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Get startedThe romantic version of a European road trip involves a map, a coastline and no particular plan.
The version that actually happens involves discovering at a rental desk in Milan that your licence is not enough, your card is not accepted, and the price you booked was not the price. All three are avoidable, and all three catch people every summer.
Here is what to sort before you go, based on what the rental companies and the driving authorities actually publish.
The Age Rules Are Not What Americans Expect
Start here, because it determines whether the trip is possible at all.
Minimum hire ages in Europe are set country by country and they are frequently lower than in the United States. Avis lists France, Italy, Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Poland, Sweden and Switzerland at 18 to 19, Germany at 19, and Greece, Ireland and Spain at 21, according to its under-25 hire page.
The United Kingdom is the outlier in the other direction. Avis UK sets its minimum at 23, and additionally requires that you have "held a driving licence for at least one year".
That licence-held condition is worth pausing on. It catches people who passed a test recently, and it is a separate requirement from age. Someone of 25 who qualified eight months ago can fail it.
So what does this mean for planning a route? That the country you collect the car in matters as much as your age, and a trip that starts in Britain may be impossible for a group that could rent freely in France.
The Surcharge, and the Cap That Changes Everything
Young-driver fees apply across Europe, and they are considerably smaller than their American equivalents.
Avis publishes approximate daily figures of around £40 in the UK, £26 in France, £17 in Spain, £16 in Italy and £9 in Germany, noting that "These fees are capped at 10 days".
The cap is the part worth planning around. A ten-day surcharge on a fortnight's rental is the same as a ten-day surcharge on a ten-day rental, which means the marginal cost of extending a trip falls sharply once you pass that point.
⚠️ Treat those figures as an order of magnitude rather than a price list. Avis itself calls them approximate and states elsewhere that the amount "varies by country and will be quoted when you book". They were checked in August 2026.
Your Licence, and the Document That Is Not a Licence
The most misunderstood part of driving in Europe on a foreign licence.
An International Driving Permit translates your existing licence. AAA, which states it is "one of two official organizations authorized by the U.S. Department of State to issue IDPs", is explicit that it "is only a translation of the license, not a license to drive". It renders your details into ten languages, AAA describes it as valid identification in 150 countries, and the permit fee is $20.
Three consequences follow, and each one trips people up.
You carry both documents. Avis states that "An International Driver's Permit is not acceptable by itself" and must be presented with your original licence.
Only an authorised issuer in your own country can produce one. AAA states plainly that "Another country cannot issue an IDP to be used in conjunction with a US driver's license". So a permit offered as part of a travel product or membership, particularly one sold by a company based elsewhere, is not the document AAA describes. If you hold a US licence, get the permit from an authorised US organisation.
It is not a universal European solution. This is the part that surprises people most. The European Union's own guidance states that international driving permits "are not regulated at EU level and may not be recognised" in other EU countries, and advises checking with authorities in your destination.
There is also more than one kind. The UK government notes that three separate conventions exist, from 1926, 1949 and 1968, and which one applies depends on the country you are visiting.
AAA notes that many countries require an IDP to drive legally, naming Hungary as one that officially recognises only IDPs, and adds that rental companies may require one even where a government does not. The practical answer: check your specific countries, and get the permit anyway if you are crossing several. It costs $20 and removes an argument at a counter.
The Card Problem
Covered briefly here because it stops trips before they start.
Rental companies generally want a credit card in the driver's name. Avis states that most US locations accept debit as credit identification only "if you are at least 25", and that prepaid debit and gift cards are not accepted as credit identification at all.
For a European trip the practical rules are the same in shape. Bring a credit card in the driver's name, expect a hold to be placed against it for the estimated charges, and make sure the available limit covers that hold plus your spending for the trip. A card that is technically valid but nearly maxed out fails at the counter just as completely as no card at all.
Avis also publishes UK requirements that go beyond the card. Photo identification is needed for international rentals, along with proof of address less than three months old. It notes specifically that "Your driving licence will not be accepted as proof of address".
