5 Most Needed Documents for Car Rental in Canada if You are a U.S. American living in Germany

Traveling is a wonderful thing. I have come to the point to believe it would be easier to rent a car in Uzbekistan and drive it into Turkmenistan. At least, security could not be much tighter. Our rental procedure is so complicated as we are heading to an exotic country… such as Canada.

We have been having a challenging time trying to get a rental car for when we arrive in Halifax/Canada. We could not anticipate the difficulties we would encounter when a U.S. American, residing in Germany, wants to rent a car in Canada AND take it across the U.S. border.

The first stage included finding a car rental agency who would even rent a car to an U.S. American in Canada. Out of the about 30 car rental agencies on the Canadian market, only two were willing to let us rent a car. We settled on Alamo as they had the better offer of the two.

Then we gathered the four extra required documents.

* International driver’s license in English. Strange as it might seem, official German paperwork such as the International Driver’s License is issued in German, among various other languages. The very last page is in English. We are still awaiting their confirmation that one page in English is sufficient as we were told “When renting a car in Canada, you must provide an international drivers license that is issued in English.  All the documents that you have to provide must be in English and must be original.”

We have run into so many unexpected challenges along the way, we need to make very sure that one page in English is sufficient.

* German registration

* Certified English translation of the German registration

* Proof of our return tickets

* We also decided to bring my husband’s confirmation of employment in Germany.

———————————————————————————————

Now, if you are foolish like us, you might think “Why not combine our trip to Canada (where we attend a wedding) with a short visit down to Maine?” This is part two of the fun:

* For taking the car into the U.S., we have to get a written addendum in our rental contract that specifically permits us to drive the rental car into the US.

 or we will get into trouble at the Canadian/U.S. border.

Not to mention my German nationality, being the spouse of a U.S. citizen without a green card puts me in the second highest risk group for illegal immigration. If we get through with the car – and myself included – we get to visit a friend, spend some U.S. Dollars, then turn back to Saint John/Canada to visit another friend.

As a German citizen, I have never flown into Canada trying to rent a car with my American husband and his driver’s license. And I don’t think I will ever do this again.

Comments

  1. We went to Canada about ten years ago, and I don’t remember having any problems renting a car. We certainly didn’t have to produce an international driving license. Just as well as we didn’t have one, just our very old (from 1980) German driving licences! Either they have changed the law since then, or the theory and the practice are quite out of step with each other. What a bureaucratic nightmare!

  2. The German Reiseveranstalter and Alamo Canada had two different guidelines on what documents are needed. So we decided to get every possible proof to be safe.
    We got our rental car, but this should have been easier. Well, it is if you German or British. For US Americans (whether living in the U.S. or outside), there is extra paperwork required.

Speak Your Mind

*

Diese Webseite verwendet Cookies. Wenn Sie auf der Seite weitersurfen, stimmen Sie der Cookie-Nutzung zu. Mehr Informationen

Diese Webseite verwendet so genannte Cookies. Sie dienen dazu, unser Angebot nutzerfreundlicher, effektiver und sicherer zu machen. Cookies sind kleine Textdateien, die auf Ihrem Rechner abgelegt werden und die Ihr Browser speichert. Die meisten der von uns verwendeten Cookies sind so genannte "Session-Cookies". Sie werden nach Ende Ihres Besuchs automatisch gelöscht. Cookies richten auf Ihrem Rechner keinen Schaden an und enthalten keine Viren. Weitere Informationen finden Sie auf der Seite “Datenschutzerklärung”.

Close