Car Rental in Oslo: A Practical Guide to Prices, Providers and Pitfalls
Is Renting a Car in Oslo Worth It?
Honest answer: it depends on what you plan to do after you leave the city. Car rental in Oslo makes a lot of sense if you’re heading west toward the fjords, up to Lillehammer, or along the coast to places like Tønsberg and Kragerø where trains and buses get thin. If your entire trip is inside Oslo itself, skip the car. The metro, trams and ferries run by Ruter cover the city better than any rental ever will, and parking downtown will cost you more than a decent dinner.
That said, I’ve rented in Oslo three times now, and each time the math worked out. A week of rental at around NOK 2,800 split between t
wo people beat buying two Oslo Passes plus separate intercity train tickets. The break-even point is roughly two or three day trips outside the city. Below that, public transport wins.
What Does Car Rental in Oslo Actually Cost?
Prices swing hard by season. In summer (June to August), a compact car from Oslo Gardermoen Airport runs about NOK 550 to 800 per day if you book early, and well over NOK 1,000 if you show up without a reservation. In the off-season, November through March, the same car can dip to NOK 350 to 450 per day. I once grabbed a Toyota Yaris from Hertz at Gardermoen in late February for NOK 389 a day, which felt almost unfairly cheap for Norway.
Fuel is the part nobody warns you about. Expect around NOK 20 to 23 per litre for 95 octane, so a full tank on a compact car costs roughly NOK 750 to 900. Diesel is a bit cheaper and widely available, though Oslo city center has some diesel restrictions on certain high-pollution days, which the rental company should tell you about and often doesn’t.
| Season | Compact (per day) | Mid-size SUV (per day) |
|---|---|---|
| December to March | NOK 350 to 500 | NOK 550 to 800 |
| April to May, September | NOK 450 to 650 | NOK 700 to 950 |
| June to August | NOK 550 to 900 | NOK 900 to 1,400 |
Which Rental Companies Should You Use?
The big international names are all here: Hertz, Avis, Budget, Enterprise, Sixt and Europcar all have desks at Gardermoen and several downtown locations. They’re reliable, and their English-language support is smooth, which matters if something goes wrong on a mountain road at 9pm.
But don’t ignore the local and regional players. Companies like Nordrive, Rent A Wreck (yes, the name is real, the cars are usually fine) and OTA-specific brokers through Kayak or DiscoverCars often undercut the majors by 20 to 30 percent. My rule after a bad experience with a scratched wheel in Bergen: rent through a broker for the price, but always buy the full damage waiver from the rental desk itself, not a third-party add-on. Third-party excess insurance from sites like icarhireinsurance.com is cheaper (around £3 to 5 per day) but you pay the rental company upfront for damage and claim it back later. That’s a cash-flow headache you don’t want abroad.
Airport vs. Downtown Pickup
Gardermoen is 50 minutes north of the city by the R10 line or Flytoget, and rental desks there open early and close late. Downtown offices, clustered around Majorstuen and Oslo S, are usually 5 to 10 percent cheaper but shut on Sundays in some cases. Check hours before you book, because returning a car to a closed office in Norway usually means dropping the keys in a box and hoping the pre-return inspection covers you. It usually does, but “usually” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
What Are the Rules for Foreign Drivers?
If you hold a licence from an EU/EEA country, the UK, the US, Canada or Australia, you can drive in Norway on it for as long as your stay lasts. An International Driving Permit isn’t required for those, but bring it anyway if your licence isn’t in Latin script, since Norwegian police will ask. The blood alcohol limit is 0.02 percent, one of the strictest in Europe, which realistically means zero drinks. Fines are income-based, and Norway has imprisoned tourists over serious DUI cases. Don’t risk it.
A few other things worth knowing:
- Headlights must be on at all times, day or night, year-round. Every rental car handles this automatically.
- Speed limits: 80 km/h on rural roads, 50 km/h in towns, and Oslo has plenty of 30 and 40 zones with automatic cameras.
- Winter tires with a minimum 3mm tread are mandatory from November 1 to the first Monday after Easter. Rentals include them, but confirm at pickup.
- Elk and reindeer warnings are real, especially on roads north and east of the city. Dusk is the danger window.
- Fines arrive by mail to the rental company, who charges your card plus an admin fee of NOK 200 to 400. That speeding ticket from E18 costs extra months later.
Tolls, Ferries and the AutoPASS Question
This trips up almost every visitor. Norway uses automatic toll stations, and Oslo’s ring road has plenty of them, around NOK 20 to 60 per passage depending on the hour and the vehicle. Rental companies install an AutoPASS chip in the car and then charge you, sometimes with an admin fee stacked on top. Avis, for example, charges a daily fee (capped around NOK 90 for the rental period) on top of actual tolls, which feels predatory until you realize running a toll without a chip gets you a NOK 300 to 600 bill in the mail later anyway.
Ferries are a separate joy. If you drive the coast road south toward Tønsberg or take Highway 7 west, you’ll hit ferry crossings. On most state-run crossings the ticket is based on the vehicle length, so a car pays roughly NOK 150 to 300 depending on the route, passengers included. You just drive on and pay at a booth or by chip. The Hjørundfjord and longer coastal ferries cost more, but the views are part of the price.
One quirk I love: on several ferries, an electric vehicle gets a discount or priority boarding. Norway genuinely rewards EVs everywhere, including half-price tolls and free municipal parking in some zones. If your itinerary allows, paying NOK 100 more per day for an EV rental can save you money in week one. Charging is easy, with enough fast chargers along every major route that range anxiety is mostly a myth south of Trondheim.
Best Road Trips You Can Do from Oslo
If you’ve decided car rental in Oslo is for you, here are the drives I’d actually recommend, ranked by how often I send friends on them:
- Oslo to Lofthus, Hardangerfjord. About 350 km each way via Route 7 over Hardangervidda. Five to six hours one way. The Vøringsfossen waterfall viewpoint alone justifies the drive, and the fruit orchards around Lofthus in September are gorgeous.
- The Telemark loop. Oslo to Rjukan and back via Route 37 and 40, roughly 400 km round trip. Gaustatoppen mountain, the old industrial heritage sites, and far fewer tourists than the west coast.
- Oslo to Lillehammer and Peer Gynt country. Two hours up the E6, and from there the mountain roads above Gålå are among the best driving roads in the country. Do it in late September for autumn colors.
- South coast hop. Tønsberg, Sandefjord, then the island-hopping toward Kragerø. You’ll want two or three days, and you’ll use at least one ferry.
A warning on the first option: Hardangervidda sits above 1,200 meters and it can snow up there in July. I’ve driven it in horizontal sleet on July 14th. Check yr.no before you go, and if the plateau looks grim, take the coastal route via Drammen and Kongsberg instead. It’s 40 minutes slower and a lot calmer.
Booking Tips That Save Real Money
Book 6 to 10 weeks ahead for summer trips. Norway’s rental fleet is small, and July catches companies flat-footed every single year. Book direct with the rental company if the price matches a broker, because changing or cancelling direct reservations is far easier. Always, always photograph the entire car before driving off, including the roof and under the bumpers, and get the fuel level and mileage on the agreement before you sign. Norway’s rental companies are fair on the whole, but a NOK 6,000 charge for a wheel scuff you didn’t cause is a bad way to remember your fjord trip.
The short version: rent in Oslo when the fjords or the coast are calling, book a small car early, sort out your toll setup at the desk, and spend the savings on a proper mountain-top dinner. Everything else is just reading the signs, which even in rural Norway are helpfully in pictograms and English.
