Car Hire from Geneva Airport - Driving in France & Switzerland

Transportation, Travel and Trips
1

Hi, I am flying in to Geneva Airport and wish hire a car and spend time driving in both France and Switzerland. I understand that there are potential issues both in terms of cross-border rental authorisation and surcharges.

Does anyone have experience of doing this?

In particular:
(1) Do any of the hire companies restrict (or not restrict) cross-border hire?
(2) Do any of the hire companies charge (or not charge) additional fees for cross-border travel?

Drop off point will be the same. I don’t mind whether it is the French or Swiss side. And the less expensive option if there is a cost differential hiring in CH vs FR.

Many thanks in advance for your help

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2

I don’t think anyone can give you a definitive answer of which side is cheaper without knowing duration, type of car, options etc. It shouldn’t be too difficult to check the websites of the rental car companies and/or rental agents.

3

No, I don’t believe any of the companies prohibit transborder driving. Some may apply a surcharge depending on the situation. i.e. driver age or amount of time spent in each country. Or if you are renting a top-end car they could limit you to Switzerland due to higher crime rate in France.

They will ask you if you intend to drive in the other country as the want to give you the car registered in the appropriate country. Otherwise you could be stopped at a border and pay import fees.

4

The only surcharge refers to breakdown insurance, personally I never buy add ons as they are expensive & where they make the most profit. The chance of a 3 month old car breaking down? Quite small…

5

Where are you resident? IIRC, the main issue is if you are resident in one country and then hire a car in another country and then drive it into your country of residence without going through the required importation admin.

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6

Thank you all for your replies.

I have been in contact with Alamo (who also happened to offer the best deal) and they confirmed that this is a non-event - provided that I am not planning to drive into some of the more dodgy areas of Europe :slight_smile:

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7

Just make sure you are not an EU resident, renting in Switzerland, and driving back into the EU, and you should be ok

8

Or if you are make sure it’s an EU registered car.

9

That’s no longer an issue for hire cars, it was for 2 years before COVID, at the time the rental base at GVA was full of German registered cars.

10

So they rent EU registered cars in Switzerland to EU residents? That’s quite smart

11

They did. And while I would have expected them to be French, as most companies also have business in the French sector, it turned out they were mostly German registered.

Also much of the problem disappeared with Brexit as the Brits became non-EU.

12

Nothing to do with Brits or BREXIT, the law was amended to allow hire cars to be exempted from the rule.

13

I didn’t hear about this rule change. Does this mean we can now rent cars in Germany/France etc. and drive them in Switzerland?

14

The problem first showed up when the UK was still in EU. British skiers would fly into Geneva, rent a car from the Swiss side and drive to France.

15

You can, for up to 8 days from the start of the rental contract (or for three days later in the contract). You may need a form 15.25.

16

Update: There were no issues in my hiring the vehicle on the French side and driving in both France and Switzerland. The French registered car did not have either a Swiss autobahn vignette nor did it have a blue parking uhr/clock; these had to be purchased separately.

Whilst it was not an issue for me, beware of a potential issue: at the airport, you cannot pass from the Swiss sector to the French sector without a boarding pass that indicates that you have landed or are departing within 24 hours. To transit you will also need to present evidence that you are hiring a vehicle. I understand that there is no public transport nor is it possible to walk around the airport from the one sector to the other. It appears that the only alternative is to take a taxi (unless you have some other form of transport available).

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