Renting a car when you go abroad is very important especially when there is no public transportation available around. However, you might be curious can you rent a car with a passport? There are a few requirements that you need to fulfil when you want to rent a car.
Can You Rent a Car with a Passport? Documentation That You Need When Renting a Car
Each Car Rental Company will have their own document requirements that you need to fulfill when you want to rent a car. Some online companies will allows you to upload those documents online while some will still requires you to bring them when you pick up the car. Here are some of the general documentation that you need when renting a car.
Driver’s License
When you want to pick up your car the first thing that the car rental company agent will do is to ask for a driver’s license. This is important since they want to know if you actually have license to drive the game.
The name in the driver’s license should be your own name as with the other document you need to prepare later. However if you are disabled and need to have substitute driver then they are the one who need to show their driver’s license. But this requirement also different from one company to the other so make sure to ask beforehand before you rent the car from them.
Some car rental company may also ask you to bring them a copy of the driver’s license while some will only take a picture. This is also something that you need to check with the company.
International Driver’s License
Can you rent a car with a passport for EU citizen? If you are an EU citizen and travel around the EU countries then most of the time your EU driver’s license is valid to rent. But if you are not EU citizen or when you want to rent a car outside the EU countries then you need to show International driver’s license.
Remember that you still need to bring your local driver’s license to show them both together or else it will be invalid. This is especially needed if your local driver license is not in English or does not use Latin-based alphabet. They need the international driver’s license for translation.
The driver’s license must have photo so they can verify that the license really belong to you. Remember that some car rental company may also check the driving history based on your driver’s license.
Make sure that you get your international driving license from legit organization in your country. Because there are some people who do scam where they offer to translate your driver’s license into 10 international language.
This is a scam so make sure to search which department in your country that able to give you the international driver’s license legally. Because if you do get scam and use the fake license then you will be wasting your money paying for something worthless.
Even worse that if you do use the license to rent a car then you can face various legal problems since the Car Rental Companies might think that you try to scam them. This may delay your travel if you are detained from scamming the car rental companies.
Temporary License or driving permit
Most Car Rental Companies will not let you rent the car if you only have driving permit or temporary license. But in the US if you are US citizen some of them will allows you to rent a car with the temporary license.
Other Personal ID
Besides the driving license you also need to show other personal ID. There are a few things that you can use as personal ID. Some ID can be used locally in your own country while some can be used abroad. For example airplane ticket with your name on the ticket can be used in some local rental companies.
Passport is another form of ID that you can use. So can you rent a car with a passport? If you want to rent a car abroad then you need to show your passport. So yes you can rent a car with passport but you still need to show them other necessary documentation as well.
Debit Card or Credit Card
When you rent a car then you need to give them your debit card or credit card. Depends on the companies but they might charge you some fee right when you rent the car. Sometimes they might also charge some amount to be hold.
This hold amount will be used for when there’s something wrong with the car that makes them need to repair or clean the car. But if they do not need to do anything then the hold amount will be returned to your card
Remember that there are a few exception for example some companies might not accept Credit Card and only Debit Card. Some may even do not accept any card at all so you need to pay them in cash. So can you rent a car with a passport? Sometimes the car rental company may hold your physical passport if they do not accept card payment.
Some car rental company also do not allows younger driver to pay with debit card. And when they do accept the debit card they will first need to perform credit check to make sure if the amount is sufficient.
Age requirements
Depends on the car rental company but some of them have minimum age requirements of 21 years old. And if you are younger driver who are younger than 25 years old then you need to pay for the young driver fee.
The amount of fee that you need to pay are varied and will depend on your age. So make sure to check about their minimum age requirements before you renting a car from them.
Now when you read these necessary documents and requirements you will know can you rent a car with a passport or not. So, if you plan to rent the car then remember to prepare all of the necessary documents beforehand.
