Car rental isn't glamorous, but pick the wrong counter and it can set the tone for a whole trip. Condé Nast Traveler's 2026 Readers' Choice Awards have settled the annual argument about which hire companies actually deliver, with readers scoring brands on service, vehicle selection, availability, rental locations and overall satisfaction.
National Car Rental came out on top with a score of 91.75, comfortably clear of the field. Its reputation rests largely on the Emerald Club loyalty programme — skip-the-counter pickup and the ability to choose your own car from the aisle have long made it a favourite with business travellers, and clearly with holiday renters too.
German brand SIXT took second place on 89.37, and it's the one to watch. Known for a younger, more premium fleet than most rivals, it has been pushing hard into the US market in recent years and is now a genuine alternative at major airports on both sides of the Atlantic. Enterprise, SIXT's US-based owner, rounded out the podium on 87.82 — notable given the two brands now sit side by side near the top of the same list.
The middle of the table is familiar territory: Hertz scored 84.34, Thrifty 82.65, Alamo 82.30, Dollar 80.56 and Avis just under the 80 mark. The real gap appears at the bottom. Budget landed on 71.96 and Europcar brought up the rear with a relatively weak 66.00 — a striking result for a company with one of the biggest European networks, and a sign that widespread locations alone don't win loyalty when the service disappoints.
A few patterns are worth noting if you're booking a car this year. The scores rewarded convenience as much as price: brands that let you skip queues or pick your own vehicle scored well, which suggests it's worth joining a free loyalty scheme even for a single rental. Also worth remembering that several of these brands share owners — Enterprise, National and Alamo are all one group, as are Hertz, Thrifty and Dollar — so pricing and fleet policies often move in tandem across supposedly competing names.
For travellers, the practical takeaway is simple: the reader scores roughly track what you'd expect from the desk experience. If a smooth, fast pickup matters more to you than shaving a few pounds off the daily rate, the top three are where the data points. If you're renting in Europe specifically, Europcar's low score is a prompt to compare it against SIXT or the Enterprise group before defaulting to the biggest name at the terminal. As ever, it pays to read the small print on insurance excess and fuel policies too — those were the details readers didn't score, but they're where rental companies most often sting you.
Full ratings were published in Condé Nast Traveler's Readers' Choice Awards 2026.
