Car rental France

General information and regulations

To rent a car you must be at least 21 years old (age may vary by car category) and have held your license for 1 year. Drivers under the age of 25 may incur a surcharge.

Seatbelts are mandatory and children must be at least 10 years old to sit in the front seat. Children up to 3 years have to be seated in a child seat. Traffic travels on the right and fines can be paid on the spot (in Euros or travelers' checks).

The speed limit in the city is 31mph/50kph, on open Roads 68mph/110kph and on highways 81mph/130kph.

Driving in France with a rental car

The network of 'autoroutes' is very good. Out of the 40,000 km of roads, about 10,000 km are four-lane superhighways and many of these are toll roads (autoroutes a peage). Many roads are still subject to discussion due to the traffic jams between the end of July and the first part of September. Most of the problems occur along the 'route de soleil'. Despite these problems, France is an accessible country and the larger cities are easy to reach.

From Paris there are fast connections to other cities, Paris-Nantes is about 340 km, Paris-Lyon 395 km and Paris-Bordeaux a bit further: approximately 500 km. Countries north of Paris can be reached easily as well, a drive from the French capital to Brussels (Belgium) takes no more than two and a half an hours.

Renting a car in one of the Southern cities results in other opportunities, for example Bordeaux. From this city, a trip to Spain is easily arranged, from the city of Nice one can travel to Italy and from Lyon a trip to Geneva (Switzerland) is recommended (about 110 km).

Renting a car in France

All of the main airports offer multiple car rental companies to choose from. From Paris, Bordeaux, Nice and Lyon several companies can facilitate in car rental. Companies such as Avis, Budget, Europcar, Hertz, National and Sixt are present at most airports.

Another option is renting a car through EasyTerra, a website where rates of local car rental companies are compared for your convenience.