At a rental desk in an Athens arrivals hall, the agent slides a key across the counter while a line of travelers behind you studies the map on their phones. Some are headed for mountain villages, some for a coastal road with a beach at every bend. Renting a car in Greece is straightforward once your paperwork is in order, and what matters most is what you carry in your wallet and what the contract says about ferries.
How do you rent a car in Greece?
You rent a car in Greece by reserving a vehicle with a rental company, collecting it with your U.S. driver’s license and an international driver’s permit, and returning it under the terms of your contract. What changes is the kind of car on offer, the roads you drive and the way a car fits (or does not fit) with island hopping.
Manual cars are the norm
About 90% of rental cars in Greece are manual. If you drive only an automatic, that single fact shapes your whole booking, because automatics are the smaller part of the fleet and are advised to be reserved in advance.
Reserve the automatic before you fly rather than hoping one is parked outside the terminal. If you are comfortable with a stick shift, you have a much wider choice of cars, and the hill villages and winding coastal roads are where that skill gets used most.
Cars and ferries
Rental car terms in Greece often restrict taking the vehicle on ferries. That matters more than it sounds, because Greece is a country of islands and the ferry system is basically hub and spoke, with the spokes radiating from Piraeus out to the various island groups.
Read the clause about ferries before you sign, since a car taken somewhere the contract does not allow can leave you responsible for what follows. Whatever you choose, read the clause about ferries before you sign, since a car taken somewhere the contract does not allow can leave you responsible for what follows.
When a car makes sense and when it does not
A car suits the mainland well: it lets you stop at a roadside taverna, turn up a lane toward a monastery or a hilltop village, and keep your own pace between ancient sites.
Public transport covers a lot of ground too. KTEL is the national government-subsidized network of independent businesses that form a dense route system serving almost the entire country.
Its bus routes from major cities to islands near the mainland, such as Corfu and Cephalonia, include the ferry crossing in the price of the ticket. Trains are another matter: most rail traffic is in the Athens-Thessaloniki corridor and the suburban railways around the two cities, while lines like Thessaloniki-Florina, Lamia-Trikala and Thessaloniki-Serres usually have only one or two trains per day.
Cars versus two-wheelers
Small motorbike and all-terrain vehicle (ATV) rental firms in Greece frequently carry no insurance and require customers to cover the cost of all damages to their vehicles. Your own insurance company may not cover two-wheel or ATV rentals either.
Greek law requires all motorcyclists to wear a helmet. If you are weighing a scooter against a small car for a day around an island, the insurance position is the part to understand first, and a car rental contract is where the coverage terms are clearest to read.
What do you need?
You need a valid U.S. driver’s license, and insurance companies may require an international driver’s permit. The two documents travel together, and having only one is where trouble starts.
The international driver’s permit
Drivers who do not hold an EU driving license must carry an international driver’s permit obtained in their home country. It is certainly required if you are involved in an accident or pulled over by police, which is exactly when you do not want to discover the permit is missing from your bag.
The U.S. Embassy in Greece does not issue IDPs. Travelers must obtain theirs in the United States from the American Automobile Association (AAA) or the American Automobile Touring Alliance (AATA). If you are already abroad, AAA has a mail-in option for applying from overseas, but it will likely take days or weeks, so it is a poor plan for a last-minute rental.
What happens without the permit
If you drive without a U.S. license and IDP in Greece, you may face high fines of €1,000 or more, or be responsible for all expenses in the event of an accident. That is a heavy price for a document that is quick to obtain at home.
Insurance follows the same logic. Most insurance companies require that you have both your valid U.S. license and an IDP for coverage in Greece. A rental desk may hand you keys without asking for the permit, but the policy behind the car can still depend on it.
A short list for the counter
- Your valid U.S. driver’s license, in the same name as the booking.
- The international driver’s permit from AAA or AATA, carried alongside the license.
- The rental contract, read through for its clause on ferries.
- A reservation for an automatic, if a stick shift is not for you.
A Greek license becomes necessary only if you stay more than 185 days in Greece, which is far beyond the length of a vacation rental.
What should you know before you book?
Before you book, know that Greek roads follow their own habits, that your rental contract sets limits on ferries, and that the season you travel in changes how a car fits your plans. Think through those three points and most surprises disappear.
How people drive
Greece has one of the highest traffic fatality rates in the European Union, and that is worth keeping in mind when you pick a route and set your own pace. On many two-lane highways, slower traffic drives on the shoulder and cars pass straddling the center double-yellow line, so do not rely on lane markings.
In practice this means watching what the cars around you actually do rather than what the paint on the road suggests. If a driver ahead drifts onto the shoulder to let you by, that is a local habit and not an emergency.
Phones, alcohol and the police
Talking or texting on a mobile phone while driving is illegal in Greece, and the police check phone records when investigating accidents. Set up your navigation before you pull out and keep the phone out of your hand.
Driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs is illegal in Greece, and police conduct random alcohol testing. A long taverna lunch with wine is part of the pleasure of a trip, so decide ahead of time who drives afterward.
Planning around ferries and islands
The ferry system is built around Piraeus, but Athens has three ports: the main port Piraeus and outlying Rafina and Lavrio. For central Cyclades islands such as Tinos and Mykonos, it is often better to leave from Rafina, which is worth knowing if you are collecting a car in Athens first.
Island groups sit on different spokes. The Western Cyclades (Serifos, Sifnos, Milos) and the Central Cyclades (Naxos, Paros, Mykonos) are separate, so in summer you can usually get from one island to another in the same group on any day, but boats between the groups, for example Naxos to Sifnos, may be significantly less frequent. Santorini is an 8-hour slow boat from Athens.
Seasons that change the plan
In the winter off-season, from January to March, weather on the Aegean can be extremely rough and boats are often kept in port for days at a time. A car rented on the mainland for those months stays useful, but an island plan that depends on a crossing can shift.
Ferries in August fill up because of the National Holiday on 15 August, so travelers should plan ahead. If your trip runs through that stretch, line up the crossings first and the car second.
Good to know before you go
Keep the permit with the license, read the ferry clause in the contract and decide early between a manual and an automatic. Cars give you the freedom to wander between villages, ruins and the coast, and the rest of the trip, from a bus to a ferry, can fill in where a car does not reach. Greece sits in the Aegean wind belt for part of the year, so on island days let the conditions at the port guide your day.
Sources
- U.S. Department of State, Greece travel information, travel and transportation (https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/International-Travel-Country-Information-Pages/Greece.html), checked October 12, 2026
- Wikivoyage, Greece, section Get around (https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Greece#Get_around), checked October 12, 2026