Planning the Route Around Costs, Not Distance
A European road trip crosses price levels as well as borders, and the differences are large enough to shape a route.
Eurostat's 2024 price level indices, with the EU average as 100, put Denmark at 143.1 for household final consumption against Norway at 124.0. Its analysis of the 2025 survey round found Denmark had the highest consumer price level in the EU, around 40% above the average, along with the most expensive restaurants and hotels in the union.
Two things follow for a driving trip specifically. Where you sleep and eat matters more than where you drive, because accommodation and restaurants are the categories with the widest variation. And a route that spends its nights in cheaper countries and its days in expensive ones costs meaningfully less than the reverse, without changing what you actually see.
For working out the numbers before committing, our guide to the cost of backpacking Europe covers the ground-level version. Our guide to keeping a budgeting journal is a practical way to track it once you are moving.
Cross-Border Driving Has Its Own Rules
Easy to overlook when the borders are open and the driving feels continuous.
Before any of that, confirm the supplier behind your booking, since terms differ by rental company rather than by platform. Check the rental agreement permits the countries you intend to enter. Many agreements restrict travel into certain countries, and crossing a border the contract excludes can void your cover entirely. This is a contract question rather than a legal one, and it is answered before you book.
Vignettes and tolls differ by country. Several require a purchased windscreen sticker for motorway use, sold in advance rather than at a booth, and penalties for driving without one apply immediately.
Equipment requirements vary. Some countries mandate specific items be carried in the vehicle. A rental collected in one country may not be equipped for the rules of another.
Low-emission zones exist in many cities and increasingly require registration in advance. A fine arrives at the rental company and is passed to you with an administration fee attached.
None of these is difficult. All of them are cheaper to resolve before departure than after.
One-Way Rentals and the Fee That Surprises People
The trip most people actually want, and the one with the largest hidden cost.
Collecting in one city and returning in another attracts a one-way fee, and across borders that fee can be very large indeed, sometimes exceeding the rental itself. The reason is logistical rather than punitive: the company has to get the car back.
Two ways around it. Loop the route so you return where you started, which is often only slightly longer than the point-to-point version. Or check the fee before committing to the shape of the trip, because it may be smaller within one country and enormous across two, which changes where you fly into. Platforms that handle this routinely publish a one-way rentals page worth reading before you plan a route.
This is the single most common way a road trip budget doubles, and it is entirely visible at booking if you look for it.
Who Drives, and Why It Is a Money Question
Worth deciding early, because it interacts with everything above.
Additional drivers usually cost extra, charged per day, and each one has to meet the same age, licence and record requirements as the main driver. A group of four where only one person qualifies is not a group of four drivers.
The named driver on the booking should be the one whose card is used. Rental companies generally require the card to be in the main driver's name, which means the person driving and the person paying cannot easily be different people. For a group splitting costs, that is worth sorting in advance rather than at the desk.
Anyone driving must be on the agreement. Letting a friend take a turn at the wheel because they are fresher is the single easiest way to void your cover completely, and it is a common informal arrangement on long drives.
Do the arithmetic on a second driver. For a long route it is often worth the daily fee simply to share the driving safely. For a short one it rarely is. The failure mode is deciding this halfway through a long day rather than at booking.
What to Check on the Car Before You Leave the Lot
Five minutes that prevents the most common dispute in car rental.
Photograph everything, with timestamps. All four sides, both bumpers, the wheels, the windscreen and the roof. Existing damage that is not recorded becomes your damage on return.
Check the fuel policy and the actual fuel level, and photograph the gauge. Full-to-full is the policy that costs least where it is offered, and a car handed over at three-quarters under a full-to-full agreement is a charge waiting to happen.
Confirm the tyres and the spare. Long European drives are hard on tyres, and a missing or flat spare is discovered at the worst possible moment.
Find out what the car takes before your first fill. Misfuelling is expensive, entirely your responsibility, and easier to do than people expect in an unfamiliar country with unfamiliar pump labelling.
