Car rental for foreigners

Need a car in London without a UK licence or a UK address on file? Rent-Trip supplies car rental for foreigners here from a fleet of 147 cars, starting at £22 a day, and we deliver the vehicle to any address in the city or to Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, London City and Southend airports, with the delivery address, date and time agreed with a manager before the booking is fixed.

Car rental for foreigners in London and the licence you drive it on

Car rental for foreigners in London starts with the licence: visitors may drive here on a full foreign licence. What decides whether you may drive is not the country that issued your licence but how long you have been in Great Britain; which documents to bring is agreed with a manager when booking. This section sets out both.

Which licence lets a foreign visitor drive a hire car in London

A full valid foreign licence may be used for 12 months from your last entry to Great Britain. That window covers England, Wales and Scotland alike, so a trip that starts in the capital and continues north does not restart the clock. The date that matters is your last entry to the country, not the date you collect the car — a visitor who arrives in March and returns in September is still inside the same 12 months. A provisional or expired licence does not qualify, and a licence that has been withdrawn does not come back into force because you crossed a border. Keep the entry date in mind when you book: the 12 months run from it, and a new entry starts the count again from that date.

An International Driving Permit is a translation document, not a replacement for your own licence; the licence rule here does not mention it, so whether you need one is agreed with a manager when booking.

• Latin-script licence: the 12-month rule applies to a full, valid foreign licence whatever language it is printed in.
• Non-Latin script licence: with Arabic, Cyrillic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Greek script on the card, whether a translation is needed alongside it is agreed with a manager when booking.
• International Driving Permit: issued by your home motoring authority before you travel, valid alongside the original, never instead of it.
• Driving history proof: if a category is not obvious from the card, raise it with the manager when booking.
• What we agree at booking: which documents you bring is agreed with a manager when the booking is fixed — raise any doubt about your licence early.

A licence in a non-Latin script is worth raising early rather than at the kerb: whether extra paper is needed is agreed with a manager when booking, and settling it in advance is cheaper than a rearranged first day. If your licence was renewed recently, check that the new card has arrived before you fly — an expired card with a valid permit is still an expired card, and no translation fixes that.

What else the manager confirms before the car is released

Age, driving experience and the payment card are not fixed rules of the road — they are agreed when booking. The same applies to the deposit and the insurance excess: both are set out in the rental agreement rather than quoted in advance. Which documents to bring is agreed when booking. If a second driver will take the wheel, say so at booking so the paperwork covers both names before the car leaves.

Driving on the left in a right-hand drive rental car

Every car we hand over is right-hand drive, and traffic keeps to the left — the two facts that reset a foreign visitor's instincts fastest. The first hour behind the wheel decides how the rest of the trip goes, so treat the drive out of the delivery address as a lesson rather than a commute.

Left-hand driving and roundabouts in a car rental for foreigners in London

Every car we hand over is right-hand drive, and you keep to the left of the road unless signs or markings say otherwise, under Highway Code rule 160; when you turn, stay close to the left edge under rule 183. Roundabouts follow the same logic in reverse: traffic already on the circle comes from your right, and under rule 185 you give way to it, circulating clockwise. A driver raised on right-hand traffic reads the first roundabout as a mirror image — the lane that felt like the exit is the entry. In our experience the slip that catches people is the left turn: the car swings wide into the oncoming lane because the muscle memory expects a wider arc. Before you leave the delivery address, set both mirrors and drive one slow loop of the nearest residential streets — ten minutes of quiet corners is worth more than any briefing.

Speed limits, seat belts and phone rules that apply to your hire

• Built-up roads: 30 mph is the default in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland where no sign says otherwise; single carriageways are 60 mph, dual carriageways and motorways 70 mph.
• London zones: many streets are signed at 20 mph, and the sign always beats the default — read the plates, not the habit.
• Phones: holding a phone, satnav or tablet is banned even while stopped at a red light; the penalty is £200 and 6 points, and a driver who passed their test less than 2 years ago loses the licence outright.
• Hands-free: allowed only when the device does not block your view of the road.
• Seat belts: compulsory where fitted; children need a child seat until they reach 135 cm or turn 12, whichever comes first, with a fine up to £500.
• Alcohol: in England, Wales and Northern Ireland the limit is 80 mg per 100 ml of blood, 35 µg per 100 ml of breath and 107 mg per 100 ml of urine; Scotland applies 50 / 22 / 67.

