William Lipovsky
Most car rental companies will not accept payment directly from a PayPal account. Even if you’re able to book with PayPal, you’ll need a credit card at some stage of the reservation process.
Alternatively, you can pay with PayPal by using the PayPal Debit Card. It allows you to use your PayPal balance anywhere that accepts debit cards with the Mastercard logo.[1][2]
We reached out to customer service representatives and viewed payment policies for the major car rental companies across the U.S. to find out where and how you can pay for a car rental with PayPal.
Below, we provide the list of companies that accept PayPal direct or debit card PayPal payments, as well as any restrictions.
Car Rentals That Accept Direct PayPal Payments
The following companies accept direct payments through PayPal when making car rental reservations.
Discover Cars
- Restrictions: Only accepts PayPal for partial online payments; you must provide a credit card at the time of pick up.[3]
- Book a rental
Green Motion
- Restrictions: You must pay for your deposit with a credit card.[4][5]
- Book a rental
Car Rentals That Accept PayPal Debit Cards
The following rental agencies accept PayPal Debit Cards but don’t accept direct payments from your Paypal account:
- ACE Rent a Car[6]
- Advantage Car & Truck Rental[7][8]
- Alamo Rent a Car[9]
- Avis Rent a Car[10]
- Budget[11][12]
- Dollar Car Rental[13][14]
- Enterprise Rent-A-Car[15]
- Fox Rent A Car[16]
- Getaround[17]
- Hertz[18]
- National Car Rental[19]
- SIXT[20][21]
- Thrifty Car Rental[22]
- Turo[23][24]
Keep in mind that if you pay with your debit card, the rental company will usually place a hold for the full cost of the reservation and a deposit for the duration of the rental.[13][25]
There may also be other restrictions, such as showing your return ticket at the rental counter when renting at an airport.[9]
You can find more information about each company’s policy in our research on car rentals that take debit cards.
Car Rentals That Don’t Accept PayPal
Zipcar is the only car rental company we contacted that doesn’t accept PayPal through either direct payment or debit card payment. It will only accept bank debit cards.[26][27]
