We are staying in Geneva for 2 days before picking up our rental car. The best deal.was to pick up rental from French Sector at Geneva Airport. Can you get to the rental cars without having a flight booked?
Posted by
Chicago
1197 posts
Hopefully someone else will comment further, but I think the issue is on the return
if you are taking the car back to France side of the airport, as you won't be able to
clear immigration back into Switzerland thru the airport unless you have docs showing
you are flying out in the next 24 (48?) hours. You have to take a bus or cab from the
French side back to the Swiss side in that situation.
Posted by
Wengen
3653 posts
The issue is not immigration (as the previous poster suggests) as there is no immigration check between France and Switzerland.
The issue is that you cannot go from the Swiss to the French sector and vv. unless you have a boarding pass for that day, or the previous or the next day:
https://www.gva.ch/en/Site/Passagers/Acces-Transports/Plan/Secteur-France
This is a consequence of the treaty that governs this binational airport.
So the only option is to get a taxi to take you the long way round (via France) to the French sector.
Posted by
OP
2 posts
Thank you for your responses. Even though it was more expensive, I opted to rent a car in the city of Geneva rather than the airport. We are driving through Switzerland and then into France exploring the Alsace region. My husband and I decided we didn't want to spend the whole morning getting the car and trying to drive through customs back to Geneva from the France side of the airport. There sounded like there were too many i's to dot and t's to cross. Thank you though for helping us decide to spend a little more money for peace of mind.
Best wishes!