Electric skateboard
It is paid in 4 months
4 months
From that month onwards, you've already spent less than taking the bus, even considering the vehicle's remaining value. Your timeframe is 36 months.
View all 14 adsIs it better to buy a car, a motorcycle, or continue taking the bus?
The complete cost of getting around Montevideo every day: bus, walking, electric scooter, electric bike, motorcycle, and used car. Purchase price, insurance, registration, energy, maintenance, rain and theft, versus the cost of a bus ticket—and the door-to-door travel time for each option.
Prices surveyed on November 6, 2026. The assumed cures are below, each with its date and source.
The verdict, with your journey
With a 4,7 km one way, 5 days a week and a 36-month horizon:
Electric bicycle
It is paid in 7 months
7 months
From that month onwards, you've already spent less than taking the bus, even considering the vehicle's remaining value. Your timeframe is 36 months.
View all 18 adsMotorbike
It is only paid after 97 months
97 months
It's more than the 36-month horizon you chose: before that date you're still spending more than on buses.
View all 531 adsUsed car
It never pays off, but it saves you time.
$394 per hour
This mode of transport doesn't pass under the bus in any month. What it buys is time: 175 hours a year that you gain, at $394 an hour. Compare that to what you earn per hour.
View all 18.942 adsWhat is being compared
The cost of a vehicle isn't a monthly payment. It's money you put upfront, money you pay every month, and value you recover when you sell it. That's why everything here is calculated as follows: accumulated cost month by month, already discounted what the vehicle is still worthAnd the "cost per month" is that total divided by the chosen timeframe. This is the only way to compare it to a bus, which has neither initial investment nor resale value.
The bus is the reference point because it's the only mode of transport already available without spending any money. If a mode of transport passes below its curve, there are break-even point and it's published in months. If it never crosses it—as is almost always the case with cars—the correct answer isn't "it's not advisable" but How much do you earn per hour?Compare it to what you earn per hour. And if one option is more expensive y slower, we say it bluntly and we don't calculate either of them.
Your journey
How do you want to declare the journey?
Pocitos
Center
Days per week: 5
Trips per day
Comparison horizon: 36 months
How would you pay for it?
$
Typical cases
From the neighborhood to the city center, every day
Close, but every day
Far away, every day
Three days a week
Cost per month, from lowest to highest
- Bus$ 2.253
- Walking$ 0
- Electric skateboard$ 1.026
- Electric bicycle$ 1.398
- Motorbike$ 2.676
- Used car$ 8.002
43 trips per month · 202 km per month.
How much have you spent, month by month
Each line represents the money accumulated in that mode of transport, after deducting the vehicle's remaining value. Where a line crosses under the bus line, that mode of transport has been paid for. If it never crosses, it's never paid for: what it buys is time.
Mode by mode
| Mode | Per month | Per trip | Per km | Door to door | Against the omnibus | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bus | $ 2.253 | $ 52,0 | $ 11,16 | 32 min | reference | It's the reference |
| Walking | $ 0 | $ 0,0 | $ 0,00 | 57 min | 219 hours a year that you lose | Cheaper, but slower |
| Electric skateboard | $ 1.026 | $ 23,7 | $ 5,24 | 17 min | 133 hours a year that you earn | It is paid in 4 months |
| Electric bicycle | $ 1.398 | $ 32,3 | $ 7,14 | 23 min | 80 hours a year that you earn | It is paid in 7 months |
| Motorbike | $ 2.676 | $ 61,8 | $ 13,25 | 11 min car route | 184 hours a year that you earn | It is only paid after 97 months |
| Used car | $ 8.002 | $ 184,7 | $ 39,63 | 12 min | 175 hours a year that you earn | It never pays off, but it saves you time. |
Routes calculated with OSRM on OpenStreetMap (ODbL) data, a service of FOSSIGS e.V.
STM Schedules and Routes — Montevideo Municipality, Open Data Catalog
Where does every peso come from?
Road risk cannot be converted into pesos
It is the only friction we quantify and we don't add upPutting a price on your life to balance the motorcycle's account is indefensible, and a fabricated figure there would taint everything else. The fatalities published by UNASEV are used, and where there is a published vehicle fleet, the rate per 100.000 vehicles—which is a cross our and not an official figure: neither source publishes the ratio.
| Mode | Deaths in 2025 | Every 100.000 vehicles | How to read it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Motorbike | 236 | 48,1 | This is a cross-reference between UNASEV and the active vehicle fleet of MIEM. Neither source publishes the ratio. |
| Used car | 124 | 11,3 | This is a cross-reference between UNASEV and the active vehicle fleet of MIEM. Neither source publishes the ratio. |
| Bus | 5 | without tax | Without published vehicle fleet data: there is no rate, only the number of deaths. |
| Walking | 74 | without tax | Without published vehicle fleet data: there is no rate, only the number of deaths. |
| Electric bicycle | 23 | without tax | Without published vehicle fleet data: there is no rate, only the number of deaths. |
UNASEV — Annual Road Accident Report 2025 · December 31, 2025 · 3.015 serious injuries in 2025, of which 75% were on motorcycles.