Matching the car to the trip

Automatic gearboxes cover 101 of the 147 cars on this page and manuals 46, so a left-hand-traffic beginner can skip the clutch entirely; 13 hybrids and 10 electrics are on this page too, though for ULEZ any petrol car meeting Euro 4 or diesel meeting Euro 6 is compliant as well. For a first trip, an automatic such as the Seat Leon at £23 a day or the Toyota Yaris at £25 a day keeps the gearbox out of the equation at a roundabout. Weekly bookings are charged at the daily rate times 6 and monthly at the daily rate times 21; the exact model, delivery address, date and time are agreed with a manager before the booking is fixed.

London charges a car rental for foreigners in London meets on the road

Two charging zones and one river crossing generate most of the extra cost on a trip here. The rules below are the ones a foreign driver meets first, and they apply to every car we deliver.

Congestion Charge and ULEZ in a car rental for foreigners in London

The Congestion Charge is £18 a day when paid on the day or in advance and £21 if paid by midnight on the third day after the trip, charged 07:00–18:00 Monday to Friday and 12:00–18:00 at weekends and on bank holidays. The zone sits inside the Inner Ring Road, bounded by Pentonville Road, City Road, Old Street, Commercial Street, Mansell Street, Tower Bridge Road, New Kent Road, Elephant & Castle, Kennington Lane, Vauxhall Bridge Road, Park Lane, Edgware Road, Marylebone Road and Euston Road — those roads themselves run outside or along the boundary, so a route that skirts them pays no Congestion Charge. The charge is not levied from 25 December to the New Year bank holiday inclusive. ULEZ is a separate £12.50 a day for vehicles that do not meet the emission standards, runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week except 25 December, and covers all 32 boroughs — the M25 itself stays outside. Petrol cars need Euro 4 or better, diesel Euro 6, and a PCN is £180, cut to £90 if paid within 14 days. In our experience the trap is a diesel registered before September 2016: check the registration on the TfL vehicle checker before you leave the delivery address, not after the first camera flashes.

Who pays tolls and penalty notices on a hire car

Who pays road charges, tolls and penalty notices on the vehicle is agreed when booking, and it is written into the rental agreement rather than left to the driver to discover.

The Dartford Crossing on the M25 is the charge most visitors meet by accident: class B cars pay £3.50 per crossing on a one-off or pay-as-you-go basis, or £2.80 if prepaid, usually between 6:00 and 22:00 every day including weekends and holidays, with payment due by midnight of the following day. A PCN there is £70, £35 if paid within 14 days and £105 if left unpaid. The practical point for a foreign driver is that the crossing is paid by midnight of the following day, so the deadline is the thing to watch rather than the barrier. Blackwall Tunnel and Silvertown Tunnel are charged separately, with £4.20 at peak — northbound 06:00–10:00 and southbound 16:00–19:00 on weekdays — and £1.55 off-peak with Auto Pay.

Electric cars, discounts and what to check before you drive off

• Cleaner Vehicle Discount: the 100% exemption for electric cars has ended, so a battery car now pays the Congestion Charge too.
• Auto Pay discount: electric cars on Auto Pay pay 25% less, £13.50 instead of £18, while electric vans and HGVs get 50%; without Auto Pay there is no discount at all.
• Tunnels excluded: the Blackwall and Silvertown discount is 0%, so the Auto Pay reduction does not reach those crossings.
• Fuel: petrol was £1.75 and diesel £1.99 a litre, which is worth knowing before a long run out of town.
• Full-to-full: our cars leave with a full tank and come back with a full tank; the missing fuel and a refuelling service fee are charged as set out in the rental agreement.

If a route is likely to cross the Congestion Charge zone twice in one day, paying the £18 in advance rather than the £21 late rate saves £3 and removes the deadline entirely.

We hand over the car clean and with a full tank, so the only running costs on the first day are the ones above. Charges outside the capital — the Oxford, Cambridge or Bath runs, for instance — follow their own local rules and are worth checking before you set off.

Choosing a car rental for foreigners in London by class and gearbox

Our fleet on this page runs to 147 cars across 14 classes, from a £22-a-day Citroen C3 Aircross to a £3,300-a-day Lamborghini Aventador SVJ. Choosing well comes down to three things: how many people and bags you carry, whether you want an automatic, and whether the car has to enter the Congestion Charge or ULEZ area at all.

What each class of car rental for foreigners actually gives you

The cheapest cars on this page are the Citroen C3 Aircross and Fiat 500 at £22 daily, and the most expensive is the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ at £3,300. A £22 car costs £132 for a week and £462 for a month on our weekly and monthly rates, while the top of the range works out at £19,800 for a week and £69,300 for a month.

