business margin, not an accounting artifact.
Net income is noisy, so watch operating income
If you look up "does Uber make a profit" you will find net income figures that jump around, and they do. Uber’s net income in 2024 included a $6.4 billion benefit from releasing a tax valuation allowance and a $1.8 billion gain from revaluing its stakes in other companies. Its 2025 net income included a $5.0 billion tax benefit. The second quarter of 2026 included a $1.6 billion pre-tax gain on its equity investments, mostly Delivery Hero and Aurora, according to its quarterly filing.
None of that is profit from moving people or food. Operating income strips it out, which is why it is the better answer to "how is Uber making money".
How Uber makes money: a fee on each trip, plus delivery, ads and freight
Uber’s filings say it generates "substantially all of our revenue from fees paid by Drivers and Merchants for use of our platform." In most markets it treats itself as an agent connecting a rider to a driver, so its revenue is net of what drivers earn and of driver incentives. That is why revenue is so much smaller than gross bookings, which count the full value of rides and orders including taxes, tolls and fees.
In the second quarter of 2026, by segment:
- Mobility, the rides business: $29.0 billion of gross bookings, $7.4 billion of revenue and $2.2 billion of segment operating income. Revenue grew only 1%, because a business model change in parts of the UK from January 2026 cut reported revenue by $1.1 billion.
- Delivery, Uber Eats and grocery: $27.5 billion of gross bookings, $5.2 billion of revenue, up 28%, and $1.1 billion of segment operating income.
- Freight, trucking brokerage: $1.6 billion of revenue and a small segment operating loss of $24 million.
Advertising sits inside Mobility and Delivery in Uber’s reporting rather than as its own line, so the filings do not give a separate figure for it.
Is Uber profitable for drivers? It depends on the cost side
A driver is not paid a salary. You are paid per trip, and you pay for the car. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says ride-hailing drivers "typically work as independent contractors" and "usually pay expenses, such as fuel and maintenance, on their vehicle." Its median pay for taxi drivers and chauffeurs, the category that includes ride-hailing, was $18.25 an hour in May 2025.
Gridwise, which tracks earnings from more than 500,000 gig drivers, reported that the average Uber driver grossed $23.88 an hour in 2025 (median $21.92), about $522 a week across an average of 21.2 hours, and $0.94 a mile. Those figures are before any costs.
The cost that decides most outcomes is the car. The IRS sets its business mileage rate from "an annual study of the fixed and variable costs of operating an automobile": 70 cents a mile for 2025, 72.5 cents for the first half of 2026 and 76 cents from July 1, 2026. Your car is not the IRS’s average car, but the comparison is sobering: a gross of $0.94 a mile and a cost of roughly 70 cents leaves a thin margin once you count depreciation.
| Line on your ledger | What it covers | Where your number comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Gross | Fares and tips after Uber’s fee | Your weekly pay statement |
| Car | Payment, rental or depreciation | Loan, rental agreement or mileage |
| Insurance | A policy that covers rideshare use | Your insurer or the rental |
| Fuel and upkeep | Gas or charging, tires, oil, brakes | Receipts per mile |
| Self-employment tax | 15.3% of net earnings | IRS Schedule SE |
| Income tax | Federal and state | Your bracket, after deductions |
Run your own numbers: rent, finance or drive your own
On GigCarFinder a typical weekly rental runs $349, usually with insurance and maintenance included, which turns several ledger lines into one known cost. Suppose you take one at that rate, spend about $60 a week on fuel in a hybrid and gross $24 an hour, close to Gridwise’s 2025 average: the car and fuel are covered around hour 18 of the week, and the worked week after the calculator shows 40 hours of it. Put in your own gross, hours and miles.
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Hours driven | 40 |
| Gross earnings (fares plus tips) at $24 per hour | $960 |
| Weekly rental at the current typical rate, insurance and maintenance included | $349 |
| Fuel (hybrid, roughly 1,200 miles) | $60 |
| Net before tax | $551 |
| Net per hour | about $14 |
| Break-even hours (the hours that pay for the car and fuel) | about 18 |
The worked comparison of renting against owning, line by line, is in renting a car to drive Uber: the real weekly numbers.
Uber does not give raises, so your pay moves for other reasons
Drivers search "does Uber give raises" because the job feels like employment. It is not, and there is no raise schedule. What moves your pay is fares and demand in your city, incentives Uber chooses to offer, and in some places a legal floor.
