One-way car hire

One-way car hire starts with a choice inside our own fleet: for the price of a day in the £36 Crossover, you can take the £31 Comfort estate with 130 hp instead of 120. We have 147 cars on this page across 14 classes, from £22 to £3,300 a day, and we deliver the car to any address in London and to all six London airports.

How car delivery is arranged

One-way car hire in London means you collect the car in one place and hand it back in another — and with Rent-Trip you do not travel to a depot at all, because the car is brought to you. Rent-Trip delivers the car to any address in London, and you return it to a different point agreed with a manager. That is the whole shape of the service: no depot queue at the start, no depot queue at the end, and the two ends do not have to match. The delivery address, the date and the time are agreed with a manager before the booking is fixed, so the route is settled before the keys change hands.

A guest arriving at Heathrow can take the car at the terminal, drive into the centre, and leave it outside a flat in Mayfair or a hotel near Paddington. The same works in reverse — a car handed over in Canary Wharf can be returned at Gatwick before a morning flight. What the booking fixes is the pair of points, not a branch network. Book the drop-off point at the same time as the pickup: changing it later has to be agreed with a manager again.

Booking a one-way hire step by step

• Name the return point first: the drop-off address decides which car class makes sense for the route, so settle it before you pick a model from the fleet.
• Match the car to the route: a 147-car fleet covers everything from a Kia Rio at the Economy end to a seven-seat minivan, and the return leg should shape the choice.
• Give the delivery address, date and time: these three are agreed with a manager, and the booking is fixed only once all three are confirmed.
• Confirm the fuel and hand-over details: the tank rule and the practicalities of the drop-off belong in the same conversation, not in a separate email later.

Fuel on a one-way car hire

The car comes clean with a full tank and must be returned with a full tank. That full-to-full rule is the only fuel option on the site — no pre-paid tank, no full-to-empty arrangement — and it applies whether the car goes back across the city or at one of the airports. In our experience the awkward part of a one-way trip is the last twenty minutes, when the driver is hunting for a petrol station near the drop-off with a train to catch.

Refuel before the last leg, not at the drop-off: missing fuel and a refuelling service fee are charged as set out in the rental agreement, and a forecourt on the approach is always easier than one you have to double back to.

Documents and driving rules on the route

• Foreign licence: a full, valid foreign licence is accepted for 12 months from your last entry into Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland) — gov.uk states the rule.
• Left-hand driving: keep to the left unless signs or markings say otherwise (Highway Code, rule 160), and turn closer to the left edge (rule 183).
• Roundabouts: give way to traffic approaching from the right (Highway Code, rule 185) — the ring runs clockwise, which catches out drivers used to the other side.
• Speed: 30 mph in built-up areas across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, 60 mph on a single carriageway, 70 mph on a dual carriageway and on a motorway; on lit roads 30 mph applies unless signs say otherwise, and many city zones post 20 mph — signs win.
• Phones and seat belts: holding a phone, satnav or tablet at the wheel is banned even at a red light, penalty points apply, while a hands-free device is allowed if it does not block your view; belts are compulsory where fitted, and children need a child seat until they reach 135 cm or turn 12, whichever comes first, with a fine.

The minimum rental age, the young-driver surcharge and the cards accepted are agreed when booking — they are not fixed on this page.

One-way car hire in London

A one-way booking is only as good as its return point, so we treat the drop-off as part of the route rather than an afterthought. Six airports, every address inside the delivery area and a case-by-case answer for the rest of the country — that is what you are choosing between.

One-way car hire to the airports

• Heathrow Airport (LHR): about 30.3 km by road from the centre, roughly 45 minutes without traffic — the most common return point for a car heading out of the country.
• Gatwick Airport (LGW): 48.6 km by road, around 70 minutes, the natural drop-off for a flight south of the river.
• Stansted Airport (STN): 57.9 km by road, roughly 63 minutes.
• Luton Airport (LTN): 56.9 km by road, about 63 minutes, convenient for an early departure north of the city.
• London City Airport (LCY): 14.5 km by road, around 33 minutes — the quickest run of the six from the centre.
• Southend Airport (SEN): 67.4 km by road, about 74 minutes, the longest of the airport legs.

Allow for the airport's own transfer time on top of the drive, and build it into your buffer rather than into the journey.

