
How to Make Money with Renting Out Your Car
Article content
- Does it make sense to rent out your car?
- Models for renting out your car
- Comparison Table of Best Car Rental Methods
- Main Advantages and Risks of Car Rental
- How Much You Can Earn: Realistic Income Calculation
- Requirements and Car Preparation for Car Rental
- Step-by-Step Car Preparation Checklist for Rental
In this article we will examine all the pros and cons of renting out your own car, discuss rental agreements, as well as the practice of car rental and how to make money with your car and whether it's worth doing at all.
Does it make sense to rent out your car?
This question, like any other, has two sides, so as many people as there are opinions about it. We'll say that if your goal is to earn income from renting - you should definitely rent out my car.
Pros | Cons |
---|---|
Can be both additional or main income, which = financial independence. Also can work as a separate business | Risky type of investment, cars get into accidents |
Wide geography of rental | Depreciation effect - there is a high degree of vehicle wear |
The asset (car in this case) can be moved to any region, which cannot be said, for example, about an apartment or office space | |
Very easy to buy, very easy to sell, compared to other assets | |
Has a real degree of depreciation, which is easy to calculate, unlike other assets |
Models for renting out your car

All models of car rental, in general, can be classified according to the rental term:
- per-minute or hourly - for several hours or minutes. Mainly characteristic of free-floating or station-based carsharing services, less common in peer to peer car rental and practically never in car rentals;
- short-term rental - from 1 day;
- long-term rental - from 1 month;
- operational leasing - from 1 year.
Separately, car rental is classified by the nature of vehicle use by the consumer:
- car rental for commercial needs - cargo transportation, people;
- car rental for taxi;
- car rental for private purposes.
Sometimes rental is distinguished depending on how the car is obtained:
- without driver - i.e., regular car rental;
- with driver - this is actual passenger transportation at a fixed price, but often this transportation is defined as car rental with driver, vehicle rental with crew, transfer, etc. Definitions depend on legislation and licensing conditions.
Depending on the nature of placement, offering the car, rental can be divided into:
- rental through platforms for private rental (peer to peer car rental, etc.);
- car rental through classified ads boards;
- car rental through car rental companies;
- car rental through carsharing companies;
- car rental through personal contact, advertising, creating a car rental company.
Renting Cars Through Private Rental Platforms
We would include separate websites that offer to place your car for subsequent rental among such platforms. A striking example of such a model is peer to peer car rental. When the owner places their car or cars, receives an order through the platform, and then meets with the client and rents the car. The platform receives its percentage for the client, provides certain security and insurance guarantees to the car owner.
Striking examples of peer to peer car rental platforms can be: American service TURO and European service (formerly French) Getaround.
This model has its positive and negative characteristics.
Positive Platform Characteristics | Cons of Renting Cars Through Platform |
---|---|
This is the simplest and most cost-effective way to rent your car: we don't spend on advertising, get clients for tomorrow | Services don't work everywhere, for example Turo works excellently only in USA and Australia, but there's none in EU, same with Getaround being purely European service and by the way not as popular as Turo in USA |
Additional insurance and security - services check clients, and if necessary guarantee compensation | Vehicle requirements - sometimes they can be hard to achieve |
Large number of cars often leads to you having to lower rental price on your car, and it was rented better, so you can often see economy and business class car prices that don't differ much | |
Lack of guarantees for vehicle utilization | |
Insurance requirements, which are quite often difficult to obtain in the local market | |
Significant service commission: often it's 30%, but actually it can be 60% through selling additional insurance and other services to which you as owner don't have access | |
You must independently monitor: vehicle maintenance, issue and receive the vehicle, resolve client compensation issues, be actually involved in all processes 24/7, platform only takes on primary order onboarding, advertising and client search | |
Independent vehicle placement, adding photos, etc. |
*It's futile to think you can lure clients through these services, as soon as you violate anything, you'll be blocked forever without any explanations.
Renting Cars Through Classified Ads
Classified ads are internet sites that specialize in automotive topics or generally offer a wide range of advertisements. For example, in Ukraine a quite popular resource is OLX, in Georgia - myauto.ge, and in Germany - kleinanzeigen.
Pros of Car Rental Through Classified Board | Cons of Car Rental on Classified Board |
---|---|
Quick placement and wide audience | Need to think about insurance |
You can build a permanent audience for the future if you're considering independent business | Need to advertise, as through large supply you won't get significant turnover |
Completely resolve all issues with clients and car, advertising and client attraction |
Renting Car Through Car Rental Services
Some car rental companies accept cars for rental with management and subsequent transfer of cars for rental. Such companies, as a rule, provide full vehicle service and unlike private rental platforms or classified boards, the vehicle owner has more advantages.