Check for a warning triangle and high-visibility vest, since several countries require them to be carried and a rental collected elsewhere may not have them.
None of this is glamorous. It is the difference between a deposit returned and a deposit argued about from another country a month later.
Booking Platforms and What They Can Actually Change
Comparison sites are where most people start, and it helps to know what they do.
The category divides in two. Meta-search sites compare prices and pass you to whoever supplies the car, so your contract and your support sit with that supplier. Booking platforms, sometimes called brokers, are themselves the contracting party, handling the booking and any problems with it.
QEEQ is an example of the second kind. Its own announcement of its rebrand from EasyRentCars, published in April 2020, describes coverage of 200 countries and more than 100,000 rental locations, operating from Hong Kong, with a searchable location index covering them.
What a platform can do is surface the total earlier and let you compare suppliers whose age rules and fees differ, which for a young driver crossing several countries is genuinely useful. What it cannot do is waive an age surcharge, change a minimum age, or make an IDP unnecessary. Those are set by the rental company and by national rules.
⚠️ One caution applying to any intermediary. On Trustpilot, where QEEQ holds a score of 4.5 out of 5 across nearly 21,000 reviews, the most common complaints concern unexpected additional charges and losses through currency conversion. Both are the characteristic failure modes of booking through a third party: a total that grows between reservation and collection, and a currency choice made on your behalf. Confirm the currency you are charged in, and get the full expected total in writing before you travel.
College Life, the global club for young internationals, hears the same story every summer from members planning a first trip: the route was the fun part, and the paperwork was where the money went.
A Sensible Order of Operations
Decide the collection country first, since minimum ages differ and the UK is stricter than most of the continent.
Check the driver's age and licence-held duration against that country's rules before booking anything else.
Sort the credit card, in the driver's name, with headroom for a hold.
Get an IDP from an authorised issuer at home if you hold a non-European licence, and carry your original licence with it.
Confirm the agreement permits every country on your route, and check the one-way fee if you are not looping.
Then plan the route, with nights weighted toward cheaper countries.
That order matters because the first three can make a trip impossible, and it is considerably better to find that out in advance than at a desk. Our Europe backpacking guide covers the version of this trip that does not involve driving at all, which is sometimes the right answer for a group under 23.
Frequently Asked Questions
How old do you have to be to rent a car in Europe? It varies by country. Avis lists several countries at 18 or 19, Germany at 19, and Greece, Ireland and Spain at 21, while the UK requires 23 plus a licence held for at least a year. Check the country you collect in rather than assuming a European standard.
Do I need an International Driving Permit in Europe? It depends on the country, and sometimes on the rental company. It is a translation of your licence rather than a licence itself, and must be carried with your original. The EU warns that IDPs are not regulated at EU level and may not be recognised everywhere.
Can I get an International Driving Permit abroad? Not for a US licence. AAA states that another country cannot issue an IDP for use with a US driving licence, so it must come from an authorised organisation in the United States.
How much is the young driver fee in Europe? Avis publishes approximate figures from around £9 a day in Germany to £40 in the UK, capped at ten days. Treat these as indicative and get the actual figure quoted at booking.
Why are one-way rentals so expensive? Because the company has to return the car to where it started. Cross-border one-way fees can exceed the rental cost itself, which is why looping a route is often cheaper than a point-to-point trip.
Can a booking site remove the age surcharge? No. Age fees are set by the rental company and by local rules. A platform can help you find suppliers whose policies differ, which sometimes saves more than comparing headline rates.
Can my friend share the driving? Only if they are named on the agreement, meet the same age and licence conditions, and the additional driver fee is paid. Letting an unnamed driver take a turn is the easiest way to void your cover entirely.
What should I check before driving off the lot? Photograph every panel, the wheels and the windscreen with timestamps, check the fuel policy against the actual gauge, confirm the spare tyre, and find out which fuel the car takes before your first fill.