One-way car hire to another UK city

Oxford, Cambridge, Stonehenge, The Cotswolds, Bath, Brighton, Windsor, Canterbury, Cardiff & Wales and Edinburgh all appear in our out-of-town pages, which tells you the routes we handle — it does not tell you that a one-way return at the far end is confirmed. Drop-off outside the capital is arranged case by case and is not promised on the site. Ask the manager before you book: the answer depends on the route and the day, not on the car class you pick, so a Luxury saloon and an Economy hatchback get the same reply for the same trip. If you are heading to Edinburgh or Cardiff & Wales, say so at the first message — a long one-way leg changes what we can offer far more than a short hop to Windsor does.

One-way car hire in London with a rail-hub or district drop-off

• St Pancras & King's Cross and Euston: hand the car back before the platform rush and walk to the train rather than parking first.
• Paddington and Victoria: both work as a final leg when the onward journey is by rail rather than by road.
• Waterloo: a short run from the centre and the easiest of the stations to reach from the south bank.
• Canary Wharf and ExCeL London: district drop-offs for a hotel stay or an exhibition, with the car gone before you check in.
• Wembley and Mayfair: the two ends of the same city — an event at one, a hotel at the other.

A station drop-off works best when the train, not the car, is the last leg. Leave the car before the platform rush rather than after it, and keep the return time comfortably ahead of your departure: a delayed hand-over at Waterloo costs you a train, not a parking space.

Matching the drop-off to the car class

The class that suits a drop-off is decided by the last mile, not the first: a Minivan makes sense when seven people and their bags have to reach a terminal, while a Comfort hatchback is easier to leave at a station entrance.

Delivery to any address in the city, including every point in the table above, is agreed with a manager before the booking is fixed — name the return point in the first message and the rest of the route follows from it.

Choosing a car for one-way car hire in London

One-way car hire in London puts a different weight on the class you pick than a round trip does. The car has to suit the road you actually drive, not the road you imagined, and it has to be handed over at the far end with nothing left to sort out. We keep 147 cars on this page across 14 classes, from £22 a day in Crossover and Economy up to £3,300 a day for the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ, so the range covers a solo airport run and a family move in the same booking system.

Classes and daily rates for one-way car hire

A class «from» figure is the entry point of that class, not its ceiling: Premium starts at £55, Economy runs from £22. Weekly bookings are charged at the daily rate times six, monthly at the daily rate times twenty-one.

Automatic or manual for one-way car hire

101 of the 147 cars are automatic and 46 are manual. Manuals sit mostly in the cheaper half of the fleet — Kia Rio, Volkswagen Polo and Fiat 500 are all manual — while the hybrid and electric cars are automatic throughout. Traffic here keeps left and every car is right-hand drive, so the gearbox question is really about how much attention you want left for the road: on a multi-lane roundabout you give way to traffic approaching from the right (Highway Code, rule 185), and an automatic takes the clutch-and-gear decision out of that moment. If your route ends at a station or an airport and the last stretch is unfamiliar, take the automatic and spend the difference on a bigger boot.

Matching the car to a one-way route

• Two people, city to airport: Economy or Crossover, 4–5 seats, petrol, manual — Kia Rio, Hyundai Kona or Fiat 500 at £22–£36 a day.
• Family with luggage: Comfort estate or SUV — Volkswagen Golf Estate at £31, Toyota RAV4 at £40 with all-wheel drive and a hybrid engine.
• Long motorway leg: Comfort or Sedan with automatic — Toyota Corolla at £31 or Volkswagen Passat Variant at £36.
• Group of seven or more: Minivans and Passenger vans — Volkswagen Sharan at £44 for 7 seats, Ford Tourneo at £90 for 9, Ford Transit 17 Seater at £138.
• Zero-emission run: Electric — Volkswagen ID.4 at £171, Tesla Model 3 at £309, with 10 electric cars in the fleet.

Fuel is petrol in 100 cars, diesel in 24, hybrid in 13 and electric in 10; a car with a combustion engine comes with a full tank and goes back full, so pick the fuel you can actually find on the last leg of the route. Five-seat cars dominate the fleet at 98 of 147, so a group of four with bags is the easiest booking to fill. Seven seats exist in nine cars and larger vans in five, and those go first on school-holiday weekends — in our experience a 9-seat Transporter is the hardest car to find at short notice.

