Young driver and additional driver fees in Greece

What is the minimum and maximum age to rent a vehicle in Greece?

The law sets the age at which you can hold a licence, not the age at which a company will rent to you. Under article 6 of ΠΔ 51/2012, category B is granted at 18, AM at 16, A1 at 18, A2 at 20 and A at 24 — reduced to 22 if the applicant has already held an A2 licence for two years. So for two-wheelers part of the age question is already legal. For cars, the thresholds you see at booking are set by the company: Autohellas Hertz requires 21 for groups A, B, Z, J and V2 and 25 for every other group, and separately accepts drivers of 19 and 20 on a restricted group list, so its two statements have to be read together. Avis Greece requires 21, rising to 25 for some categories and for the Prestige fleet; Europcar Greece requires 21 for Mini and Economy and 23 for all other categories; Drive Hellas requires 23; mycarhire.gr requires 21 for categories A, B, C and D and 23 for E, F and H; Rent a Wheel requires 25.

The same is true at the top of the scale. Europcar Greece charges drivers over 75 a senior driver fee of 10 euro per day excluding VAT and airport fee, capped at 140 euro, and will not rent at all to a driver over 80. Drive Hellas sets a maximum driver age of 69, and mycarhire.gr sets it at 75. Those three numbers do not agree, so do not assume a usual upper limit. Several companies state no upper limit in their published terms, which means they do not write one down — not necessarily that none is applied at the desk.

How much is the young driver fee in Greece?

There is no single shape to it. The companies checked charge in at least four different ways, each with its own cut-off age:

• Autohellas Hertz bands the charge by age and by car group. At 19 and 20 only groups A, B, Z, J, AE, ZE and V2 are available, at 10 euro per day plus ΦΠΑ, and every other group is unavailable. At 21 to 24 there is no extra charge on A, B, Z, J, V2 and AE, 10 euro per day plus ΦΠΑ on C, D, F, K, M, P, T, R and BE, and 15 euro per day plus ΦΠΑ on E, EM, N, U, V, DE, NM, O, V3, V4, Y, EE and FE. From 25 there is no charge on any group.
• Avis Greece applies one flat fee to every renter under 25: 10 euro per day plus ΦΠΑ, capped at 10 days.
• Europcar Greece charges drivers over 21 and under 23 a daily surcharge of 8 euro excluding VAT and airport fee, with a maximum of 112 euro per rental per renter. There are no restrictions or surcharges from 23.
• Rent a Wheel's published terms say both that every driver must be at least 25 for all car groups and that drivers under 25 pay 20 euro per day plus ΦΠΑ, with the under-25 age required to be declared at least three days before the rental. The two statements do not sit together, so ask the company directly whether it rents to under-25s at all.
• Rental Center Crete states that it does not charge any extra cost for young drivers under 25, with a minimum age of 21 — but the fleet is still banded: categories A and B at 21, C, C1, D, D1, K, K1 and K2 at 23, and everything else only from 25.

Under 25 does not automatically mean a surcharge

The common travel-article shorthand — under 25, pay a fee — is wrong in Greece. At Autohellas Hertz a 22-year-old pays nothing for a small car and 15 euro per day for a large one, so the answer depends on which vehicle is booked as much as on the driver. At Europcar Greece the surcharge stops at 23 rather than 25. At Rental Center Crete, by its own account, there is none at any age above its minimum.

The surcharge can also take a form that is not money. At Autohellas Hertz, drivers of 19 and 20 are not offered most of the fleet at all: those groups are listed as unavailable rather than priced. A refusal and a fee are two versions of the same policy, and only one of them shows up as a line on a quote.

How long must you have held your licence?

This is the one condition that appeared at every company in the sample: the licence must have been held for at least one year, meaning twelve months before the pick-up date. Autohellas Hertz states it as a general rule and repeats it as a condition of its 19-to-20 band. Europcar Greece extends it explicitly to everyone on the contract: all drivers must hold a full and valid driving licence for a minimum of 12 months. Avis Greece, Drive Hellas, Rent a Wheel, mycarhire.gr and Rental Center Crete state the same requirement.

Note what is being tested. It is the age of the licence, not the age of the person. A 35-year-old who passed their test six months ago fails this condition, while a 22-year-old who has held a licence for three years passes it.

