Enterprise Car Rental Fees Explained (Hidden and Extra Charges)

Taking note of how a car rental company finalize their rental fees is something you’d want to do, especially when you’re new to renting cars.

This is to avoid being handed a bill (way above your initial rental contract) after a successful rental period.

For this reason, this article attempts to make a detailed guide covering everything you need to know about Enterprise car rental fees.

What factors affect your rental car fees?

For most car rental companies including Enterprises, a number of factors go into how they determine the initial rental fees for customers.

Below are a few of these factors;

1. Your rental location: Highly populated areas with fewer rental cars are likely to contribute to a higher rental fee.
2. Type of car: In fact, this weighs more than every other factor. More flashy or premium cars would come with extreme rates and security deposits. Likewise, more recent cars would also come at a higher rate compared to older models of cars.
3. Presence of extra services: Extra services like one-way rental, picking up cars from the airport, fuel service options, modification of reservations, etc, do come with extra charges.

Enterprise car rental fees explained

Just like most companies, the rental fees on Enterprise are basically determined by the following:

1. Your rental location
2. Type of car
3. Presence of extra service in the rental contract
4. Violations

While we’ve talked about the first three options, we didn’t make mention of the “violation” factor. Unfortunately, this is what Enterprise and most other car rental companies don’t joke with.

When you successfully reserve a car at Enterprise online, you’ll be shown a screen with an estimated price of your trip.

However, you should note that this isn’t always accurate, as the reservation only takes notes of the situation of the day the car was reserved. So you can expect to pick up your rental car at a different rate.

You could even end up not finding your reserved car when picking the car.

Even with all this, the total trip price presented to you while picking up your rental car doesn’t determine the final price. Rather your behaviour or obedience to the company’s policy does that.

For instance, if your return a car above the scheduled time, you’re charged for that. If you also smoke (which is not accepted), you’re fined. So yeah, violating a rental company could quickly add up your rental charges.

Let’s take a quick look at a few common fees and policies in detail;

Enterprise admin fee

When Enterprise helps you fix a traffic ticket, loss or damage, parking violation, toll service, etc, you’ll find an admin fee on your rental bill

The admin fee on Enterprise is a fee charged to cover the time and labour Enterprise car rental spent while fixing a service, violation, or damage caused by you.

 Note that this fee is exclusive of the actual fee paid for the service, violation or damage.

As long as labour is needed from Enterprise, you’re most likely going to be faced with an Admin fee. We talked about this in our guide on Enterprise Admin fees.

Additional driver fee

On Enterprise, renters are not allowed to give cars to others, unless authorized by a particular Enterprise rental location.

Failing to do this, if you’re caught, you could be charged a fine from the company, as well as have to pay the driver fee. Aside from all of this, you’re normally charged a fee when you let someone else drive your rental car.

Cleaning fee

While Enterprise doesn’t heavily enforce cleaning fees for all rental cars that are not returned the same way they were given, it’s best you keep an Enterprise rental car clean while returning it.

We’ve seen several cases of people having to pay cleaning fees of over $250, simply because they returned a rental car in an obviously dirty manner.

Some examples of situations that could lead you to pay cleaning fees include:

1. Smoking in a rental car
2. Stains on the seat of the cars
3. Muds on the car tires

Car rental drop-off Charge

The default system for most car rental companies is to pick up a car from a particular rental location and return it back to the same location.

However, you could change this on Enterprise, thanks to their one-way policy.

It’s worth mentioning that this service comes with a fee, alongside other extra services and add-ons you can find on Enterprise.

Late and Return Fees

Returning a car late on Enterprise would result in extra charges on your rental bill.

Depending on how late you return a rental car, this could go as little as having to pay a few dollars for the additional hours to a full day rental.

Generally, if you want to avoid high rental bills, then you’d want to avoid returning a rental car late. You can take a quick look at our guide on Enterprise late fees.

Rental car damage

Even though this may seem apparent, it’s worth mentioning that you’re totally responsible for the amount required to fix a damaged rental car, unless you have a proper insurance package.

Energy surcharge

Imposing an energy surcharge fee on customers is a common practice across several companies including car rental companies, in the US.

Thankfully, Enterprise’s energy surcharge fee is usually within $5. Note that you can’t avoid this, as it’s imposed on all rental contracts.

Concession recovery fee

Enterprise charges a concession recovery fee whenever you pick up or return a rental car to an airport or a Hotel location.

According to them, this fee is made to cover the fees charged by most airports and hotels, when car rental companies operate near their environment.

Refuelling

You’re required to return a rental car with the same fuel level as how it was before renting the car. Otherwise, you risk being charged a fuel fee, which is usually at an extreme rate.

Final Thoughts

If it’s your first time renting from Enterprise, make sure to make proper planning to avoid being billed unnecessarily. Also as a rule for all, you also want to avoid signing up for extra services or add-ons.

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