AUTHOR Robert Gillespie

Car Hire Documents Required Heathrow

It can be confusing in terms of what documents you need when hiring a car but all will be explained to you before you pick the car up. We get many people however that are unable to hire because they don’t have the various required documents so we felt it important to make it 100% clear to our customers what documents you need when hiring a car at Heathrow Airport with it being the biggest airport within the UK.

The required documents differ for various things such as customers that live in the UK have to have different documents to those who are flying into the country.

UK Residents
UK residents must have different documentation at the time of hiring than inbound customers. If you are currently living in the UK you must have
– a payment card which is either a debit or credit card
– Proof of address which as an example is a bank statement, credit card statement, utility bill or Inland Revenue statement.
– A full clean UK driving licence which you have held for 12 months or over, we can hire to those who have up to 9 points but this depends on what the points where for.

Travelling from Abroad
When travelling from abroad the proof of address really doesn’t mean much to the rental company so there is a different method. For inbound customers you must have
– A full driving licence that is written in English or translated with one years’ experience
– Return flight details
– Your passport which you have used for travel
– A payment card which is either a debit or credit card

However this isn’t the only confusing thing, there’s more. Sometimes one company differs from the other but there are two suppliers that we use that have different requirements to the ones above. If you are a UK resident then Thrifty and Sixt require you to have two proofs of address dated within the last two months and both parts of your licence.

Having worked in the car rental industry for over 15 years, he really knows his stuff. Rob heads up our marketing department and as a keen traveller, always has a new location to talk about. Particularly if there is a golf course nearby.

Robert Gillespie

Traveller