Driving a Rental Car between France and Germany

Planning to do the same thing next week -- using AutoEurope for the first time. We will drop the car off back in France, so no inter-country drop charges. The rental paperwork asked if we would be taking the car out of France except to a specific list of countries, which included Germany.

If you are not planning to return the car to France, you might just take a 10 minute train ride to across the river to Kehl, Germany. Small town rental places are often franchisees with their own inventory of cars that need to be returned to them. So make sure you can drop it in another part of Germany. Maybe train to Baden-Baden, Offenburg or even Freiburg to find a larger agency.

If you are returning it to Strasbourg, should be no problems. There are places where you might need an Umweltplakatte (environmental certification sticker to drive in certain cities), so it depends on where you are going. Also, some are only in effect on days with high pollutants in the air. A German rental car will have them. That is the only restriction I am aware of.

Edit - I see there is a Europcar agency in Kehl that will let you drop elsewhere in Germany. About 1/2 mile walk from Kehl train station.

You shouldn't have any problems. Last October we rented a car at Basel airport (used Rentalcars to book and the agency we rented from was Hertz), drove into Germany and toured the area including Strasbourg. We returned the car to Basel so no drop of charges.

Driving between countries such as Germany, France, Switzerland etc won't be an issue.

Driving between the countries is a non-issue - but DROPPING in another country will cost you an arm and a leg. Just drop it near the border, take the train across to the next country and pick up a different rental vehicle there.

Of course all of this is ASSUMING you really need a rental vehicle. Trains go everywhere...especially everywhere that most tourists are traveling to.