Renting a car from the airport is a vey convenient way to explore a new city independently, but convenience has a price, and it’s often very high. Once you’ve added the airport fee, the damage insurance, and the liability insurance on top of the price of your rental, you’re often looking at a daily amount that reaches three figures. Car rental companies do vary their prices from one airport to the next, however, and some are significantly cheaper than others.
Photo: Songquan Deng/Shutterstock
The Cheapest and the Most Expensive US Airports to Rent a Car
This fall, CheapCarRental.com compared car rental rates in 100 US airport and ranked them from the cheapest to the most expensive. During the process, they noticed that fall rates (from September 1 to November 31, 2024) were about 28 percent cheaper than summer rates — another good reason to travel during shoulder season.
What’s striking about this survey is the fact that the average price of renting a vehicle from the priciest airport on the list is an impressive 2.3 times more expensive than the renting one from the cheapest airport. The reason behind the price discrepancy isn’t easily explained; there are large, busy, and well-connected airports, as well as smaller airports, on both ends of the ranking.
The 10 cheapest US airports from where to rent this fall a car are:
- Raleigh, North Carolina (RDU) with an average daily rate of $41
- Bozeman, Montana (BZN): $42
- Kahului, Hawaii (OGG): $45
- Portland, Oregon (PDX): $45
- San Juan, Puerto Rico (SJU): $47
- Miami, Florida (MIA): $47
- Fort Myers, Florida (RSW): $47
- Tampa, Florida (TPA): $47
- Honolulu, Hawaii (HNL): $48
- F. Lauderdale, Florida (FLL): $48
The 10 most expensive US airport where to rent a car are:
- Little Rock, Arkansas (LIT) with an average daily rate of $95
- Charleston, South Carolina (CHS): $91
- Madison, Wisconsin (MAD): $87
- Reno, Nevada (RNO): $86
- St.Petersburg, Florida (PIE): $86
- Boise, Idaho (BOI): $85
- Palm Springs, California (PSP): $83
- Colorado Springs, Colorado (COS): $82
- San Francisco, California (SFO): $82
- Los Angeles, California (LAX): $80
