Renting a car at Sharjah Airport

A rental car earns its place here if you are staying in the Emirates and moving around them, and does not if you only need to get from the terminal to somewhere in Dubai — for that single journey there is a coach on a published fare and a taxi rank outside the door, and neither leaves you with a car to look after. The other thing worth knowing before you compare rates is that the rate is not what decides the bill. Where you collect the car, what licence you hold, and what arrives in the post afterwards decide it.

Who should rent here, and who should not

Rent if you are here for a week or more, if the trip covers more than one emirate, if you are travelling with children and their equipment, or if you are working around the northern emirates where public transport thins out fast.

Do not rent for a single journey out of the airport. The airline’s coach service runs to Dubai and the northern emirates on a published fare, the taxi rank is outside the door, and a pre-booked car does the same journey without leaving you with a vehicle to park at the other end.

Think twice if the whole trip is inside one city. Driving in the Emirates is easy and the roads are good, but a car you park all week is a car you are paying for twice.

The desks in arrivals, and the suppliers you find online

This is the part nobody writes down, and it is the difference between driving away and standing on the kerb with your luggage, working out where your car actually is.

Two different lists describe car hire at this airport, and they barely overlap. The airport’s own list of services names the companies with a physical desk in the arrivals hall. The booking sites list far more suppliers under the same airport — and their most prominent names are frequently not in the airport’s list at all.

Neither list is dishonest, and neither is complete. The airport’s list only covers desks and goes stale between updates; it has already carried at least one out-of-date address for a company that is still there. The booking sites list whoever signed up, including firms that meet you at the terminal without holding a counter, and including some whose stated address is not the airport.

So the thing to check before you book is not the brand. It is the pick-up address. In practice you will find three arrangements sold under the same heading:

• A desk in the arrivals hall. You land, you queue, you drive away. This is what most people think they are booking.
• Meet and hand over at the terminal. No desk; somebody comes to you with the keys and the paperwork. It works, and it depends entirely on your flight arriving when it said it would — give them the flight number, not just the time.
• An office somewhere else in the emirate, with a shuttle or a taxi at your expense to reach it. Industrial districts well outside the airport perimeter appear under this airport’s name, and so, occasionally, does an address in a different emirate altogether.

Read the pick-up line of the confirmation rather than the headline. If it names anything other than the airport, you have a journey before the journey.

Whether you can legally drive here at all

This is what stops bookings at the desk, and it is decided by which country issued your licence rather than by the rental company.

Some national licences are accepted directly from visitors. Others are only accepted alongside an international permit, which has to be obtained at home before you travel — it cannot be arranged here. And residents of the Emirates are a separate case again, on their local licence rather than on the one they arrived with.

Which licences the UAE accepts sets out the categories with sources. Check it before you pay for anything, not at the counter.

What arrives after you hand the car back

The daily rate is the part you agree to. These are the parts you find out about later:

• The deposit hold on your card, placed at pick-up and released some time after return. The two events are further apart than most people expect, and the amount is set by the company rather than by the rate you booked — ask what it is before you arrive with a card that will not carry it.
• Road tolls. Crossing into Dubai on the main routes runs through an automatic tolling system with no barrier and no cash. Charges accumulate silently and are billed to the hire company, which passes them on to you with an administration fee attached.
• Traffic fines. Enforcement here is largely automatic and postal. A fine issued on a road you drove on Tuesday reaches the rental company weeks later and reaches you after that, along with its own handling charge.
• Fuel and cleaning terms, which vary by company and are the most common source of a disputed final invoice.

Tolls, fines and the deposit covers what each of these actually is, how to check whether anything is outstanding against the car, and what to photograph at drop-off so a dispute is short.

Picking up and dropping off

Give them the flight number when you book, not the arrival time. It is the only thing that protects a late-night collection from a delayed flight.

Photograph the car before you leave the bay and after you return it, every side, plus the wheels and the windscreen, with the fuel gauge in one frame. Do it in the bay, not in the car park at the far end.

Ask where the return is, which is not always where the collection was, and can be a different level or a different building entrance.

Do not assume the last shuttle waits. If the supplier is off-site and your flight is a night one, confirm in writing that somebody will be there.

Where to next

If you are not renting after all: buses and coaches has the timetable out of the airport, and taxis explains what the metered ride actually costs from the rank. If you are renting, parking at the airport matters on the way back, and what happens after you land explains where the arrivals hall desks sit relative to baggage reclaim.