Longer one-way car hire in London and how the rate scales

A one-way hire is priced per 24 hours, and that rate is the building block for everything longer: a week is charged at the base rate multiplied by six, a month at the daily rate multiplied by twenty-one. Nothing else changes — the delivery to your address, the agreed drop-off point and the full-to-full fuel rule stay exactly as they are on a single-day booking.

How the weekly and monthly rate works on a one-way hire

• Daily rate: the figure you see against a model, from £22 for a Citroen C3 Aircross or Fiat 500 up to £3,300 for a Lamborghini Aventador SVJ.
• Weekly rate: the daily rate multiplied by six, so a car at £22 a day works out at £132 for the week.
• Monthly rate: the daily rate multiplied by twenty-one, so the same £22 car comes to £462 for the month.
• What stays fixed: delivery to any address in the capital, the drop-off point agreed with a manager, and the tank going out and coming back full.
• What the multiplier does not cover: extra days beyond the week or month are agreed with a manager when booking.

The multiplier is worth checking against the length of your trip before you pick a class. A Comfort car such as the Volkswagen Golf Estate at £31 a day comes to £186 for the week and £651 for the month, while an SUV like the Toyota RAV4 at £40 a day reaches £240 and £840 on the same two multipliers. On a long one-way route — say a month based in one district with weekend trips out — the monthly figure is the one to compare across classes, not the daily headline.

Choosing a class when the hire runs for weeks

Longer bookings shift the argument away from the cheapest daily figure and towards what the car has to do every day. A 1.0-litre Fiat 500 at £22 a day is the entry point of the Economy class, but the same class runs to £72 a day, and Comfort starts at £23 — so the class «from» price tells you where a class starts, never where it ends. Our fleet on this page holds 147 cars across fourteen classes, and the spread inside each one is wide enough that the specific model matters more than the label.

• Economy and Crossover: fourteen cars each, from £22 a day — the cheapest way to cover a month of short urban trips.
• Comfort: fifteen cars from £23 — estates and hatchbacks with more boot space for a longer stay.
• SUV: ten cars from £34 — five seats and a higher driving position for motorway runs.
• Electric: ten cars from £71 — a Volkswagen ID.4 or Mercedes-Benz EQA, with charging to plan around.
• Minivans and passenger vans: six and five cars from £44 and £90 — seven to seventeen seats when the whole group travels together.

Two details matter more on a long hire than on a day. The first is the gearbox: 101 of the 147 cars are automatic and 46 are manual, and a month of left-hand driving on the M25 is easier with two pedals. The second is fuel type — 100 cars run on petrol, 24 on diesel, 13 are hybrid and 10 electric — because a diesel against petrol adds up over four weeks of daily use.

Keeping a longer one-way booking within the rules

A month behind the wheel brings the city's charging schemes into the arithmetic. The Congestion Charge applies when paid on the day of travel or in advance, and rises if paid by midnight on the third day after; it operates 07:00–18:00 Monday to Friday and 12:00–18:00 at weekends and on bank holidays, and is not charged from 25 December to the New Year bank holiday inclusive. ULEZ applies a daily charge to non-compliant vehicles, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, except 25 December, across all 32 boroughs. Who pays road charges, tolls and penalty notices on a hired car is agreed when booking — it is not something the site settles for you.

The practical consequence: on a month-long hire, a compliant petrol or electric car can cost less in charges than a cheaper non-compliant one. Check the vehicle against the TfL vehicle checker before the booking is fixed, and put the charging question to the manager at the same time as the drop-off point.

Driving rules that shape a one-way car hire in London

A one-way route through the capital crosses charging zones, a left-hand-traffic road network and speed limits that change street by street — the rules below decide how you plan the drive, not just how you drive it.

Congestion Charge and ULEZ on a one-way route

Two charges sit inside the driving area, and both hit a one-way route differently depending on where you start and where you leave the car. The Congestion Charge applies when paid on the day of travel or in advance, and rises if paid by midnight on the third day after the trip; it runs 07:00–18:00 Monday to Friday and 12:00–18:00 on Saturdays, Sundays and bank holidays, and is not charged from 25 December through the New Year bank holiday inclusive. The zone sits inside the Inner Ring Road — 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 form its edge, so those roads themselves are outside or on the boundary. ULEZ is the wider one: a daily charge for non-compliant vehicles, 24 hours a day, seven days a week except 25 December, covering all 32 boroughs and more than 1,500 km², with the M25 outside it. Petrol cars and vans must meet Euro 4 (roughly 2006 and later), diesels Euro 6 (September 2016 on), motorcycles Euro 3. Check the plate on the TfL vehicle checker before you commit to a route — a 2005 diesel costs more in charges than a newer petrol car costs in fuel. A PCN is reduced if paid within 14 days.

