How picktheauto works
One question: where do I pick up a hire car when I arrive? Here is where every answer comes from, what we leave out, and how we earn.
Where the desks come from
Every car-hire place in Switzerland, Germany, France, Italy and Austria on OpenStreetMap (tagged amenity=car_rental), read through the Overpass API: 6,433 places, checked Fri 6 Nov 2026. We refresh it every month.
- Airports: the 127 with scheduled flights and an IATA code, from OurAirports (public domain). Distances are measured from the nearest terminal on the map: up to 500 m is "in or by the terminal", up to 2 km "on the airport", up to 6 km "a short ride away".
- Stations: the 158 stations our sister site pickthetrain serves with direct trains across borders, named as OpenStreetMap names them. Walking time is the straight line times 1.3 for streets, at 4.8 km/h, up to 25 minutes; from 1.6 to 4 km is "a short ride".
- Opening hours and websites show only where the map has them: 449 and 333 of the 1,103 desks at arrivals. We never write in hours ourselves.
What we leave out, and how many
Of the 6,433 places on the map, these are not listed as car-hire desks:
- 295 no name on the map
- 171 car sharing
- 130 campers
- 115 vans, trucks or bikes only
- 32 mapped twice
- 8 a car return point
No ranking: desks are listed by distance only. A missing or wrong desk? Fix it on OpenStreetMap; it shows here after the next refresh.
Partner links
The Compare prices button opens EconomyBookings, which compares car-hire companies in 150 countries, with the airport or city filled in. Where Localrent has a page for the city, a second button opens it. Both go through Travelpayouts, so if you book, we may earn a commission, at no cost to you. Prices are always theirs, live; we never store or make one up.
There is no partner script on our pages and we set no cookies. The partner's site sets its own when you open it.
Partner links are on in this browser.
Off means every Compare button goes straight to the partner's page, with no Travelpayouts link, until you turn it back on. It is remembered in this browser only.
Visits
We count visits without cookies: each page sends one small note when it is shown and one when it is left, and a visitor is a code from their address and browser with a key that changes every day, so nobody, us included, can follow anyone from one day to the next. Details: Privacy.
For AI agents
Everything here is open to assistants: llms.txt, intents.md, agents.md and the JSON at /api/v1/places.json.
Credits and licences
Desks, terminals and station names © OpenStreetMap contributors, under the Open Database License. Airports from OurAirports (public domain). Stations from pickthetrain.com (ODbL), from official open rail timetables. Our combined data is available under the same ODbL, with attribution.