New York City is the clearest example. Its Taxi and Limousine Commission sets a minimum per-trip pay rate for Uber and Lyft drivers and adjusts it each year for inflation. From March 1, 2026, the rate rose 3.36% to $1.283 a mile and $0.681 a minute for standard trips inside the city. Most cities have no such floor; check the rules where you drive.
Nationally, the trend is flat. Gridwise’s average hourly gross went from $23.66 in 2024 to $23.88 in 2025, a rise of less than 1%. Over the same year, Uber’s operating income rose 99%. The company’s profit and your profit are different numbers that can move in different directions.
Company profit and driver profit point different ways on the future
Uber’s chief executive said in its February 2026 results that the company has "a clear path to becoming the largest facilitator of AV trips in the world." For investors that is a growth story. For a driver it is a reason not to lock into a five-year loan on a car whose only job is rideshare, especially in a city where driverless service is already running. What the robotaxi numbers mean for drivers covers which cities, and how fast.
The honest summary: Uber is profitable and growing; driving for Uber can be profitable for you, at enough hours and a low enough cost per mile, and not otherwise. Measure your own number before you decide, and decide again whenever your car, your city or your hours change.
Before you decide whether driving is worth it
- Pull last month’s pay statements and work out your gross per hour and per mile
- Put a real cost per mile on your car, including depreciation, not just gas
- Set aside 15.3% of net earnings for self-employment tax, plus income tax
- Check whether your city has a minimum pay rule, and what it pays a mile and a minute
- Run your hours and miles through the calculator above for a slow week and a good one
- If a weekly car beats your current cost, compare cars listed for rideshare before you commit to a loan
Sources
- Uber: results for the second quarter of 2026, Form 8-K press release, August 5, 2026, for Q2 2026 revenue, operating and net income, gross bookings, trips, consumers, segment figures and Q3 guidance
- Uber: Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, for the revenue model, the UK business model change, segment operating income, the equity investment gains, advertising’s place in the segments and the accumulated deficit
- Uber: results for the fourth quarter and full year 2025, February 4, 2026, for 2024 and 2025 annual figures and tax and revaluation items
- Uber: results for the fourth quarter and full year 2023, February 7, 2024, for 2022 and 2023 annual figures, and City AM on Uber’s first full-year operating profit, February 7, 2024
- Gridwise: how much Uber drivers make in 2026, 2025 data from more than 500,000 drivers, accessed October 2026
- Bureau of Labor Statistics: taxi drivers and chauffeurs, May 2025 median pay, accessed October 2026
- IRS: standard mileage rates, accessed October 2026, and IRS news release IR-2025-128, December 29, 2025, for how the rate is set
- IRS: self-employment tax, accessed October 2026
- NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission: driver pay rates and Industry Notice 26-03, February 24, 2026
- Marketplace figures on this page are live medians from GigCarFinder listings, with typical-range fallbacks while inventory is thin; the worked examples are illustrations at stated assumptions, and the calculator’s earnings defaults are editable estimates, not promises.
Frequently asked questions
When did Uber become profitable?
Uber reported its first full year of operating profit in 2023, with $1.1 billion in income from operations after a $1.8 billion operating loss in 2022. Operating income has grown every year since, to $5.6 billion in 2025.
How much of my fare does Uber keep?
It varies by city, time and trip type, and Uber does not publish one fixed percentage for drivers. At the company level, Mobility revenue was about 25 cents per dollar of Mobility gross bookings in the second quarter of 2026, but bookings include taxes, tolls and fees, so that is not your fee. Your trip receipts in the driver app show what the rider paid and what you earned on each trip.
How much does an Uber driver actually profit an hour?
There is no single answer, because the car decides it. Gridwise reported an average gross of $23.88 an hour in 2025, before costs. Subtract the car, fuel, insurance and a 15.3% self-employment tax on net earnings, and two drivers with the same gross can keep very different amounts. Work out your own number from a month of pay statements and mileage.
Is it still worth driving for Uber in 2026?
It can be, if you drive enough hours to get well past your fixed weekly costs and your car is cheap to run per mile. It usually is not worth it on a high-interest loan for a car you would not otherwise own. Run your own hours and miles through the earnings calculator for a slow week as well as a good one before deciding.
Does Uber pay drivers more when the company makes more money?
Not directly. Drivers are independent contractors paid per trip, and there is no profit share or raise schedule. In 2025 Uber's operating income roughly doubled while Gridwise's average hourly gross for drivers rose less than 1%. Local minimum pay rules, like New York City's inflation-indexed rate, are the exception.
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