Car Hire at Stuttgart Airport (STR)

All hire cars at Stuttgart Airport are gathered in the Mietwagenzentrum, the rental centre on Flughafenstraße right beside the terminals: the desks sit in the car rental area at Terminal 3, the vehicles a short walk further on in the parking deck. Allow a good half hour from the baggage belt to the exit barrier – and know that at STR the difference on your bill rarely comes from the daily rate, but from the airport surcharge, the fuel policy and the excess.

The good news: no shuttle drags you off to an industrial estate on the edge of town. STR is compact enough that everything stays walkable. The unpleasant surprises are therefore not on the way, but in the contract – and that is what this page is about: what actually happens at the desk, and how to take the car at dawn, in poor light, without arguing about a scratch on return.

Arriving at STR: from the gate to the Mietwagenzentrum

The airport sits on the Fildern plateau near Echterdingen, directly opposite the state exhibition grounds – only a footbridge separates the terminals from the Messe halls. Convenient, but with a side effect: when a major trade fair is on, demand for vehicles across the region climbs noticeably and the affordable categories go first. Anyone arriving during a fair, during the Cannstatter Wasen or in the weeks of the Stuttgarter Weindorf wine festival is better off booking early.

• Terminal 3, arrivals level: this is where the desks are. Follow the signs for Mietwagen or Car Rental, not the car park signs.
• Vehicles are handed over in the adjoining parking deck – with a lift, a ramp and a child seat in tow it takes longer than the signage suggests.
• Returns are organised centrally in a signposted parking deck. Take the access ramp early rather than pulling up in front of the terminals.
• There is a filling station and there are charging points on site. Fill up beforehand anyway, in Echterdingen or Bernhausen.
• Outside desk hours, returns are often handled by key box – clear that up before booking, because the car stays your responsibility until it has been checked.

What really drives the bill at the airport

At the airport you are not only paying for the car, you are paying for the location: rental companies pass on the fee for the site, and in the contract it is called an airport surcharge or premium location fee. On top come the line items that have nothing to do with Stuttgart but change every hire.

• Additional driver and young driver surcharge, often charged per day rather than per hire.
• Excess: the base rate usually carries a high deductible in the event of damage, and it only comes down with extra cover.
• Deposit: it is blocked on the credit card, not debited – check your limit first.
• Winter tyres, roof bars, child seat, navigation: each one a separate line.
• One-way hire if you want to drop the car in Munich, Frankfurt or Zurich.
• Crossing borders: trips to Austria or Switzerland must be permitted. You need a vignette for the motorways there; in Germany the Autobahn is free for private cars.

Airport, city centre or main station: the sober comparison

Stuttgart is one of those cities where it pays to look beyond the airport fence. STR hangs off the city centre by S-Bahn: lines S2 and S3 run from the station beneath the terminal to the Hauptbahnhof, the main station. If you are not setting off until the next morning anyway, you can start the hire a day later, in town.

The counter-calculation matters just as much: city branches keep shorter hours, a lot of them shut on Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday, and nobody crosses the main station with its permanent building site twice with four suitcases by choice. So the rule is not avoid the airport, but: compare for short hires, and for long ones start wherever it is comfortable.

Handover in half light: the minutes that count later

Most disputes do not start on the road, they start at handover. In the parking deck at STR the light is fluorescent, the wheels sit in shadow, and at six in the morning nobody wants to walk around the car with a phone. Yet that walk is what protects your deposit.

1. 1Film the car slowly, all the way round, before you get in, with a timestamp, and the interior too with the cabin light on.
2. 2Photograph wheels, bumper corners, windscreen and roof separately – stone chips and kerbed wheels are the two most common points of argument.
3. 3Capture the fuel level and the odometer reading in a picture, together with the handover report.
4. 4Have every existing bit of damage written into the report, even the small one. A spoken we know about that already will not help you later.
5. 5Repeat the photo round on return, before you hand over the keys.

