First, before you get started, be aware that opening a car rental agency puts your future business in compliance with certain rules. Before renting vehicles, you must:
- Provide information on the general conditions of the lease to your customers: information on the prices and conditions of the lease, the conditions of insurance, other ancillary services … This information must be available in the reception area clientele or electronically if the rental offer is made online;
- Submit an estimate to your customers before the conclusion of the contract. This quote must include certain mandatory information;
- Check the condition of the vehicle (scratches, shocks …) before the actual rental of the vehicle by a customer. The defects found must be described in the rental contract or on the vehicle condition sheet;
- Request a deposit to cover the costs of damage to the vehicle. Optionally, you can also request an advance on rental, which ensures the payment of the rental;
- Subscribe to third party liability insurance, covering the material and bodily injury suffered by your customers and the theft and damage caused to the rented vehicles.
Business plan and car rental: what interest?
- You must carry out a market study to verify that it is wise to locate in the desired geographical area. For this, you must analyze:
- The offer: How dense are the car rental agencies already in place where you plan to locate? What price do they charge? What offers do they offer? Are the big names in the sector (franchised agencies) present in this area? If this is not the case, for what reasons (low demand or not)? suv and truck car rentals delete are not used in these days.
Demand:
- Is the tourist flow important? Are there many business clients in the area? Will my agency be close to train stations or airports? Does the local population have a vehicle? If the answer is negative, can it be punctually interested in car rental? What are the expectations of customers in terms of services and prices?
- Then, if the market has real commercial potential, it is strongly recommended to write a business plan . This document serves to determine the financial equilibrium of your future car rental agency: need for start-up financing (example: purchase of rental cars), general costs (example: car maintenance, insurance, etc.) and income (example: rental rates for different types of vehicles). This document should help to establish a long-term profitable model.
- The writing of such a document can be very useful to convince your potential financiers (including banks) the viability of your agency. Best Car Rental Deals in LA is available
Open a car rental agency: what legal status?
Micro-enterprise and car rental: incompatible
- Adopt the auto-entrepreneur status is strongly to open its car rental agency. Indeed, to create your agency, you have to buy vehicles to build a car fleet. This requires significant investments.
- However, the auto-entrepreneur scheme does not allow nor to recover the VAT paid on your purchases, nor to amortize your investments. This status is therefore unsuitable for this type of activi
- Good to know: leasing can be an attractive option to finance part of your fleet.