What No One Tells You About Renting a Car in the Canary Islands

Seven islands, all so different to drive around! That’s the one thing about renting a car in the Canaries that’s easy to miss until you’re actually on the road.

Get the basics wrong here, and it’s rarely dangerous, just expensive: the wrong airport, the wrong fuel policy, a scam that costs you a few hundred euros at drop-off.

Here’s what actually matters overall and island by island.

Where are the airports on the islands

Five islands cover almost all visitor traffic: Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura, Lanzarote, and La Palma, each with its own airport and its own character.

Tenerife is the one to get right before you book anything. Tenerife South (Reina Sofía) serves the southern resort coast and most charter flights; Tenerife North (Los Rodeos) serves Santa Cruz and the north of the island. They sit on opposite sides of Tenerife, so confirm which one your flight actually lands at before you pick a rental desk.

Gran Canaria‘s airport sits near Las Palmas in the northeast, Fuerteventura is near Puerto del Rosario centrally, Lanzarote is near Arrecife in the east, and La Palma is in the south.

If you’ve already done the main five and want somewhere quieter, La Gomera and El Hierro are worth serious consideration — genuinely wild, and rarely visited by comparison.

Saving compared to mainland Spain

Two things about the Canaries make budgeting refreshingly simple, and both come down to the same root cause.

There are no toll roads anywhere in the islands — not on the motorways, the coastal highways, or the mountain routes. Every road is free, so the only real driving cost beyond the rental and fuel is parking, and even that’s free in most non-urban areas.

Fuel is noticeably cheaper too, and not by accident. The islands run their own tax system, IGIC, in place of mainland Spain’s 21% VAT, at rates closer to 0 to 7% — which is why 95-octane petrol here typically runs somewhere around €1.20-€1.30 a litre, against closer to €1.70 -€1.80 in Madrid.

Fill up when you see a good price rather than waiting until you’re low, especially on the smaller islands where stations thin out.

Booking smart

Manual is the default across the islands, and automatics cost more and disappear from availability fast, particularly in peak season. If you need one, filter for it specifically and book early rather than assuming it’ll be there when you land.

The rental market here is genuinely competitive, with local Canarian operators pushing hard against the international names; however, in a few cases these providers are not as reliable. In a few words, this is exactly the kind of market where checking current ratings pays off.

I always book through the comparative website DiscoverCars for that reason. Every operator is rated 5 to 10 stars based on completed rentals by actual customers (similar to Airbnb). I typically filter above 8, sometimes 9 stars, and I select my car from this shortlist of the most trusted operators, comparing local and global options side by side on the same dates.

Full coverage through DiscoverCars runs around €10 a day, against €30 to €50 at the counter for often less complete cover. I personally always add full insurance, a lifesaver on a couple of occasions when I damaged the car (unfortunately it may happen).

If you are still unfamiliar with how Spanish car insurance actually works, here is the mandatory and optional levels

• TPL (Third-Party Liability) Insurance – Mandatory, included in the price, provided by the car rental. It pays for injuries, death, or property damage you accidentally cause to other people
• CDW (Collision Damage Waiver): Optional but often included; it limits your financial liability if the hire car is damaged or stolen. You are usually only responsible for paying up to a set amount called an excess (or deductible), usually around €3,000.
• Full coverage/Full insurance: Optional and never included. You can buy it at the desk (€30 to €50) or on DiscoverCars (€10). It covers the excess, so you won’t be out-of-pocket in case of accidents.

Full transparency: I am not an insurance advisor. Everything you read in this guide is based uniquely on my 20+ years’ experience of renting cars)

Christmas, Easter, and school holidays are peak season here, driven largely by northern Europeans escaping winter — book weeks ahead if you’re travelling then, since cancellation is free up to 48 hours out anyway. The rest of the basics for renting anywhere in the country are in my guide to renting a car in Spain.

The paperwork

The Canaries follow Spanish national road rules: drive on the right, overtake on the left. If your licence isn’t European or British, get an international driving permit (IDP) before you fly — cheap, straightforward, and it removes any ambiguity with the rental company or your insurer if something goes wrong.

You can get the IDP at your local car association or directly on the International Driving Permit website.

