Tenerife South Airport car hire

What do I know before I pay?

The listing shows the deposit amount and whether the deposit can be paid in cash. What the standard cover leaves out is damage to the wheels, the undercarriage, the windscreen and the interior of the car. Higher cover levels are set per car and priced on the listing.

The airport, and the first half hour

Tenerife South Airport has a single terminal and opened on 23 October 1978; until then Tenerife North was the only airport on the island. The car is handed over in the arrival area, which is the named handover place in the booking system. There is no desk, counter or numbered bay.

From the terminal, El Medano is eighteen minutes and 6 kilometres by road. Los Cristianos is thirty-three minutes and 19 kilometres, Playa de las Americas thirty minutes and 20 kilometres, and the resort strip at Costa Adeje thirty minutes and 22 kilometres. With a rental car in Golf del Sur, the car is delivered to your address in the resort and returned there.

These are estimates that leave out traffic; check a live map on the day and allow extra time.

Collected at the airport, or brought to you

Both handover types are offered. Where the cars are handed over at Tenerife South Airport and Tenerife North Airport is the arrival area. Any one-way charge for dropping the car somewhere else on the island is shown with the price on each car.

Which car, and what it costs

The cars that come up most often here start with economy models such as the Fiat 500, Fiat Panda and Hyundai i10, and economy models at Tenerife South Airport have manual gearboxes. Automatics sit in the compact, crossover and SUV classes and are a minority of what is listed. What the cheapest week actually costs depends on the dates. Lower-priced cars were absent from the Christmas-week and mid-February listings at Tenerife South Airport and present in the late October listings.

Who can drive it, and what do I bring?

The main driver needs the licence card itself, a valid national licence in the driver's name, with its details in Latin script and an expiry date no earlier than the end of the rental. The minimum driver age and driving experience are listed on each car's page, and they can differ between similar models.