Car hire at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport: what to know

At Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport there are two ways to collect a hire car: at a desk inside the terminal, or at an off-site agency reached by shuttle from Roissypole. The in-terminal desk saves you a few minutes of walking; the off-site agency avoids the airport surcharge, the redevance aéroportuaire that rental companies pass on to every contract picked up inside the airport grounds.

Everything else comes down to three details almost nobody checks before boarding: which terminal your desk is actually in, the fuel policy written into the contract, and the departure walk-around, usually done at night or at dawn on a car park level where daylight never reaches. Here is the real journey, in the order you will live it.

Where the desks are, terminal by terminal

Roissy is not an airport, it is a small town. The terminals are linked by the CDGVAL, the free driverless shuttle train serving the terminals, Roissypole and the remote car parks. Knowing where to get off saves you dragging your cases in the wrong direction.

• Terminal 1: the desks are on the arrivals level, past baggage reclaim. Follow the car hire signs.
• Terminal 2: a shared rental centre serves halls 2A to 2F. From 2E and 2F expect a covered walkway and a decent walk; from 2A, 2C and 2D follow the indoor signs.
• Terminal 2G: a satellite terminal, set apart from the rest. You have to take the connecting shuttle before reaching any desk.
• Terminal 3: no pick-up desk, only key return boxes. Take the CDGVAL to Terminal 1 or Terminal 2.
• Off-site agencies: a shuttle from the stop named on your booking, usually at Roissypole or outside the terminal building. The ride is short, but the shuttle does not run continuously.

Airport desks open every day, timed around flights, but not around the clock. A delayed night flight, a lost bag, a slow border queue: it takes very little to arrive after closing. Note the cut-off time on your booking and warn the agency as soon as your flight slips.

Airport, off-site or in town: how to choose

The useful instinct: if your trip starts with two or three days inside Paris, the car is dead weight. Between the périphérique ring road, the low-emission zone and paid street parking, it costs more nerves than it saves time. Take the RER, then collect the car in town or at a station on the morning you head out of the capital.

At the desk: what really inflates the bill

The price shown when you book is not always the price you pay. At Roissy as anywhere, the gap is built at the desk, in a few minutes, while the queue grows behind you. The lines to check before you sign:

• The airport surcharge, specific to picking up inside the airport grounds.
• The young driver surcharge, billed per day below a certain age, and the additional driver surcharge if you will share the wheel.
• The fuel policy: full-to-full is the only genuinely clean arrangement. Be wary of contracts where the agency sells you the first tank and does not buy back what you leave in it.
• The excess in case of damage, and the excess waiver sold at the counter, often dearer bought on the spot than at booking.
• The security deposit, blocked on the main driver's bank card. The card must be in the driver's own name: a card in a partner's name stops the file dead.
• Cross-border fees if you will leave the country, towards Belgium or Spain for instance.

The dawn walk-around, the moment that costs the most

Many rentals at CDG start very early or very late, on a parking level where daylight never arrives. Those are exactly the conditions in which an existing scratch goes unnoticed at pick-up and becomes yours at return. The habit to build, in a few minutes:

1. 1Walk around the car with your phone torch and photograph all 4 sides, the sills and the roof.
2. 2Photograph the wheels, the windscreen, the mirrors and the rear bumper separately: those are the areas most often charged for.
3. 3Take one photo of the dashboard with the fuel gauge and the odometer in the same frame.
4. 4Open the boot and check that the warning triangle and the high-visibility vest are there, as both must be carried in the vehicle in France.
5. 5Have any unlisted defect written onto the condition report, then keep your signed copy.

Same discipline at the return. If you bring the car back outside opening hours, keys into a drop box, repeat the series of time-stamped photos, add a wide shot of the parking bay and film yourself dropping the keys. If a deduction is later disputed, you can ask for supporting documents, a quote or an invoice, and you are not obliged to sign anything that admits a liability you reject.

Getting out of Roissy and driving in France

From Roissy the motorway runs down towards Paris and the porte de la Chapelle, where the périphérique begins: avoid it at rush hour, and going round the east side is often quicker. For Normandy you will skirt the west of the conurbation; for the Loire valley, the south. Either way the motorway is tolled, the péage: carry a bank card or ask whether the car has a télépéage toll badge.

• Motorway: 130 km/h in the dry, 110 km/h in the rain. Dual carriageway with a central separator: 110 km/h, and 100 km/h in the rain.
• Ordinary two-way roads: 80 km/h, raised to 90 km/h on some roads by decision of the département. In built-up areas: 50 km/h.
• In fog, or as soon as visibility drops below 50 m, the limit is 50 km/h everywhere.
• Licence held under 3 years: 110 km/h on the motorway, 100 km/h in the rain.
• Alcohol: 0.5 g/L of blood, that is 0.25 mg/L of exhaled air, and 0.2 g/L for a licence under 3 years old, which in practice means not a single glass.
• Priorité à droite, priority to the right, still applies at some unmarked junctions, above all in villages and old town centres.

Paris operates a low-emission zone, the zone à faibles émissions or ZFE, as do several other French cities including Lyon, Marseille and Grenoble. The mechanism: every vehicle gets a Crit'Air sticker, graded from 0 for electric up to the most polluting classes, and the local authority decides which classes may drive, at which hours and within which perimeter. The rules, the list of cities and the penalties change often, so ask the rental agency which sticker the car carries and check the current rules on the official French government sources before you set off.

Looking beyond the traditional counters

The big chains are not alone around Roissy. Independent and local agencies rent the same vehicle categories, often from sites close to the airport, and private owners also offer their own cars. DRIVO is a European marketplace that brings those independent agencies and private owners together, in France and across the rest of Europe and North Africa.

What that changes in practice: the full price is shown before payment, including the DRIVO service fee as its own line, and that fee is refunded on a free cancellation or if the agency cancels. You see the security deposit and what is included before you book, confirmation is instant, and cancellation stays free up to 48 hours before pick-up. An optional full-protection add-on can be taken at checkout to lower the excess. Listings and support exist in five languages, English, French, Spanish, Italian and Arabic, with WhatsApp help and an in-app concierge. And if a car is not what you need, the marketplace also covers vans and utility vehicles, motorhomes and campervans wherever local agencies offer them.