Rent a car without a credit card or a big deposit? What car sharing asks for instead

Short answer: most rental desks ask for a credit card in the main driver's name and freeze a deposit on it for days or weeks; in the cities we sampled it was €150 to €1,100. Car sharing is paid with the bank card you add in the app. 17 of the 75 services open to visitors in our list take no deposit at all; 36 may hold an amount on your card before a trip or ask for a deposit; the rest don't publish a rule.

Whether a debit card works is spelled out by few operators (CityBee says it does). The rest ask for "a bank card" or "a payment card in your name"; the app tells you at sign-up, before you pay anything.

Rental deposits we sampled

From our own samples of booking-site listings for an economy car, sampled 2026-08-04. The excess is what you pay if the car is damaged, before any extra cover.

No deposit at all

Anygo (Serbia), Anytime Carsharing (Czechia), Bolt Drive (Latvia), Bolt Drive (Lithuania), Carguru (Latvia), CityBee (Estonia), CityBee (Lithuania), CityBee (Latvia), GoCar (Ireland), Kendall Go (United Kingdom), MILES (Germany), SPARK Bulgaria (Bulgaria), Spark (Lithuania), WiBLE (Spain), YUKÓ Toyota Car Club (Ireland), Zimbl (United Kingdom).

Deposit or card hold, by service

From each operator's terms or help pages. Services not listed here or above don't publish a deposit rule; their app shows it at sign-up.

Licence and age rules for each: can tourists use car sharing?

If you rent anyway

• Check who actually underwrites the excess cover. Aggregators sell several different products under one banner. Some are real insurance with a named underwriter and a regulator; at least one is the aggregator's own promise to reimburse you, with neither. Both are called "full coverage". Look for an underwriter's name and a policy document — if there isn't one, you are relying on a company's goodwill, not a policy.
• Expect to pay first and claim later. Excess cover bought online does not stop the supplier charging your card, and it does not release the deposit. The desk cannot see it in their system. Budget for the full excess being taken, and for getting it back weeks later.
• Vet the supplier, not just the price. The aggregator is a shop window; the car comes from a local firm whose rating is shown next to the price. The complaints that end badly almost always involve a supplier rated below 8 out of 10. Paying a little more for a well-rated one is the cheapest insurance on this page.
• Bring the right card, in the right name. An embossed credit card in the main driver's name, with room for the deposit. Not a debit card, not your partner's card, and be aware that a card showing only an initial instead of your full first name has been enough for desks to refuse the car.
• Know your grace period before you fly. A late flight is the most common way people lose a prepaid booking. Published grace periods range from zero to two hours depending on supplier. Find yours, and add the supplier's phone number to your phone before you travel.
• Film the car, both ends. A slow walk-around on video at pickup and at return. This is the single piece of advice that appears in every account of a dispute that ended well, and its absence in most that ended badly.
• Ask for cash, not credit, on any refund. Refunds are often issued as booking credit with the platform by default. That is your own money turned into a voucher. Say explicitly that you want it back on the original card, and keep the email.

Last changed 2026-11-02.