Best Car Hire in Crete: Companies Compared

Car Hire in Crete, Compared Honestly

Around Crete is an independent guide, not a car hire company. This page compares the firms that actually rent cars on Crete so you can judge them on their terms before booking anywhere. We separate two very different kinds of business: international brokers (Zest, Discover Cars, Auto Europe, Rentalcars.com) that sell you a choice of cars and route your booking to a local supplier, and direct Cretan operators (Rental Center Crete, Monza, Go Rent a Car and others) that own the fleet and set their own excess, deposit and fuel rules.

Around Crete is reader-supported: if you book through our links we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you, and it never changes our rankings or verdicts. New to the island? Start with our guide to driving in Crete, the step-by-step car hire guide, or check whether you need a car at all.

Most visitors collect a car at one of the two airports - Heraklion (HER, Nikos Kazantzakis) in the east or Chania (CHQ) in the west. Cruise and ferry passengers usually arrive at Heraklion Port, which has two passenger terminals and cruise infrastructure; unlike the airports, the ports have no permanent rental desks, so a port pickup must be pre-arranged and the firm meets you at the quay. At the airports you will find both in-terminal desks (the global chains) and 'meet and greet' handovers, where a representative meets you outside arrivals and walks you a short distance to the car - typically faster than queueing at a desk.

The single most important distinction on Crete is between true zero-excess and excess reimbursement. A direct local operator with genuine zero-excess Full Damage Waiver caps your liability at the desk, so no large hold is placed on your card. A broker's 'Full Coverage' is usually a reimbursement policy: the local desk still takes a deposit (often EUR 500-1,000), charges any damage to your card, and you reclaim it afterwards with paperwork. Both can be fine - but they are not the same product.

Provider Verdicts

Rental Center Crete

Both research runs point to this as the strongest direct local operator for a low-stress hire: a genuine zero-excess Full Damage Waiver, no credit-card deposit, and meet-and-greet at HER and CHQ. One caveat to verify in writing: marketing pages say tyres and glass are always covered, while the detailed terms exclude non-repairable or burst tyres. Ask for written confirmation of exactly what is covered on your specific booking, and note the published review figures differ between sources, so treat the headline number as indicative.

Zest Car Rental

The pick of the brokers for a UK or EU first-timer who wants a filtered marketplace and UK-based support rather than just the lowest price. Excess protection is built into quotes and a fair full-to-full fuel policy applies across partners. Remember the broker limit: the actual deposit, young-driver fees and some exclusions belong to the local supplier, and you will still need to present a credit card for their hold at the desk.

Monza Rent a Car

The most mature direct local in this set by review depth and island coverage, including resort towns like Platanias, Agia Pelagia, Malia, Agios Nikolaos and Elounda plus Sitia. Important: the base product is standard CDW with an excess, not all-inclusive - zero-excess is a paid FDW upgrade that also removes the card guarantee. Even with FDW, glass, mirrors, tyres and the underbody are excluded.

AutoRentals-Crete

A long-running family operator (trading since the late 1990s) with island-wide delivery including hotels and Sitia airport, inclusive cover with no excess and no deposit block, and a consistently calm, no-pressure handover in reviews. Two weaknesses on transparency: the minimum age was hard to verify on public pages and parts of the website look dated. A strong practical choice; confirm age and licence requirements directly.

Go Rent a Car

A genuine all-inclusive local contender: it publicly advertises no excess, no deposit and no credit card required, with airport, port and hotel delivery. Read the exclusions carefully - non-asphalt and unauthorised roads (the Balos track being the classic case), driver negligence, and damage to glass, tyres and the underbody can still fall on you. Review count is modest, so weigh the rating accordingly.

Discover Cars

An efficient tool for scanning prices and inventory across Crete, backed by a very large review base. The friction point is its 'Full Coverage', which is a reimbursement policy the local desk does not recognise - expect a substantial card hold (often EUR 500-1,000) and a claims process afterwards if anything goes wrong. Best for confident travellers who read each car's conditions and have credit-card headroom.

Localrent

The best middle ground between broker convenience and local economics: it connects you to independent Cretan owners and lets you filter for no-deposit cars and full insurance. There is no single island-wide rulebook, so judge each listing on its own terms; you typically pay a 15-20% reservation amount online and settle the rest locally. Inventory leans towards practical, sometimes older cars.

Auto Europe

A conventional, long-established broker that explains excess, deposit and zero-excess clearly and allows easy amendments up to 48 hours before pickup. Its public reputation is more mixed than Zest or Discover (a lower score on the global Trustpilot profile, higher on the UK one), and a Greek supplier will still require a credit-card hold. Worth using when its specific offer is genuinely better, not as a default.

Rentalcars.com

Only worth considering when it has a clearly superior price for a car whose terms you have read in full. Its Trustpilot score is very low and reviews repeatedly describe desk disputes, pressure to buy redundant local insurance and slow refunds. Not a safe blind default for a Crete holiday.

GetRentacar

A peer-to-peer marketplace where you book directly with individual owners. Daily rates can be cheap, but standardisation is poor: deposits range from zero to over EUR 3,000 and minimum ages swing between 19 and 28 depending on the car. Suitable only for flexible travellers happy with non-standard agreements - we keep it outside our main ranking because there is no single verifiable Crete-wide policy.

How We Rank

We weight transparency and financial friction above raw star ratings, and we separate brokers from direct local operators because they are different products. Full criteria and weights are on our methodology page.