If planning a holiday this summer, beware of rising car hire costs.
A 12-country study of car hire costs worldwide reveals that the average weekly price to hire a compact family car (e.g., a VW Golf) this summer has rocketed to £520 a week, compared to just £310 in 2019, an increase of £210 – a 68% rise.
However, this is around £100 cheaper than last year’s highs when the average weekly hire price was £652.
Once ‘extras’ are added at the rental desk, including super damage waiver (£163), tyre and windscreen cover (£50), an extra driver (£63), a sat nav (£83) and a child’s seat (£66), costing £425 in total, the average price rises to £999 for a week’s hire, including the price for 40 litres of petrol (costing £54 on average).
To find the best value car rental destinations, iCarhireinsurance.com, the leading provider of stand-alone car hire excess insurance, looked at the cost of a basic hire for the week 29 July – 5 August 2023 and compared it to the same weeks in 2019 and 2022.
It also looked at the price of six additional costs, payable on picking up the car (i.e., super damage waiver, tyre and windscreen excess waiver, an additional driver, a child’s car seat and a sat nav) as well as the price of a tank of petrol [40 litres] in 12 countries (Australia, Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, UK and the USA). Six rental companies’ costs were compared, Sixt, Hertz, Avis, Budget, Enterprise and Europcar.
Germany (£365 weekly rental average) and the USA (£406 weekly rental average) are the cheapest places to hire a car this summer, and Switzerland (£711 weekly rental average) and Italy (£650 weekly rental average) the most expensive.
The biggest price hikes, since 2019, are in UK (up 215%) and Australia (up 140%), while Portugal is the least impacted by price increases since 2019 but is still 21% higher.
Average weekly car rental rates in 2023 are listed below from the cheapest to the most expensive, and compared with 2019 prices:
| Average Car Rental Price in 2023 | Average Car Rental Price* in 2019 | Increase on 2019 Price | |
| Germany (Munich) | £365 | £212 | 72% |
| USA (Florida) | £406 | £231 | 76% |
| Croatia (Dubrovnik) | £421 | £289 | 46% |
| Spain (Barcelona) | £433 | £258 | 68% |
| Turkey (Dalaman) | £444 | £292 | 52% |
| Portugal (Faro) | £517 | £428 | 21% |
| Australia (Sydney) | £550 | £229 | 140% |
| Greece (Crete) | £563 | £460 | 22% |
| UK (London) | £577 | £183 | 215% |
| France (Nice) | £599 | £417 | 44% |
| Italy (Milan) | £650 | £364 | 79% |
| Switzerland (Geneva) | £711 | £353 | 101% |
Switzerland is also the most expensive country in the study once extras are added. Drivers pay on average £1,327 to hire a compact family car including £711 for the week’s rental, as well as £214 super damage waiver, £62 tyre and windscreen cover, £94 an extra driver, £120 for a sat nav, £62 for a child’s car seat and £64 for 40 litres of petrol.
However, it pays to shop around, in Switzerland, Sixt is charging £585 for the week’s hire, compared to Enterprise’s £814, a difference of £229. Similarly, in Nice, Sixt is charging £498, while Avis is charging £740, a difference of £242.
Petrol costs vary widely across the nations. The cheapest place to fill up is in the USA and Turkey where a full tank of petrol costs only £32, but a full tank in France is £65, followed by Greece costing £64. In the UK, it costs £58, while Spain is £55, for instance.
Excess waiver policies, which are usually sold as super damage waiver and tyre and windscreen waiver, are the most expensive extra cost at the rental desk, costing on average £213 in this study.
These protect drivers from the excess liability, which is the amount a driver is liable to pay if a hire car is stolen or damaged even if it is not the driver’s fault.
For those travellers who do not take out excess waiver, this study reveals the average excess amount they could be liable to pay is around £1,500 on average. However, in Australia and Switzerland it is over £2,000.
The cost of excess waiver policies from the rental companies, i.e., £213, on average, is more than six times more expensive than a policy from a specialist insurance provider such as iCarhireinsurance.com.