The assumptions (you can change them)
Everything not listed in any of the site's catalogs is here, with its price, date, and a link to the publisher. If you change an item, the calculation above is updated, and the amount is reflected as yours. Items marked as "non-existent" on the site cannot be entered here: there's no national license plate table for motorcycles under 500cc, so the motorcycle is entered without a license plate number in the calculation, and the amount is calculated using the registration number.
The figures used by the account
| Concept | Worth | Where does it come from? |
|---|---|---|
| STM ticket (1 hour, with card) | $ 52 | Montevideo City Hall — STM ticket · November 6, 2026 |
| Super 95 gasoline, per liter | $ 75,04 | ANCAP — current price list |
| kWh residential (101-600 tier, including VAT) | $ 10,31 | UTE — tariff schedule, Simple Residential Tariff, 101-600 kWh tier, including VAT · January 1, 2026 |
| Reference price — Electric scooter | $ 8.950 | Own catalog (mobilityitems), 14 notices · November 6, 2026 |
| Reference price — Electric bicycle | $ 25.000 | Own catalog (mobilityitems), 18 notices · November 6, 2026 |
| Reference price — Motorcycle | $ 62.325 | Own catalog (motocatalog), 531 ads · November 6, 2026 |
| Reference price — Used car | $ 373.535 | Own catalog (carcatalog), 18942 ads · November 6, 2026 |
| Driver's license, first time | $ 2.393 | Montevideo City Hall — Driver's License · September 18, 2026 |
Six things this page cannot claim
- The motorcycle handles like a car
- No public routing system models what truly makes a motorcycle faster in the city—weaving between lanes, using gaps at traffic lights. We publish the car's time and state it; subtracting minutes based on assumptions would be deciding the outcome of the comparison with a made-up number.
- Rainy days are happening all over the country
- INUMET's station statistics section is currently empty, so the only publishable data is the NATIONAL average from its Annual Bulletin. Writing "it rains 80 days in Montevideo" based on that would be inaccurate.
- The SOA is a market average, not a rate
- The BSE does not publish a price list for the SOA Plan: you have to get a quote. The only official information is the average amount published by the Superintendency of Financial Services of the BCU, whose legal function is to calculate the fine for driving without insurance.
- There is no national patent table for a motorcycle under 500cc
- The SUCIVE Consolidated Text refers that segment to "the 2025 license adjusted for CPI," which is set by the municipality where the first registration took place. Any number we published there would be made up, so the motorcycle is listed without a license plate in the account, and the amount is checked by registration number.
- Accident rates cannot be converted to pesos.
- We publish UNASEV fatalities by mode of transport and, where vehicle registration is available, the rate per 100.000 vehicles per crossing. This doesn't translate to monetary value: putting a price on a visitor's life to balance the motorcycle tax is indefensible, and a fabricated figure would taint everything else.
- A neighborhood is a point, not an address.
- When you choose neighborhoods, the route goes from center to center. It's enough to decide whether to buy a vehicle, but not enough to plan a trip: for that, write the two exact addresses.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Is it worth buying a car to commute to work in Montevideo?
- Compared to the bus, a used car is never paid off: it costs $8.002 per month versus $2.253. What it buys is time—175 hours a year that you earn—at $394 per hour. Compare that to what you earn per hour.
- How many months does it take to pay off an electric scooter?
- With a 4,7 km one way and 5 days a week, the scooter passes under the bus after 4 months, already factoring in its remaining cost. Change the days and the distance, and the number changes.
- What does the monthly cost of each vehicle include?
- Purchase price or installment, mandatory equipment and paperwork, mandatory insurance, registration, annual and per-kilometer maintenance, energy (gasoline or kWh), paid parking if applicable, parking fees for rainy days, expected theft cost, and the vehicle's remaining value at the end of its useful life. Each scenario is visible and editable, along with its date and source.
- How much is the registration fee for a motorcycle in Uruguay?
- There is no national table for motorcycles under 500cc: the SUCIVE Consolidated Text assigns that segment to the 2025 license plate adjusted for inflation (CPI), which is set by the municipality where the initial registration took place. Therefore, the motorcycle is listed without a license plate in this account, and the exact amount is checked by registration number on the SUCIVE website.
- Why isn't the risk of accident factored into the cost?
- Because putting a price on a life to balance a vehicle's account is indefensible, and a fabricated figure there contaminates everything else. We publish the fatalities by mode reported by UNASEV and, where vehicle fleet data is available, the rate per 100.000 vehicles as our own cross-reference, using the declared denominator.
- Why does the motorcycle take the same amount of time as the car?
- Because it routes like a car. No public route planner models what actually makes it faster in the city, so we publish the car's time and state it: subtracting minutes based on assumptions would be deciding the result of the comparison with a made-up number.
I continued with the details
This is arithmetic based on surveyed prices and dated public figures, not a purchase recommendation or an appraisal. One option may be both more expensive and faster: the website publishes both, along with the hourly rate, and does not choose for you.