Expect a £300 hold, an excess of £2,000 or more before cover, and £40 to £50 on top of every fine. Pay Dartford online by midnight the next day.
Sixt UK holds £300 for most cars and Avis UK the rental plus £300. Europcar UK's excess runs up to £2,000 for a small car. Visitors can drive on a licence from abroad for 12 months from their last entry into Great Britain.
Europcar's UK terms publish its full fee list, so much of what a hire car can cost you is known before you book. The UK also measures speed in miles per hour and has road charges with no booth.
Expect a £300 Hold
Sixt UK holds £300 for most cars, and £500, £750 or £2,000 for other groups; £200 for vans. Avis UK holds the rental price plus £300, less anything you prepaid. Europcar UK holds £250 if prepaid, or £100 with the protection that cuts your excess to zero. Use a credit card: hire car deposits.
Know the Excess Before You Reach the Desk
Europcar UK's tariff sets the excess at up to £2,000 for a small car, £2,200 for a large one and £4,000 for a premium car. Its Medium package brings that down to between £350 and £1,050; its Premium package to £0. Sixt UK's waiver can reduce the excess to between £0 and £150, depending on the product, your age and the car group: excess and damage cover.
Add £40 or £50 to Every Fine
A fine on a hire car reaches the rental company first, and it adds a fee:
Company
Fee
Sixt UK
£40 per fine, flat
Europcar UK
£50 for passing your details to a third party; £40 for recovering unpaid charges
Two camera tickets on one Sixt UK hire mean £80 in fees before the fines: hire car fines.
Pay Dartford and the Camera Crossings by the Next Day
The Dartford Crossing east of London costs £3.50, charged 6am to 10pm. There is no booth: a camera reads the plate, and you pay online by midnight the day after. Mersey Gateway (£2.40), the Humber Bridge (£2.00) and the Tyne Tunnels (£2.60) work the same way. Miss it on a hire car and the charge comes back with the £50 or £40 fee on top: Britain and Ireland's road charges.
London's Congestion Charge applies in central London from 7am to 6pm on weekdays and from noon to 6pm at weekends: £18 paid in advance or on the day, £21 by midnight on the third day after. The ULEZ covers every London borough; a petrol car must meet Euro 4 and a diesel Euro 6, or pay £12.50 a day.
Drive in Miles per Hour
Road
Limit
Built-up areas
30 mph (20 in Wales)
Single carriageways
60 mph
Dual carriageways and motorways
70 mph
The alcohol limit is 0.8 g/l in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and 0.5 g/l in Scotland.
Ask Before You Leave the UK
Sixt UK's car must not leave the UK without Sixt's prior written permission. Europcar UK requires its Europdrive Pack to drive in Europe, up to £312, and tracks its cars electronically; crossing without consent adds £14.07. One-way hires out of the UK are never permitted at Europcar, and leaving a car abroad costs up to £2,380: crossing borders in a hire car.
Bring Your Licence, and Consider an International Permit
A visitor can drive in Great Britain on a licence from another country for 12 months from the last time they entered Great Britain. GOV.UK's page for visitors says nothing about an international driving permit or a translation.
For a Taiwanese licence, Taiwan's Highway Bureau recommends carrying Taiwan's international driving permit, because the licence is in Chinese only. I'd bring the permit anyway.
Where to leave the car, from our sister site. Each card is the short version; the full guide has every car park, the tow pound and the charging points.
ParkingInEurope
London
Two charges before you park: £18 for the central zone, £12.50 for the ULEZ, and a foreign car counts as failing until you register it. Then a garage at £38 a day, or a Tube car park at £11.
Best bet
Cockfosters Tube car park: £11 a weekday, £9 on Sunday, outside the Congestion Charge, overnight up to seven days, then the Piccadilly line in. Cockfosters
Watch out
A foreign car counts as failing the ULEZ until TfL accepts it. Register with EPC plc (up to 10 working days) or pay £12.50 a day. Penalty £180, £90 within 14 days.
The zone here is not a charge you can pay. It is a standard your car either meets or does not.
Best bet
Ingliston Park & Ride is free, 04:00–02:00, 1,085 spaces — and it sits inside the tram's City fares zone, so the ride in is £2.40. The airport stop, one further out, is £7.90. No overnight (cars left there are towed), and no motorhomes.
Watch out
The low emission zone is not a charge. Petrol must be Euro 4, diesel Euro 6, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year — and the council states there is no method to pay in advance to enter with a non-compliant car.