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Rental Car - DGT Sticker - ZBE Zones

I am having a very hard time finding information on this topic and need some help.

We are flying in and out of Madrid and plan to use public transportation to and from the airport and around the city.

We are then renting a car from Europcar at the Madrid Airport and driving around Northern Spain.

Several of the cities we have hotel reservations are ones that have ZBE restrictions.

We plan to park the car in each and every city and use local transportation while visiting but we need to get to and from cities which may require entering a ZBE zone.

Can not get straightforward answer from rental company. I even checked with Avis and they said that I had to wait for rental agreement.

It would seem that most rental cars are newer and should be fine, but not knowing where the car is registered it seems that the rental company could just say this is our problem and or move us up to something much more expensive for a sticker that in affect it not really needed.

Our prior experience in Spain in particular, is that many do not want to deal with us in English and unfortunately only speak English and some French, so we want to try to avoid fines/tickets.

Help please

Posted by
7998 posts

The car you rent at the airport will be Spain registered and should have any required sticker, so driving in a low emissions zone won’t be an issue.

Not knowing which cities you plan on visiting I’d be more concerned with hotels that may be in pedestrian only zones. As you are fully aware, you don’t need a car in the city. Daily parking rates can range from €11 to €25 depending on the city and whether you use a parking garage or the hotel’s lot. As an FYI, most cities, towns, and villages have some free parking lots but you need to look them up before the trip as most are unmarked. They also may not be right by your hotel. For example, in Cáceres the free lot we used was about a mile from the hotel, but only about 100 yards further than the parking garage the hotel recommended that would have cost €25 a night.

I’ve never had any issue with rental agency employees not wanted to speak English. My experience has been they are more than happy to speak in English. How well they speak it varies, but between their English and my Spanish there’s never been a problem. I’ve always rented from Avis or Enterprise.