Out of the basin: Umweltzone, gradients, parking

The Umweltzone and the emissions sticker

Stuttgart lies in a basin where the air sits still – which is why the city has an Umweltzone, a low-emission zone that covers practically the whole municipal area. The mechanism is simple: only a vehicle carrying the required sticker behind the windscreen may enter. On a hire car from a German fleet it is normally there; on a vehicle with foreign plates it is by no means automatic, so ask at the desk and look behind the glass yourself. Which sticker is required and where the zone ends can change; only the official information from the city of Stuttgart and the state of Baden-Württemberg is binding.

Driving and parking in the basin

From the airport you reach the city on the B27 and up over the Weinsteige: hairpins, traffic lights and gradients that get underestimated by anyone who knows Stuttgart only from the motorway. On the hillside streets the carriageways are narrow, often down to a single lane because of parked cars, and the driveways are steep. A compact car is no sacrifice here, it is a relief, all the more so with an automatic gearbox. For the Wasen, the Frühlingsfest or the Weindorf, leave the car in a multi-storey and take the Stadtbahn.

The drives you actually hire a car in Stuttgart for

The real reason to hire at STR is not the city but what surrounds it. Baden-Württemberg is rewarding country by car: short distances, good roads, and three very different landscapes within a day's reach.

• Swabian Jura (Schwäbische Alb): south on the B27 and up the Albaufstieg climb – Bad Urach with its waterfall, the Blautopf spring near Blaubeuren, Hohenzollern Castle. Up there it is several degrees cooler than in the basin.
• Black Forest: on the A8 towards Karlsruhe, then the A81 south and into the valleys to Freudenstadt or Baiersbronn. The side roads are twisty and snow up early in winter.
• Lake Constance: the A81 to Singen, or across the Alb to Ravensburg – Meersburg, the island of Mainau, Konstanz. In summer set off early; the lakeside roads jam by midday.
• The Neckar valley: Esslingen, Ludwigsburg with its residential palace, Tübingen – half-day destinations, and no motorway needed.

The rules on German roads, short and accurate

Two things about driving in Germany are told wrong abroad more often than anything else: the speed on the Autobahn and the compulsory equipment.

• Inside built-up areas the limit is 50 km/h; outside built-up areas it is 100 km/h for private cars.
• On a large part of the motorway network there is no general speed limit at all. Where nothing is signed, the Richtgeschwindigkeit of 130 km/h applies – an advisory speed, not a limit. Drive faster and end up in a collision, and you may be held partly liable.
• On the remaining sections the posted limit applies, frequently 100 km/h, 120 km/h or 130 km/h: at city approaches, in roadworks and in noise-sensitive stretches. Around Stuttgart the speed on the A8 changes constantly.
• Blood alcohol limit: 0.5 g/L. During the probationary licence period and for anyone under 21 it is 0.0 g/L, which means no alcohol at all.
• Warning triangle, high-visibility vest and first-aid kit must be carried; on the Autobahn you keep right and you do not overtake on the right.
• In slow-moving traffic, form the rescue lane between the left-hand lane and the one next to it.
• The winter tyre obligation is situational: it depends on road conditions, not on a fixed date – on the Alb and in the Black Forest it bites early.

Why a total price before booking changes everything

DRIVO is a European marketplace for renting directly from trusted independent and local rental agencies and from private owners – across Europe and North Africa, with Germany among the countries served. What matters is how it is shown: every item appears on screen before you pay, including the DRIVO service fee as its own line, which is refunded with a free cancellation or an agency cancellation. You see the security deposit and what is included before you book, confirmation is instant, and cancellation is free up to 48 hours before pick-up. If you want to bring the excess down, an optional full-protection add-on can be taken at checkout. Listings and support come in five languages – English, French, Spanish, Italian and Arabic – with help over WhatsApp and the in-app concierge. Beyond cars, the marketplace also covers vans, motorhomes and campervans where local supply exists.