Questor Insurance — Car Hire Guide

Driving in Europe with a hire car after Brexit:
what’s changed and what you need

Most “driving in Europe after Brexit” guides are written for people taking their own car across the Channel. If you’re picking up a hire car at the other end, the checklist is shorter than you’d think — but a few things have genuinely changed at the border. Here’s what actually applies to you.

Brexit changed the paperwork for driving on the continent, and the internet is full of checklists telling you to sort a green card, swap your GB sticker for a UK one, and pack your V5C logbook. All true — if you’re driving your own car onto a ferry. If you’re flying out and hiring a car when you land, most of that simply doesn’t apply to you, because the car isn’t yours and isn’t UK-registered.

So this guide does the opposite of the usual one. It clears away the bits you can ignore, then sets out what genuinely matters for a UK driver hiring a car in Europe in 2026 — including one or two changes at the border that are new this year.

The good news: hiring crosses half the list off

Several of the post-Brexit requirements you’ll read about are tied to taking your own vehicle abroad. With a hire car, they’re the rental company’s concern, not yours:

• Green card. This is proof of insurance for your own vehicle. A hire car is insured by the rental company, so you don’t need one. (For the record, green cards haven’t been required for UK vehicles in the EU since 2021 anyway.)
• UK sticker. Required on UK-registered cars. Your hire car carries local plates, so this isn’t on you.
• V5C logbook and VE103. These prove ownership or permission to take a vehicle abroad. Neither applies to a car you’ve hired at your destination.
• Headlamp deflectors and the rest of the kit. A hire car collected in a drive-on-the-right country is already set up for that country. Any legally required equipment is the rental company’s responsibility to provide — though it’s always worth checking it’s actually in the car.

Cross those off and the list gets short. Here’s what’s left.

Your driving licence — and a check code

A current UK photocard driving licence is all you need to drive in the EU and the wider EEA. You do not need an International Driving Permit (IDP) for the EU if you hold a photocard licence — an IDP only comes into play for a few non-EU countries, or if you still hold an older paper licence.

One practical step before you travel: the hire company may want to see your licence history (penalty points and what you’re entitled to drive). Since the paper counterpart was abolished, that information lives online. Generate a DVLA “check code” at gov.uk before you go — it’s valid for 21 days — and bring it with you alongside the plastic licence itself.

The passport rule that catches people out

This is the one that turns travellers away at the airport, and it has nothing to do with the car. Since Brexit, a UK passport used for travel to the EU must meet two separate conditions:

• Issued less than 10 years before the day you enter. Older UK passports sometimes carry extra months that were rolled over from a previous one. The EU ignores those months and counts strictly from the issue date.
• Valid for at least 3 months after the day you plan to leave. Not the day you arrive — the day you depart.

Both must be true. A passport can be “in date” by the printed expiry and still fail the first test, so it’s worth checking the issue date specifically before you book.

New at the border this year: EES

The biggest change for 2026 happens after you land. The EU’s Entry/Exit System (EES) became fully operational in April 2026. It replaces the old passport stamp with a digital record, and the first time you cross an external Schengen border you’ll have your fingerprints and a facial photo taken at the booth or a self-service kiosk.

Your biometric record then lasts three years (as long as you keep the same passport), so it’s mainly the first crossing that takes longer. The practical effect so far has been longer queues at busy airports and ports, particularly at peak times. It doesn’t change anything about hiring a car — but it does mean you should allow more time at the border than you used to, especially if you’re picking up a hire car on a tight schedule when you arrive.

WORTH KNOWING

EES is a border process, not something you apply for in advance. There’s nothing to book and no fee. An optional “Travel to Europe” app lets you pre-enter some details in the 72 hours before you travel in some countries, but it doesn’t replace the checks at the border.

Coming next: ETIAS

You may have read about ETIAS, a pre-travel authorisation for visa-exempt visitors (the EU’s equivalent of the system the UK now runs for foreign visitors). It is not yet in force. As things stand in mid-2026, UK travellers still go to Europe on a passport alone.

When it does arrive — expected late 2026, with a transition period before it becomes mandatory, so possibly not required until 2027 — it will mean a short online form and a fee of €20 (around £17), valid for three years and free for under-18s and over-70s. Because the timing has moved more than once, the sensible thing is to check the official EU source close to your trip rather than rely on any single date.

A word of caution: when ETIAS does open, apply only through the official EU portal (travel-europe.europa.eu). Plenty of look-alike sites charge inflated “service fees” for what is a cheap, straightforward authorisation.

If you visit often: the 90/180 rule

One more change worth knowing, especially if you have a holiday home or make repeat trips. As a visitor, you can now spend at most 90 days in any rolling 180-day period across the Schengen area as a whole. With EES recording every entry and exit automatically, that limit is now tracked precisely rather than estimated from passport stamps. If you’re a frequent visitor, keep your own count — the days add up across all your trips, not per country.

The bit the hire desk won’t dwell on: the excess

None of the above is what catches most people out financially. That’s the excess on the hire car. Your rental includes Collision Damage Waiver (CDW), which sounds like full protection but isn’t — it leaves an excess in place, often well over £1,000, that you pay first if the car is damaged or stolen. Kerb an alloy on a narrow French village street or pick up a scratch in a busy Spanish car park, and that excess is yours.

The desk will usually offer to sell you their own waiver to remove it — typically at a steep daily rate. A standalone car hire excess policy does the same job for a fraction of the cost, arranged before you fly. It reimburses the excess you pay, and crucially covers the parts hire companies often exclude from their own waiver — tyres, windscreen, roof and underbody. Here is the cover provided when you buy a Questor Insurance car hire excess policy :

The short version

If you’re hiring rather than driving your own car, ignore the green card, the UK sticker and the logbook — none of it is yours to sort. Bring a valid photocard licence and a DVLA check code; make sure your passport was issued under 10 years ago and has 3 months left beyond your return; allow extra time at the border for EES; and watch for ETIAS arriving later. Then deal with the one cost that actually stings — the hire car excess — before you leave home, not at the desk.