Car rental when under 25

I’ve never had to rent a car before now, but I always heard it was hard to do until age 25. Over the past few years the major rental companies have loosened the rules a bit, thanks in part to some lawsuits. Oddly enough one of the first lawsuits was in New York, but that state now has the highest surcharges I’ve seen ($100 a day sometimes!). There is a lot of age discrimination in the US still, both for the young and old, but it doesn’t get nearly the attention that fun things like racism do.

I’m renting in Texas and checked all of the big companies, here are the surcharges added on for being young. These fees may vary by state, but I checked a few other states besides New York and they all seemed close. Some companies are just more youth friendly. Unless you’re military or work for a company with a corporate account, NY is about the only place people under 21 can rent a car in the US. You’ll pay through the nose for it though.

I decided to go with the company with the lowest surcharge and in the event of a tie then the lowest fee for a comparable vehicle. I’m voting with my wallet, I want to reward the most youth friendly company with my business. I wasn’t expecting limitations (not being able to rent certain classes of vehicles), but this is the normal practice. I was looking to rent either a premium or luxury car.

After my research I had an easy decision, Enterprise Rent A Car. It’s far and away the best deal. That makes sense though, Enterprise got huge by going after an undertapped market–off-airport rentals. Apparently they are going after another huge overlooked market. Another nice thing about Enterprise is that I can actually rent something with a V6.

Hopefully someone will find this useful, these companies often bury the information several clicks deep. The information may change and as already stated, is not accurate in all 50 states. NY is different for most if not all of the companies.

US Car rental daily surcharges for ages 21-24