Additional driver fees, and why an undeclared driver is a serious risk

Across the sample the charge runs from 4 to 7.50 euro per day, and the cap matters as much as the daily rate. Autohellas Hertz charges 7.5 euro per day for each additional driver, with no cap stated. Avis Greece charges 4 euro per day up to a maximum of 40 euro plus ΦΠΑ, per rental contract per driver. Europcar Greece charges 4 euro per day plus VAT and airport fees. Rent a Wheel charges 5 euro per day up to a maximum of 50 euro plus ΦΠΑ, per contract per driver. On a two-week rental, a lower uncapped daily rate can end up costing more than a higher capped one. Europcar Greece also requires every additional driver to present a valid credit card in their own name, so adding a driver at the desk can fail for a reason that has nothing to do with age or money.

The reason the fee is worth paying is cover. Drive Hellas puts it plainly: driving by an undeclared driver is not covered by any insurance. ACE Rent a Car excludes damage caused by a driver not named in the rental agreement, and mycarhire.gr makes the renter fully liable for any damage if the vehicle was being driven by someone other than the driver named in the contract. Autohellas Hertz says something narrower: that drivers it has authorised are exempted from liability for fire damage to the rented car and are insured for third-party liability. Its terms do not say what happens to the CDW waiver if an unauthorised driver is at the wheel.

One careful clarification about compulsory motor insurance, which is a different thing from the rental company's waiver. Under article 11(1) of ΠΔ 237/1986, as presented by the Επαγγελματικό Επιμελητήριο Αθηνών (Athens Professional Chamber), the insurer cannot raise defences arising from the insurance contract against the injured third party, but expressly reserves the right to bring an action against the policyholder, the insured and the driver. In practice: the person you injure is still compensated, and the cost can then be pursued against you. It is not correct to say nobody is covered.

Surcharge, excess and deposit are three different amounts

The daily young-driver charge is money you spend and never get back. The απαλλαγή (excess) is the ceiling on what you owe if the vehicle is damaged. The εγγύηση (deposit) is money temporarily frozen on your card. Companies connect these three differently. Autohellas Hertz blocks a deposit equal to the excess included in the rental, with CDW excesses of 650, 800, 1,000, 1,300 or 3,000 euro depending on the group, and notes that release can take up to 14 days. Europcar Greece decouples them: a flat deposit of 290 or 390 euro in total by group, against a CDW excess of 700, 800 or 1,300 euro plus VAT.

A young driver can be hit on all three at once, and there is a fourth effect that is easy to miss. At Autohellas Hertz the full excess waiver, Super Cover, is not sold to drivers aged 19 and 20. The youngest driver can therefore be excluded from precisely the product that would have reduced their exposure, so their worst case stays larger than an older driver's even after the surcharge has been paid.

What to check before you book

These charges are almost always quoted before tax. Autohellas Hertz notes that all its prices and charges are subject to ΦΠΑ and that a municipal tax of 0.5% of the rental price applies in some areas, while the airport surcharge is 6% except at Athens Eleftherios Venizelos, where it is 13%, calculated on the total before taxes and fuel charges. Europcar Greece quotes its young-driver and senior-driver fees excluding VAT and airport fee, and its additional-driver fee plus VAT and airport fees. A charge of 10 euro per day at an airport desk is not 10 euro per day.

Before you commit:

• Ask for the total with ΦΠΑ and location fees included, not the net daily surcharge.
• Ask whether the young-driver charge is capped, and after how many days.
• None of the sources checked states whether a young additional driver is charged a young-driver fee as well, and some frame the surcharge around the renter rather than every driver. Ask.
• Look at the excess and the deposit separately, and ask how long the deposit release takes.
• Make sure every driver is named on the rental agreement before they take the wheel.

What this guide does not cover

The sample was car rental companies. For scooters, motorcycles, quads and bicycles the terms are set by each company and were not checked systematically. One small operator on Nisyros, for example, requires a minimum rider age of 21 for a scooter, with an AM or A licence up to 50cc and an A licence above that, and states no young-rider surcharge. That is a single illustration, not a market pattern. Boat rental was not researched at all, and nothing above should be carried across to it.

Pricing transparency in vehicle rental has been raised at EU level: the European Commission, with the national consumer authorities of the CPC Network, obtained commitments from major car rental companies on pricing transparency and clearer terms and conditions, including clarity on insurance and waiver policies and tank refuelling options, published on 19/01/2017, with an assessment of implementation published on 25/03/2019. That does not mean a young-driver fee has to appear in a headline price.

None of the operator documents used here carries a revision date, so any figure may already have been superseded. Read the numbers above as illustrations of the shape these charges take, not as current prices. Rules and pricing policies change, and in every case the terms of the rental company you sign with govern the contract.