Left-hand driving, roundabouts and speed limits

All our cars are right-hand drive and the traffic keeps left, so the first mile is the one that catches people out. Highway Code rule 160 puts you on the left unless signs or markings say otherwise, rule 183 keeps you near the left edge when turning, and rule 185 gives way to traffic approaching from the right at a roundabout — which is why the ring runs clockwise. Speed limits: 30 mph (48 km/h) in built-up areas in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, 60 mph (96 km/h) on a single carriageway, 70 mph (112 km/h) on a dual carriageway and on a motorway; lit roads default to 30 mph unless signs say otherwise, and many zones in the capital sign 20 mph, so read the signs rather than the road. Drink limits are 80 mg per 100 ml of blood, 35 µg per 100 ml of breath and 107 mg per 100 ml of urine in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and 50 / 22 / 67 in Scotland. Holding a phone, satnav or tablet is banned even at a red light — penalty points apply, and a driver within 2 years of passing loses the licence; hands-free is allowed if the device does not block your view. Seatbelts are compulsory where fitted, children need a child seat until they reach 135 cm or turn 12, whichever comes first, with a fine.

Tolls on the way out of the capital

• Dartford Crossing (Dart Charge), M25: a per-crossing charge for cars (class B) on a one-off payment or pay as you go, lower if prepaid, usually 6:00–22:00 every day including weekends and holidays, payable by midnight the following day — a PCN applies, lower within 14 days and higher if unpaid.
• Blackwall and Silvertown tunnels: a peak charge northbound 06:00–10:00 and southbound 16:00–19:00 on weekdays, an off-peak charge with Auto Pay from 6:00–22:00 on weekdays and all day at weekends; the penalties were not changed when the charges rose on 21 September 2026.
• Foreign licence: a full valid licence from abroad is good for 12 months from your last entry into Great Britain.

Who pays road charges, tolls and penalty notices on a rented car is agreed when booking — settle it with the manager before the trip rather than after the PCN lands.

What to check in the rental agreement for one-way car hire in London

The agreement is where one-way car hire in London is actually defined, and the two points that matter most are the return address and the return time — both written down, both agreed with a manager before the booking is fixed. Everything else in the document hangs off those two lines, so read them first and read them twice.

The return point and the return time in writing

• Return address: the exact street address, not a district or a postcode area — a car left at the wrong end of Mayfair is not returned to the agreed point.
• Return date and time: the hour, not the day; a morning hand-over and an evening one are different bookings on the same date.
• Delivery address and time: the same three details at the start of the hire, confirmed with a manager before the booking is fixed.
• The pair, not the branch: the agreement fixes two points, and neither has to be a depot — that is the whole shape of the service.
• Changes: a different drop-off is agreed with a manager, just like the original one.

A one-way booking is only as good as its paperwork, and the return line is the one people skim. Read it back to the manager in the first message: if the address you hear is not the address you meant, the route is wrong before the car has moved.

Fuel, condition and the hand-back

The car is supplied clean with a full tank and must come back with a full tank — full-to-full is the only fuel option on the site, with no pre-paid tank and no full-to-empty arrangement. Missing fuel and a refuelling service fee are charged as set out in the rental agreement. The deposit, the insurance excess and the delivery fee live in the same document and are never a figure quoted in advance here. What the agreement does not settle is who pays road charges, tolls and penalty notices on a hired car — that is agreed when booking, so put the question to the manager at the same time as the drop-off address rather than after a PCN arrives. In our experience the hand-back argument is almost always about fuel or about a return time that slipped by an hour, and both are visible in the agreement before you sign anything.

One-way car hire in London for a weekend or a single day

Short one-way trips are the most common shape of the booking: collect near home, drive out, leave the car at the far end and travel on without it. The route decides the class far more than the length of the hire does.