Pros of Car Rental to Car Rental Company | Cons of This Type of Rental |
---|---|
Getting income immediately | Less utilization |
No advertising costs | Seasonality |
Full vehicle management: insurance, maintenance and problem solving | If company has its own fleet - your cars will be rented on residual principle, i.e., you'll always have many bookings and rentals in season and quite few off-season, actually cars from geo can work 4-6 months per year |
If your plan is building own company, you don't get your own clients here |
Renting Your Own Car for Taxi
Want to rent out my car for a taxi? This has both advantages and disadvantages, due to which some people don't want to rent their car for a taxi. Let's consider all pros and cons of this method of renting your own car.
Pros of Car Rental for Taxi | Cons of Car Rental for Taxi |
---|---|
Massive audience that takes cars for rental | Independent audience search and onboarding |
Car is taken for longer term | Car though taken for long term, usually paid weekly, no deposit |
Can rent old cars (many countries have no specific car requirements, exception UAE, Portugal, ...). Such cars usually won't be taken for rental by individuals for travel or car rental | Specific audience - often you wouldn't want to work with such audience, as different social layers of society occur |
One driver (usually strive for this) | You are guarantor of everything that happens with the car |
You can build a taxi fleet company | Insurance companies don't want to insure cars for taxi |
No demand seasonality | Car has high mileage, several times more per year than in rental, so wear is greater |
Conditions of cons and pros may differ if you rent a car for a taxi through a company that manages a fleet for taxi car rental.
Renting Your Own Car Through Getmancar Carsharing Service
One possibility is renting your own car through Getmancar carsharing service. This method may be similar to some other types of rental but has hybrid conditions.
Pros of Getmancar Car Rental | Cons of Working with Getmancar |
---|---|
Get trips and income immediately | You won't get clients for your own business |
Company takes care of the car | |
We only play the role of investor | |
Possibility to buy only one car |
Opening Your Own Car Rental Company
Opening your own company is one of the alternatives. If you dream or consider this business, then perhaps you should immediately open your own car rental.
Pros of launching your own car rental company:
- independence
- full-fledged business
- prospect of own independence
Cons of car rental business:
- full involvement in processes
- significant capital investment - shouldn't start a company with one car
- onboarding, maintenance, insurance and everything else
Comparison Table of Best Car Rental Methods
For your convenience, we created a summary comparison table about all types of car rental from people and how involved you are in processes 👇
Name | P2P Platform | Classified Board | Car Rental Companies | Taxi Rental | Getmancar Service | Own Car Rental Company |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Client Search | no | no | no | yes | no | yes |
Advertising | no | you do | no | you make ads | no | you do |
Insurance | yes | yes | no/yes | no insurance | no | yes |
Solving Client Problems | yes, platform partially helps | yes | no/yes | yes | no/yes | yes |
Maintenance | yes | yes | no/yes | yes | no/yes | yes |
Car Repairs | yes | yes | no/yes | yes | no | yes |
Car Wear | medium | medium | medium | high | medium | medium |
Accident Risk | medium | medium | medium | high | medium | medium |
Seasonality | suffer not much | suffer | you suffer | practically don't suffer | practically don't suffer | suffer |
Getting Clients | quickly | no | from season | as it works out | quickly | as it works out |
Can Keep Clients | no | yes | no | yes | no | yes |
Car Requirements | high | absent | high | low | medium | your choice |
Commission | 30% + | absent | 30%+ | 25%+ | 23%+ | absent |
Startup Speed | quickly | quickly | quickly | quickly | quickly | medium |
Own Involvement | medium | full | small | high | small | high |
Significant Capital Availability | no | no | no | no | no | yes |
Main Advantages and Risks of Car Rental
Regardless of all circumstances, renting your own car is always risky, like any business, but of course it can be something riskier than other types of capital investments.
What Risks Can You Get Renting Cars?
- car destruction - when a car gets into an accident so it's impossible to restore. Opposite to this statement, you can say insurance will pay for it if you insured the car.
- technical car breakdown - really possible, that's why you should choose a car for rental by principle "the newer, the better" and always should timely maintain the car or entrust it to professional service.
- car theft - such risk really exists, so you should immediately agree with service through which you rent a car about risks.
- lack of demand - this happens in different territories, so have several options for reinsurance.
- car is not real estate, so can be easily damaged and has greater depreciation.
