Dubrovnik Car Hire: Compare Local Rental Deals
One search across the local suppliers who actually hold the cars, with the deposit rules and the border permissions shown before you book rather than at the desk.
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The fleet you are choosing from, counted
Most car hire pages describe a fleet in adjectives. This one counts it. There are 106 cars bookable in Dubrovnik through the local suppliers we search, and the four numbers below are the ones that decide whether a booking goes smoothly or turns into an argument at a desk in Cilipi. They are read from the live listing, not from a brochure, and they move with the season, so treat them as the shape of the market rather than a promise about one car.
83
will take a debit card
Out of 106. This is the single most useful fact about hiring here, and it is the opposite of what the big international desks at the airport will tell you.
50
are automatic
Against 56 manuals. Almost exactly half, which means an automatic is available but never the default. Filter for it or you will be handed a stick.
58
may cross into Montenegro
Ninety-one are cleared for EU countries, but only 58 for non-EU ones. If Kotor is on your list, that filter matters more than the price.
21
seat seven or more
A fifth of the fleet. Enough that a family of six has real choice, few enough that August is not the month to leave it late.
The first hour, from the arrivals door
Dubrovnik Airport sits at Cilipi, roughly twenty kilometres southeast of the city and a little past Cavtat. It is small, which works in your favour: the walk from the aircraft to the car park is short, and the whole sequence below usually takes under forty minutes.
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1
Find the supplier, not the terminal desk
Local suppliers meet you in the car park or a few minutes away by shuttle. The name on your voucher is the name to look for, and it is rarely the one lit up inside the hall.
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2
Hand over the licence and the card you booked with
A UK, EU or EEA licence is enough on its own. From further afield, bring an International Driving Permit alongside it. The card must be in the driver's name.
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3
Say out loud where you are taking it
Montenegro and Bosnia need to be declared and written on the contract. Doing it now costs a few minutes. Doing it at the border costs the trip.
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4
Photograph the car before you touch the wheel
Four corners, the roof, both bumpers, the windscreen and the dashboard showing fuel and mileage. Thirty seconds, and it is the only version of events with a timestamp.
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5
Turn onto the D8 and decide north or south
Left takes you along the coast toward the city and eventually the bridge. Right takes you toward Konavle and the Montenegrin border. The airport sits between the two.
Four things worth settling before you pay
The card in your pocket
Eighty-three of the 106 cars will accept a debit card, and 31 ask for nothing to be held at all. The rule is set by the supplier, not by the country, so it is a filter rather than a negotiation.
Whether you are leaving Croatia
Croatia has been inside Schengen and on the euro since January 2023, so a drive north is now uneventful. Montenegro and Bosnia are outside both, and only 58 cars carry permission to go there.
Which pedal count you can live with
The hills behind the city are steep and the lanes are narrow. Half the fleet is manual, which is fine if you drive one at home and miserable if you have not since your test.
Where the car will sleep
The Old Town is walled and pedestrian. No car goes in. If your room is inside the walls, budget for a garage outside them, and check with the hotel before you book the car rather than after.
20 km
from the airport at Cilipi to the city
92
cars with free cancellation
84
cars with unlimited mileage
64
cars that accept a young driver
The bridge quietly rewrote the drive north
For decades the road from Dubrovnik to the rest of Croatia ran through a twenty-kilometre sliver of Bosnia and Herzegovina at Neum, which meant two passport checks on a domestic journey and a queue that could swallow an hour in August. Guides written before 2022 still say so, and plenty of rental advice online has never been updated.
The Peljesac Bridge opened in July 2022 and it is free to cross. The drive to Split now stays inside Croatia from end to end, which removes the border, removes the need for anyone in the car to carry a passport for that leg, and removes the cross-border permission question entirely. It also puts Ston and the Peljesac vineyards on the way rather than on a detour.
The practical consequence for a booking is small but real: a car that is not cleared to leave the country is now perfectly capable of taking you to Split, Zadar or Zagreb. Only the trip south to Montenegro still needs the paperwork.
Before and after
- Border checks to Split
- two, now none
- Toll on the bridge
- none
- Passports needed
- only going south
- Worth stopping at
- Ston and its walls
Where people actually collect the car
Four places account for almost every pickup in Dubrovnik, and they suit very different trips. Only six cars in the whole listing offer delivery to an address, so choosing the right one of these matters more here than in a bigger city.
Best for anyone heading straight out of the city
You are already on the D8 and already past the worst of the traffic. If the plan is Konavle, the Montenegrin border or a first night in Cavtat, collecting here saves you driving into Dubrovnik only to drive back out. The trade is that you pay for the car on the days you spend inside the walls, where it can do nothing for you.
Best if you arrive by sea or leave by ferry
Gruz holds both the cruise terminal and the Jadrolinija berths. Collecting here works well for a shore day, and it is the natural pickup if you are catching a boat to Korcula or Hvar later in the trip. Parking around the port fills early in season.
Best if you are staying on the peninsula
Most of the larger hotels sit on Lapad, and most of them have their own parking, which is the thing that actually decides whether a car is worth having. Pick up on the day you plan to use it rather than the day you land.
Best for a short, deliberate hire
Nothing collects inside the walls, because nothing drives inside the walls. The pickups near Pile and Ploce are a walk from the gates and suit people who want the car for two days in the middle of a week, not for the whole stay.
What each class costs per day
The figures below are the middle of the market rather than the headline. We sampled the live listing on three separate dates, one in the first week of September, one at the end of the month and one in late October, and took the range that held across all three. The cheapest car in the city came out between six and eight euros a day on every sample, which is real but is one or two cars from a small supplier, not a class.
| Class | In the city | Typical low | Typical high | What you tend to get |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Compact and economy | 30 cars | 36 EUR | 51 EUR | Fiat Panda, Toyota Yaris, VW Polo |
| Family and estate | 38 cars | 55 EUR | 78 EUR | VW Golf, Skoda Octavia, Renault Megane |
| SUV and crossover | 27 cars | 64 EUR | 99 EUR | Peugeot 2008, VW T-Roc, Nissan Qashqai |
| Seven seats and vans | 21 cars | 93 EUR | 120 EUR | VW Touran, Citroen Berlingo, Ford Tourneo |
Premium is three cars and there is a single convertible in the city, so neither is a range worth quoting. Nothing in the listing is electric or hybrid, and nothing has four-wheel drive.
Questions people ask before booking here
Probably not for the first two days. The Old Town is walled and pedestrian, and everything inside it is a walk. A car earns its place the moment you want Konavle, Ston, the Peljesac vineyards or the drive south, and many visitors hire for the middle of the week rather than the whole stay.
Only if the car is cleared for it. Ninety-one of the 106 cars may cross into EU countries, but just 58 carry permission for non-EU ones, and Montenegro and Bosnia are both outside the EU. Declare the trip when you collect so it goes on the contract, and expect a cross-border fee and a green card.
For 83 of the 106 cars, yes. That is unusually high, and it is because the suppliers here are mostly local businesses rather than international chains. Thirty-one cars hold nothing at all. Filter for it before you compare prices rather than after.
No. The split is 56 manual to 50 automatic, so the odds are slightly against you. Set the filter. The roads behind the city are steep enough that this is not a small preference if you are out of practice.
Outside the walls. The garages and open lots around Gruz and above Ploce are where most visitors end up, and hotel parking on Lapad is the easiest option of all. Prices climb steeply in July and August, so ask your accommodation before you book the car.
See what is actually free on your dates
The counts on this page move with the calendar. Put your dates in and the list narrows to the cars a supplier will really hand over, with the card rule and the border permission attached to each one.
Compare cars in Dubrovnik