A day trip out of the capital

• Oxford, Cambridge or Windsor: a Comfort estate such as the Volkswagen Golf Estate at £31 a day carries four people and their bags, and the return leg is short enough that fuel barely moves.
• Stonehenge or Bath: a longer motorway run — a Sedan or Comfort automatic, Toyota Corolla at £31, keeps the drive easy and the boot usable.
• Brighton or Canterbury: a Crossover at £22–£58 a day, five seats and a higher driving position for the coast road.
• The Cotswolds: narrow lanes and tight parking — a Kia Rio or Fiat 500 at £22–£31 is easier to place than an SUV.
• A single airport run: an Economy hatchback, one bag, no return to the start point at all.

A day trip is priced as one day, so the class «from» figure is the whole cost of the car: the £22 Crossover and the £31 Comfort estate sit close enough that the boot and the 130 hp of the estate usually win.

For two people the Hyundai Kona or Kia Rio at £36 and £31 covers it; for four with luggage, the £40 Toyota RAV4 with all-wheel drive and a hybrid engine handles a wet weekend on the coast road without a second thought. Book the drop-off before the car — a day trip that ends at a station needs the return time set against a train, not against the drive.

A weekend with two different ends

A weekend one-way is where the delivery model earns its keep: the car arrives at your door on Friday and never comes back to it. Two days at a daily rate, delivery to any address in London, and a drop-off agreed with a manager at the other end of the trip — a hotel in Mayfair on Sunday evening, or a terminal before a Monday flight. A late change of return point has to be re-agreed with a manager, so settle it in the first message.

Comparing classes for one-way car hire in London

Fourteen classes on this page answer fourteen different trips, and the useful comparison is not price against price but seats, boot and gearbox against the route you actually drive. The table below sets the classes side by side on the details that decide a one-way booking.

Classes side by side

A class «from» price is where that class starts, never where it ends: Comfort runs from £23 to £80 and Economy from £22 to £72, so two cars in the same row can be a factor of three apart. Compare the model, not the label.

Which class suits which one-way trip

• Solo or a couple, city to airport: Economy or Crossover — Kia Rio at £31, Hyundai Kona at £36, Fiat 500 at £22 for four seats.
• Family of four with luggage: Comfort estate or SUV — Volkswagen Golf Estate at £31, Kia Sportage at £35, Toyota RAV4 at £40 with all-wheel drive.
• Seven travelling together: Minivans — Volkswagen Sharan at £44, Peugeot 5008 at £65, both seven seats.
• A larger group with bags: Passenger vans — Ford Tourneo at £90 for nine seats, Ford Transit 17 Seater at £138.
• A quiet electric run: Electric — Volkswagen ID.4 at £171, Mercedes-Benz EQA at £171, ten cars in the class.
• An occasion worth marking: Premium from £55, or Luxury from £294 for a Mercedes-Benz S-Class at £294.

Five seats cover 98 of the 147 cars, so the ordinary family booking is the easiest to fill; the eight- to seventeen-seat vans are five cars in total and go first on school-holiday weekends. Petrol accounts for 100 cars, diesel for 24, hybrid for 13 and electric for 10 — pick the fuel you can actually find on the last leg of the route, not the one that looks cheapest on the page.

Common mistakes on a one-way car hire in London

Most one-way bookings that go wrong go wrong on the same handful of details, and every one of them is settled in the first conversation rather than at the kerb. None of them is about the car.

Mistakes worth avoiding

• Naming a district instead of an address: «somewhere in Canary Wharf» is not a return point; the exact address is what gets agreed with a manager.
• Leaving the return time vague: a date without an hour is not a booking, and the drop-off time is what the route is planned around.
• Picking the class before the route: the return leg decides whether you need a boot, seven seats or an automatic, so settle the drop-off first.
• Forgetting the tank: the car goes out full and comes back full, and the last twenty minutes of a one-way trip are the worst time to hunt for a forecourt.
• Leaving the charging question to the end: who pays road charges, tolls and penalty notices on a hired car is agreed when booking, so raise it with the manager early.
• Assuming a drop-off outside the capital: delivery outside London is arranged case by case and is not promised on the site — ask before you book, not after.

The pattern behind all six is the same: a one-way hire has two ends, and both have to be written down before the car moves. A booking that names the return address, the date and the time in the first message tends to run without a single follow-up call — in our experience that is the whole difference between a smooth hand-back and an argument at the kerb.