Advantages of Car Rental as Thing Thanks to Which You Get Income:
- this is additional or main income of your family
- A car is a movable thing, so this income source can be moved to any point. Unlike real estate, you're a little tied to a specific region.
- A car has higher profitability than many other investment sources. For example, it's more than real estate, than deposit, etc.
- here income is lower than speculative, for example when you invested in altcoin and it grew, but definitely fewer risks, car remains today and tomorrow with +/- understandable cost
- A car always has value, even in a completely crashed state it's sold for parts, as documents, etc.
- asset sale speed is quite high, you'll sell cars much faster than apartment or office space.
How Much You Can Earn: Realistic Income Calculation
This is an interesting question, but it depends on many factors, such as:
- how we rent for taxi, rental, ourselves...
- rental/rental period
- degree of car wear
- car model and brand
- where we rent (in which city, country)
Income of course depends on whether you make money with your car - VW Passat or Chevrolet Spark, Mercedes-Benz S class or Mustang, what year your car is, whether it's 17 years old or less than 1 year.
For your understanding, we'll take a simple car example, it will be a used car worth about 13,500 euros. So, how much would we earn on average per year how to rent out my car.
Average monthly income and mileage of car worth 13,500 euros, when rented to different services.
Rental Type | Average Monthly Net Income | Average Monthly Mileage |
---|---|---|
Through P2P Platform | 450 euros | up to 3,000 km |
Classified Board | 350 euros | about 3,000 km |
Car Rental Companies | 450 euros | about 2,300 km |
Taxi | 700 euros | about 20,000 km |
Getmancar | 500 euros | up to 2,000 km |
Own Car Rental | 500 euros | about 2,300 km |
Average monthly income is net income before tax payment, calculated for established company and service, income may be lower, for example, if you just started a company. Also income may be higher in seasonal months and lower in off-season.
💰 When you'll recoup your money: with average income of 450-500 euros per month from car worth 13,500 euros, full payback comes in 27-30 months. But this is without considering depreciation, repairs and insurance cases. Real payback period is 3-4 years with active use. Therefore, consider this as long-term investment, not quick earnings.
Requirements and Car Preparation for Car Rental
Depending on how and to whom you rent the car, there are different car requirements. We recommend familiarizing yourself with them to prepare your car.
Car Odometer Condition/Car Mileage
Don't abuse and don't try to deceive your clients by "rolling back" car odometer readings. A technically bad car will show itself. At Getmancar we always see this, because equipment connected to cars for carsharing service work immediately determines real car mileage.
General Technical Requirements
Car must have acceptable requirements to be transferred for rental. If you think you can i rent my car out - old, slightly broken car, you're greatly mistaken, because:
- nobody will rent such car
- if you manage to rent car, its breakdown risk is very high
- car will break somewhere quickly and you'll be forced to take car on tow truck and bear additional time and money costs.
Car Maintenance
- change engine oil, and if mileage has come, then in gearbox too,
- check brake pad condition and brake system serviceability
- check your tires, whether signal indicator has worked there, should replace tires so it's safe for renter to use car
- should replace or check battery and alternator load so they don't fail during rental
Always remember that you bear responsibility for car condition as owner, so in case of incident where bodily injuries are caused, car will always undergo examination and if some unit malfunction is proven, owner may bear criminal responsibility. That's why keep car you rent in proper condition.
🛑 Signals to stop rental: If your car started breaking more often than once a month, or repair costs exceeded 30% of monthly income - time to stop. Also worth stopping if car stands idle more than 50% of time without orders for 2-3 months in a row. This means the market is saturated or your model has lost relevance.
Additional Technical Requirements
Some countries may impose additional requirements on cars rented for taxi, namely:
- special registration - license plates
- additional insurance
- technical inspection
- car color
- car age
- additional equipment like taximeters or other.
Always check local legislation for additional taxi car requirements.
Also additional requirements apply to cars transferred for rental through car rental companies. Usually these are:
- age - no older than 5 years
- mileage - no more than 100 thousand km.
- specific car model or brand
- availability of seasonal tires
Step-by-Step Car Preparation Checklist for Rental
For your convenience - step-by-step checklist how to make money with your car:
agree with service where you'll give car, clarify all questions
prepare car technically - do maintenance
replace car tires
paint or polish car if you're going to hire out your own car used and it has paint defects
buy third party insurance
think or buy CASCO insurance for car rental
prepare details and conclude contract if renting to service or prepare own contracts if you'll rent car independently
transfer car
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Read in our next article about what Personal Rental Cars Agreements exist and their templates
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