Seatbelts are mandatory in every seat, handheld phone use carries a heavy fine, and children under 1.35 metres need a car seat and can’t sit in front. The blood alcohol limit is 0.05%, lower than the UK’s, and breathalyser checks happen island-wide, especially at night.

Speed limits run 50 km/h in towns, 90 on rural roads, and up to 120 on motorways, with speed cameras increasingly common. If you pick up a fine during the rental, pay it directly rather than letting the rental company handle it — their administration fee is almost always higher than the fine itself.

Every island drives differently

This is the part that actually changes which car you should book.

Fuerteventura and Lanzarote are the easiest to drive in the archipelago — flat, well-maintained roads that suit a small, basic car.

The trade-off is wind: both islands sit close enough to the African coast to catch strong, consistent trade winds, and a light car can genuinely get pushed sideways on exposed coastal stretches and bridges. A slightly heavier car is worth the upgrade if you’re visiting in winter, when the wind is strongest.

Gran Canaria is more varied — easy along the coast and the motorway near Las Palmas, but genuinely steep and tightly bent heading into the interior toward Roque Nublo. I’ve mapped a full Gran Canaria road trip and a separate breakdown of where to actually rent on the island, if that’s the itinerary.

Tenerife is the most demanding of the main islands. The TF-1 gets genuinely congested around the resort areas in the morning and evening, and the road up to Teide — at 3,718 metres, the highest point in Spain — climbs through long, steep ascents where cloud can drop visibility with very little warning.

A car with a bit more power earns its keep here. I’ve written both a Tenerife road trip and a dedicated Tenerife car hire guide covering both airports in detail.

La Palma has the most dramatic mountain roads of the main five — steep, winding, and genuinely beautiful.

And if you make it as far as La Gomera, it’s worth knowing the island has its own whistled language, Silbo Gomero, still taught in schools and recognised by UNESCO — a reminder of just how isolated these mountain roads once were before anyone could drive them.

Parking

Parking is generally easy and often free outside the main resorts and city centres.

In Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Las Palmas, look for blue-painted metered spaces in the centre, or one of the well-priced underground car parks in both cities.

At the beach resorts, arrive early in high season, and the parking largely takes care of itself.

Don’t take the same car between islands

If you’re visiting more than one island, taking the same rental car on the ferry sounds like it should save money — a longer hire at a lower daily rate. In practice, it rarely does.

A car on the Tenerife–Gran Canaria crossing alone can add roughly €150 to €200 or more each way in season, which wipes out whatever you saved on the longer rental. The exception is Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, where the crossing is short and genuinely cheap enough to be worth considering.

Most operators don’t allow it anyway — managing an issue on a car stranded on another island is more trouble than it’s worth for them, and the insurance often doesn’t extend to it either. Renting fresh on each island is almost always cheaper and considerably less hassle.

What actually goes wrong

Three things account for most of the bad experiences I hear about across the islands.

The pre-existing damage trick is the most common: a car arrives with marks nobody logged, and a bill shows up at drop-off for damage you didn’t cause. Photograph everything at pickup and again at drop-off, and don’t accept “we’ll check it later and call you if there’s an issue” as an answer — get it confirmed on the spot.

The second is a desk telling you your pre-booked full coverage “isn’t valid” and pushing their own policy on top. It’s not true in the vast majority of cases — stay calm, point to your booking confirmation, and don’t pay twice.

The third is a full-to-empty fuel policy: you prepay for a full tank at an inflated price and return the car empty, and the unused fuel is never refunded. Ask specifically for full-to-full instead, so you only ever pay for what you actually use. I’ve built a broader what to avoid when renting a car checklist that covers these patterns and more, worth a read wherever you’re renting.

Quick recap

• Confirm which Tenerife airport you’re landing at — Reina Sofía in the south, Los Rodeos in the north — before booking anything.
• No tolls anywhere, and fuel runs cheaper thanks to the islands’ own IGIC tax system.
• Book automatics early — they sell out fast in peak season.
• Match the car to the island: small and light for Fuerteventura and Lanzarote’s wind, more power for Tenerife’s Teide road and Gran Canaria’s interior.
• Rent fresh on each island rather than ferrying the same car across — it’s almost always cheaper.
• Photograph the car at pickup and drop-off, and insist on full-to-full fuel.