In our experience most foreign visitors book Comfort or Crossover for a first trip — the Volkswagen Golf Estate at £31 a day and the Citroen C3 Aircross at £22 cover five seats and a proper boot without the width of an SUV.

Matching seats, fuel and body style to your trip

• Automatic: 101 of the 147 cars, including the Seat Leon at £23, the Toyota Yaris at £25 and the Toyota Corolla at £31 — the sensible pick if you have only ever driven an automatic.
• Manual: 46 cars, mostly the cheapest Economy and Crossover models such as the Kia Rio, Volkswagen Polo and Peugeot 2008.
• Petrol: 100 cars, the default across every class up to Premium.
• Hybrid: 13 cars, among them the Toyota RAV4 at £40, the Kia Sorento at £49 and the Volvo XC90 at £102.
• Electric: 10 cars, from the Nissan Leaf at £71 and the Volkswagen ID.4 and Mercedes-Benz EQA at £171 to the Porsche Taycan Turbo S at £500.
• Diesel: 24 cars, concentrated in the larger SUVs, minivans and vans such as the Volkswagen Sharan at £44 and the Ford Transit 17 Seater at £138.

Seats run from 2 to 17: fifteen cars have two seats, ninety-eight have five, nine have seven, and single cars cover eight, twelve and seventeen seats for group transfers. The Ford Tourneo at £90 takes nine, the Ford Transit 12 Seater at £132 takes twelve and the Ford Transit 17 Seater at £138 takes seventeen. Body styles split across 37 SUVs, 28 hatchbacks, 19 sedans, 17 crossovers, 15 convertibles, 12 coupes and a handful of estates, MPVs and vans.

If your route takes you through the centre, ask about an electric car or one that meets the ULEZ standard (Euro 4 for petrol, Euro 6 for diesel) when you book — a non-compliant vehicle adds the ULEZ charge to every day of the trip, and the TfL vehicle checker confirms compliance by registration number before you commit. Delivery to your address or to Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, London City or Southend is agreed with a manager when the booking is fixed, and the car arrives clean with a full tank.

Delivery of a car rental for foreigners to your address or airport

Car rental for foreigners in London with Rent-Trip does not hand you a key at a desk — we bring the car to you.

Where we deliver a car rental for foreigners

Delivery is how Rent-Trip works: to any address in the city and to the six airports around it, with the address, date and time agreed with a manager before the booking is fixed.

• Any local address: a hotel, a flat, a friend's place or an office — you give the address, we agree the details with you when booking.
• Heathrow (LHR): 84,481,178 passengers a year and 30.3 km by road from the centre, roughly 45 minutes without traffic.
• Gatwick (LGW): 42,775,241 passengers a year, 48.6 km by road, about 70 minutes.
• Stansted (STN): 29,758,490 passengers a year, 57.9 km by road, around 63 minutes.
• Luton (LTN): 17,770,247 passengers a year, 56.9 km by road, roughly 63 minutes.
• City (LCY) and Southend (SEN): 3,737,888 and 719,513 passengers a year; 14.5 km and 67.4 km by road respectively.

Those road figures are measured without traffic. In our experience the M25 and the North Circular add far more than the map suggests between 07:00 and 10:00, so a car booked for a morning arrival is worth timing with a margin rather than to the minute.

What happens between booking and hand-over

The delivery address, the date and the time are agreed with a manager before the booking is fixed — nothing is dispatched until that conversation is closed, and a change of terminal or a delayed flight is handled in the same conversation. The car arrives clean with a full tank, and it goes back the same way: full-to-full. If the tank is short on return, the missing fuel and a refuelling service fee are charged as set out in the rental agreement. No other fuel option is offered — no pre-paid tank, no full-to-empty.

Delivery outside the places listed above is arranged case by case and is not promised on the site. If you are staying somewhere further out, say so at booking and a manager will tell you what can be done; do not assume it is covered. The same applies to anything not written here: the deposit, the insurance excess, delivery fees and discounts are set out in the rental agreement, not invented on this page.

Picking the right car for a delivery

• Airport arrival with luggage: Volkswagen Golf Estate or Kia Ceed Sportswagon, both 5 seats and petrol, from £31 a day.
• Family of five with cases: Toyota RAV4, a hybrid SUV with all-wheel drive, from £40 a day.
• Group of seven: Volkswagen Sharan or Peugeot 5008, both 7 seats, from £44 and £65 a day.
• Nine to seventeen people: Ford Tourneo at 9 seats from £90, Ford Transit 12 Seater from £132, Ford Transit 17 Seater from £138.
• City-only, tight parking: Fiat 500 or Toyota Aygo, 4 seats, from £22 and £32 a day.

