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In Spain, I've once been rejected to be registered as an extra driver because I had had my driving license for 11 months, and the car rental agency required that one should have a license for at least 1 year.

I know that in N-America, there is often an age below which one must either pay (a lot) more insurance, or below which one can not rent a car at all, nor be registered as an additional driver. If someone is above this age limit, but has had their license for a short time (i.e. less than a year), would this typically incur extra costs or cause problems when renting a car or when registering as an additional driver?

This may be relevant in case of liability insurance.

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  • Officially, or what you can get away with? (My experience of US car rental places is that often fail to find your name on an EU style driving license, so the chances of them finding the date you became allowed to drive from is slim. That's very different from what their insurance company would find later if you ever claimed...)
    – Gagravarr
    Jun 12, 2014 at 22:27
  • Officially. I don't want to get in trouble in case I need a reimbursement from a liability insurance.
    – gerrit
    Jun 12, 2014 at 22:28
  • I've never seen such a clause on a rental car contract. At least on my license the 'issue date' looks the same whether it's a first time, a replacement or a renewal, so I think they'd have to ask, and they never do. You can read terms and conditions online for some companies.
    – Spehro Pefhany
    Jun 13, 2014 at 0:16
  • Do you have an international license or a US state license?
    – Aditya Somani
    Jun 13, 2014 at 0:48
  • Can you country limit this?
    – Karlson
    Jun 13, 2014 at 1:06

2 Answers 2

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Can't say the same for all car rental companies in North America as there are 3 different countries with dozens of rental agencies but majors don't specify the length of time required for the license to be held as long as the age requirements and licensing class is satisfied:

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  • Zipcar, which is one of the cheaper ones out there in the US requires the license to be held for 1 year. AFAIK only for intl. license though.
    – Aditya Somani
    Jun 13, 2014 at 3:53
  • I haven't found Zipcar to be cheaper unless you're buying everything they include in the price and doing at the rates that the major car rental companies charge
    – Karlson
    Jun 13, 2014 at 11:03
  • I see. We can get Zipcars on an hourly basis though. Maybe I just overpaid with Enterprise earlier. And yes I'm talking with the everything included option.
    – Aditya Somani
    Jun 13, 2014 at 11:27
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I successfully hired a car from National in Florida in March 2014 when I had only had a UK driving license since September 2013 (6 months). No one at the rental desk questioned it, and I didn't have to pay any extra. I had emailed them to check before my trip and was told there was no minimum length of time that the license had to be held for. I also emailed Budget and got the same reply.

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