No credit card?
Car rental at
Tenerife South.

Can you rent a car at Tenerife South Airport without a credit card?

On some cars, yes. The rental conditions say that a physical, embossed credit card in the main driver's name may be required, and that some rental companies accept a debit card instead. Which of the two a particular car asks for is specified while you book and again in your rental voucher, so the answer for your car is in writing before you leave home.

A debit card is held to the same physical tests as a credit card. It has to be a real card, personalised, embossed, and issued in the name of the main driver. The conditions ask you to have it with you when you pick the car up, and a photograph of a card is not the card.

The deposit is a separate line from the card. Each listing shows its own deposit before you book and marks it when it is low, and some cars at this airport hold no deposit against your card at all, in numbers that change from day to day. A car with no deposit can still ask for a credit card, so read both lines on the car you pick.

Which debit cards will they accept at the airport?

Only one that meets every part of the clause, so run through it with the card in your hand. Physical: a card that exists only in a banking app fails here. Personalised and embossed: a card with flat printed numbers fails the embossing test, whatever the bank. In the main driver's name: a card in a partner's name fails, even when the partner is travelling in the car.

And where the booking specifies a credit card for that car, a debit card does not satisfy it. The card requirement is read off each car, so two cars at the same airport can ask for different cards.

What do you need in your hand at the arrival area?

Where exactly do you collect the car at Tenerife South Airport?

In the arrival area, which is the named pick-up place at this airport. Tenerife South has a single terminal, so there is one arrival area and no second building to find. The other option offered here is City delivery, where the car is brought to an address you give instead.

A card that does not meet the conditions is the most common reason a collection fails, and the agent works to the same written conditions you saw when you booked, so check the card against them before you fly.

Puerto de la Cruz is the only town on the island with named pick-up points, and the resort towns on the list of collection points across the island work by City delivery to your address. The card and deposit rules on this page apply at every one of them unchanged, because every booking runs under the same rental conditions.

Do the card rules change at the other airport or on a one-way?

No. The same written conditions govern automatic car rental at Tenerife North Airport, about 65 minutes and 73 km up the motorway without traffic, so a credit card required there is required on the same terms, and a debit card is accepted there only where the booking says so.

A one-way follows the same pattern. Collecting here and returning at the north airport, or the reverse, is the deepest one-way pairing on Tenerife by a wide margin, and one way car rental in Tenerife shows its fee with the price you are quoted. The deposit and the card requirement on a one-way are read off the car you book, exactly as on a return to this airport.

How do you get the deposit back after returning the car?

The holding method and the refund timeline for your car are set out during booking and in the rental voucher, along with how the rest of the rental is paid. Those two documents carry the terms the deposit is released under, so keep the voucher to hand until the money is back.

Two conditions apply at the return itself. The fuel has to be at the level it was at collection: below it, the difference is charged at the rental company's rates, and above it you are not compensated. And a car returned so dirty that it cannot be inspected is washed at the renter's expense.

The minimum chargeable period is 24 hours, so a car collected in the morning and returned the same evening is charged as a full day. If you want to keep it longer than booked, tell the rental agent in advance.

Which car should you rent at Tenerife South?

Start with the lines that decide whether you can drive it away. Each car's page lists the minimum age and the driving experience it needs, and these differ even between similar models, and the agent may refuse the car to a driver who does not meet them. The search filters narrow the list to cars whose requirements you meet, and the card and the deposit narrow it again.

Then the gearbox. Automatics on this island are a minority, found mainly in the compact and crossover classes, so an automatic that also takes a debit card is a narrower search than either on its own. This airport has the widest choice of cars on the island, which makes it the best place to run that search.