A weekly booking is charged at the daily rate times six, and a monthly one at the daily rate times twenty-one — worth knowing before you decide between a compact and an estate for a two-week stay.

One practical note from our own deliveries: give the manager the postcode and the terminal, not just the hotel name, because a name alone can sit on three different streets in the same borough.

What the rental agreement covers in a car rental for foreigners in London

For car rental for foreigners in London the agreement is the document that settles everything this page leaves open — the deposit, the insurance excess, delivery fees and any discount sit in its clauses rather than in a quoted figure. Read it before the car arrives, not at the kerb with the engine running.

Deposit, excess and fees in the rental agreement

• Deposit: the amount and how it is held are set out in the rental agreement, and the figure is confirmed when the booking is fixed rather than published in advance.
• Insurance excess: the sum you carry in the event of damage is written into the agreement and confirmed with a manager when booking.
• Delivery fees: delivery to an address locally or to Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, London City or Southend is part of how Rent-Trip works, and any fee attached to a specific arrangement is agreed with a manager at booking.
• Discounts: long-stay terms are set out in the rental agreement; the only multipliers we publish are weekly at the daily rate times 6 and monthly at the daily rate times 21.
• Fuel: full-to-full is the only option — the car leaves with a full tank and returns with one, and a short tank means the missing fuel plus a refuelling service fee as set out in the agreement.

The clause most foreign drivers skim past is the one on damage: the excess is set out in the rental agreement, so a scuff on an alloy in a tight Marylebone side street and a mirror taken off on a motorway are both settled by the same clause, and neither is worth discovering after the car has gone back. Photograph the car on arrival and again before return — not because the agreement demands it, but because a dated picture settles a disagreement faster than a memory of where a dent came from.

Cross-border trips and the mileage question

• Mileage: the allowance and any charge beyond it are set out in the rental agreement, not on this page — ask when you book if your route is a long one.
• Great Britain: England, Wales and Scotland are covered by the same 12-month licence window, so a run to Edinburgh does not restart the clock or need new paperwork.
• Territory: whether the car may leave United Kingdom is agreed when booking, and it is not something to assume at the wheel.
• Ferries and tunnels: a crossing booked independently of us is your arrangement; tell the manager your route so the answer on territory matches the trip you have planned.

Ask about the mileage terms for the shape of your journey, not just its length. A visitor who lands at Heathrow and drives to the Cotswolds for four days covers roughly the same distance as one who commutes daily across the capital — the difference is that the first trip is all motorway and the second is all stop-start.

Long stays and repeated trips in a car rental for foreigners in London

A stay of a month or more changes the arithmetic. The monthly rate is the daily rate times 21, so a car at £22 daily comes to £462 for a month and one at £23 daily to £483 — the same car for 30 separate days would cost more, and the gap widens as the class goes up.

Monthly rates and the 12-month window

• Monthly rate: daily rate times 21, applied to any class on this page — from the Citroen C3 Aircross at £22 a day to the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ at £3,300.
• Weekly rate: daily rate times 6, useful for a two-week stay split into two bookings if your plans change mid-trip.
• Licence window: your full foreign licence covers 12 months from your last entry to Great Britain, so a long stay that runs past that date needs the position checked before you extend.
• Second trip in the same year: a return visit resets the 12 months, and the entry date from the latest arrival is the one that counts.
• Changing cars mid-stay: moving from a Crossover to an SUV for a family visit is agreed with a manager rather than swapped at the roadside.

In our experience the long-stay driver who books a month at a time and keeps the same car spends less attention on the paperwork and more on the trip — but the licence date is the one thing worth diarising, because a stay that began in spring can quietly outrun the window by the following spring.

Keeping a car for weeks without overpaying

• Match the class to the weeks, not the days: a Comfort estate at £31 a day costs £651 a month and swallows airport luggage that a £22 hatchback cannot.
• Electric for zone-heavy weeks: ten electric cars start at £71 a day, and a car that meets the ULEZ standard avoids the £12.50 daily charge on every day it moves inside the 32 boroughs.
• Petrol for long motorway runs: 100 of the 147 cars run on petrol, and a hybrid such as the Toyota Corolla at £31 a day suits a stay that mixes city and motorway.
• Return full: a month of short trips still ends with a full tank, and the refuelling service fee is avoided by filling up within a few miles of the return address.

For anyone staying past about three and a half weeks, booking the monthly rate from the start rather than extending a weekly booking keeps the arithmetic simple, because the multiplier is fixed at 21 and the price does not improve by waiting; for a shorter stay, three weeks at daily x 18 still costs less than a month.