Hiring a car at London Airport Heathrow

What this means for your booking

• The cheapest sticker is usually not the cheapest car. With 87% of suppliers charging about €308 for a second driver, two cars advertised a few euro apart can be €308 apart by the time you drive away. We put that fee into every price the moment you say you need one.
• Check your card limit before you travel. The typical hold here is €1,296 on the main driver's card. It is a pre-authorisation rather than a charge, but it has to fit.
• A month is not four times a week. The median week here is €277 and the median month €1553 — worse per day, which is why back-to-back rentals often beat one long booking on hires of 40 days or more.
• The airport is usually the cheapest place to collect. In every market we have measured, that held — town pick-ups cost more, not less, because the suppliers compete at the terminal. See every pick-up point here.

Getting to the car

If you land late. 51% of the suppliers we priced shut by 22:00, and the typical desk closes at 22:30. A delayed flight is the difference between collecting your car and paying for a night you did not plan. 7% are open 24 hours, so a late flight does not rule out hiring — it rules out most of the choice.
What it costs. 54% of suppliers here will not collect a 23:30 arrival at all. Of those that will, 30% add a fee — typically €49 on top of the price you were quoted for a daytime pick-up. A 06:00 pick-up is dearer still, about €117, and 20% of suppliers do not offer one. Measured across 470 offers that publish their desk hours; a supplier that does not publish them is not counted as open.

Not every supplier here hands you the keys in the terminal. Across 14 searches, this is how collection splits:

• Free shuttle service 86%
• In terminal 9%
• Transfer Service 4%

Budget time for a shuttle. 86% of suppliers here are off-airport, which is usually why they are cheaper. It is a real cost in minutes at both ends, and worth weighing against the saving.

21 suppliers appeared here across our searches, at several separate pick-up points. See which is nearest you and what each costs.

The fine print, measured

These conditions vary more between airports than most people expect. We measure each of them everywhere we sweep: deposits · debit cards · second-driver fees · desk hours.

Deposit banding, as the suppliers classify it themselves: high deposit 43% · low deposit 23% · average deposit 22% · no deposit 8% · low deposit option available 8%.

What each supplier actually costs here

21 suppliers appeared in our searches. These are the ones you are most likely to be offered — chosen by how often they came up, then ordered by what they really cost, which is rarely the same order as the advertised price.

Prices are for a one-week hire. Mixing rental lengths would make the column meaningless — a fee charged once per rental is a very different share of a week than of a month — so this table is built from week-long searches only.

Deposits vary far more than prices. DRIVUS holds €3,498 on the main driver's card against Fairview Vehicle Hire's €295. It is released after you return the car, but it has to fit.

"With 2nd driver" is the advertised rental plus that supplier's additional-driver fee — our definition of the total, and the only one we rank on. Full cover is quoted separately and never added in: many travellers hold annual excess insurance or rely on a card, and folding in an assumed purchase is precisely the trick this site exists to expose. Medians across 14 searches; a supplier that does not publish a fee is not counted as free. How we measure this.