Airport car hire price index, November 2026

By the DayRunner team · 11 November 2026

Orlando and Queenstown were level as the dearest place to hire a compact car of the 37 airports we track. Both came in at about NZ$215 a day (US$121) for pick-ups 11 to 24 Nov 2026. Lisbon was the cheapest at NZ$25 (€13), so the dearest cost almost nine times as much.

The middle airport was Paris CDG at NZ$90 (US$51, €45) a day. These are 3-day hires, picked up and dropped off at each city's main airport, from one Rate Pulse sweep of public rentalcars.com prices on 10 Nov 2026. That's just under 200,000 offers.

The numbers to quote

• Dearest: Orlando and Queenstown, level at NZ$215 (US$121) a day.
• Cheapest: Lisbon, NZ$25 (US$14, €13) a day.
• Middle of the 37: NZ$90 (US$51) a day.
• New Zealand: Queenstown =1st, Christchurch 4th at NZ$178, Auckland 11th at NZ$130.
• Australia: Brisbane A$84, Sydney A$81, Melbourne A$64.
• Biggest swing by pick-up day: Frankfurt, from €39 to €104 a day.

All 37 airports, ranked

Dearest first. "Typical day" is the middle of the 14 daily medians. The last column is the cheapest and dearest pick-up day's median, in NZD.

Local currency and USD are converted from NZD at the 9 Nov 2026 reference rates and rounded, so read NZD as the measured figure.

What stood out

North America was the dearest region. All seven of its airports were in the dearest nine, and its middle airport was NZ$162 a day. Europe's middle airport was NZ$66, Latin America's about NZ$68 and Asia-Pacific's NZ$103.

New Zealand sits near the top, and the pick-up day matters a lot there. A Queenstown compact ran from NZ$182 for a Sunday 22 Nov pick-up to NZ$261 for Saturday 14 Nov. Christchurch sat between NZ$144 and NZ$191 most days, then jumped to NZ$269 for Sunday 22 Nov.

The Tasman gap is wide. Auckland's NZ$130 was about 1.6 times Melbourne's NZ$79 (A$64). Brisbane and Sydney were dearer than Paris and London.

Frankfurt has a weekly rhythm. Monday to Wednesday pick-ups ran NZ$177 to NZ$207 a day. Thursday to Sunday ran NZ$78 to NZ$108. Munich had the same shape, gentler.

New York got dearer heading into Thanksgiving (Thu 26 Nov). Pick-ups from Thu 19 Nov ran NZ$176 to NZ$260 a day, against NZ$135 to NZ$170 the week before.

Some swings are thin supply, not the market. Bangkok's dearest days had 4 to 7 compact offers each, and Sydney's one dear day (Thu 12 Nov, NZ$200) had half the usual number of offers.

Desk location, automatics and SUVs

These cover all 38 airports and every car type, from the same sweep.

In-terminal desks usually cost more. The typical in-terminal brand priced 6% above its airport's market rate. The typical shuttle-bus brand priced 28% below. At the 29 airports with both kinds of desk, in-terminal was dearer at 20, level at 1 and cheaper at 8, including Paris and Amsterdam. More in does an in-terminal desk cost more?

Automatics are the norm in some places and not in others. They made up 40% of offers at Lisbon and 43% at Athens, against 98 to 99% at the three New Zealand airports and 100% at 11 airports, including every US one. Unlimited km was on every offer at 22 airports, including all three in New Zealand, but only 61% at Rio de Janeiro and 63% at London Heathrow.

An SUV costs a median 1.28 times a compact at the same airport on the same pick-up day. The step ran from 1.06 times at Lisbon and Málaga to 2.54 times at Mexico City. Auckland (1.61) and Christchurch (1.58) were well above the median. Queenstown (1.26) was just under it.

If you're hiring a car

• Check two or three pick-up days either side of your plan. At 16 of the 37 airports the dearest day was at least 1.4 times the cheapest.
• Look past the in-terminal desks. A shuttle desk nearby is usually cheaper.
• If you need an automatic in southern Europe, book early. They're as few as 4 in 10 offers there.

If you run a rental fleet

• Price against the middle of your own airport, for your car type and pick-up day, not one flat rate.
• Check your category steps. An SUV premium copied from another market can be miles off yours.
• If your desk is in the terminal and your price sits under the shuttle brands, ask what that's buying you.

How we got these numbers

• One sweep of public rentalcars.com search results on 10 Nov 2026, searched from New Zealand, at each city's main airport.
• 3-day hires, picked up and dropped off at the airport on each of 14 days, 11 to 24 Nov 2026. Driver aged 30. Up to 500 offers per search.
• Daily rate is the 3-day total divided by 3, in NZD as the site shows it to a New Zealand searcher.
• Compact cars only, so it's like for like. For each airport we took the median compact rate for each pick-up day (days with 5 or more compact offers), then the median of those 14 daily figures.
• Desk location: each brand's price against its airport's market rate for the same car type and pick-up day, for brands with 10 or more offers, grouped by the desk type the booking site lists.
• Currency conversions use the ECB euro reference rates for 9 Nov 2026, with Chilean, Colombian, Peruvian and Argentine pesos and soles from open exchange rates.
• Full method: how Rate Pulse works.

Limits

• Advertised prices, not what customers paid or brands earned.
• One booking site. It doesn't show every brand or every channel.
• Searched from New Zealand. Someone searching from another country can see different prices.
• Two weeks in November. That's spring in New Zealand and Australia and the off season in much of Europe. It's a reading for that fortnight, not a yearly average.
• We plan to run this index every month, so the next one shows what moved.

Questions