One Way Rental Cars

Your problem will be international drop charges. The car will presumably have Portuguese license plates and they cannot re-rent the car in Spain, so it will have to be transported back to Portugal. Guess who pays for that.

Most major agents allow that, but what you need to search for is which one has the cheapest one-way fees. www.autoeurope.com is a place to start to survey several providers, or other search engines like Expedia may help. You have to go past the first step of any test booking to see the estimated total price.

I did the reverse journey Madrid to Lisbon. I rented through Auto Europe and found the most economical deal (rent + drop fee) by speaking with one of their agents on their toll free number. The rental, using Avis, did not show up on line. They've got a great staff and are always very helpful.

I'd also talk to auto europe. The drop fee can be a ton but you won't know if it works for you until you call, get a price, then consider your options.

In the past I have dropped a car near a border, trained across the border, and picked up another rental in the next country to avoid the steep drop fee. Portugal and Spain are not convenient to each other, that may only be possible north of Porto.

In the past I have dropped a car near a border, trained across the border, and picked up another rental in the next country to avoid the steep drop fee. Portugal and Spain are not convenient to each other, that may only be possible north of Porto...

I did this years ago (but without any trains). It was a bit of an adventure: Rented a car in Lisbon. Drove it for a week or so, down into the Algarve, then east towards Spain. Dropped "the Portugal car" in Vila Real de Santo Antonio, the last town on the Portugal side of the border (river), took a bus across to the town to the river waterfront, where there was a tiny walk-on ferry. Ferry across the river to Ayamonte in Spain. Hiked across town to a bus depot. Bus to the next town (can't remember which - maybe Huelva?) where there was a car rental agency, picked up "the Spain car", drove off to the rest of Spain. Now, this required some work and more than a little hoop-jumping (and it consumed half a day) - but it saved me something north of $600 Euro, which would have been the drop-off fee for taking the Portugal rental car and dropping it in Spain (and yes, it provided me some satisfaction at having "beaten" the big drop-off fee). For me, this time, it was worth doing. I've done this when crossing other borders, too. The exact amount of hassles it requires varies quite a bit, but I think it's often at least worth investigating.