# How Zurich really rents a car: spontaneous, usually one day and often local

> An analysis of more than 1,400 documented rentals from the DRAIV fleet shows when, for how long and at what observed prices cars were booked in Zurich.

Source: https://draiv.ch/en/blog/how-zurich-rents-a-car-in-numbers/
Published: 2026-09-08
Language: en
Publisher: DRAIV (Steininger AG), Zurich, Switzerland

---

**An analysis of more than 1,400 rentals from a Zurich fleet shows how the city uses a car: spontaneously, usually for just one day and surprisingly often straight from its own neighbourhood. What starts as a stopgap becomes a habit for many.**

**Important context:** These figures describe documented rentals from the DRAIV fleet, not the entire Zurich car-sharing market. Each metric uses the specific subset disclosed below.

In the historical fleet analysis, the typical rental lasts about a day and is booked less than ten hours before departure. For completed DRAIV rentals lasting no more than 24 hours, the typical booked total was about CHF 58. Most renters collect their car in the morning. Many live only a few minutes from the location.

That does not sound like the classic airport car rental. It sounds like a perfectly ordinary day in Zurich.

**The key figures at a glance:**

- More than 1,400 rentals analysed
- Typical rental length: about one day
- Typical booked total for a completed DRAIV rental of up to 24 hours: about CHF 58
- Every second rental is booked less than 10 hours ahead
- 39 per cent begin within two hours of booking
- 65 per cent last at most one day (among 1,048 invoices with complete timestamps)
- More than 8 out of 10 bookings come from returning renters
- Less than 1 per cent confirmed damage cases
- Deposit: CHF 0

## Wednesday morning in Altstetten

It is Wednesday, 8:12 am. Someone steps out of a front door in Altstetten with a coffee cup and walks a few minutes to a parked car.

No counter, no waiting for a handover. The car is opened with a smartphone. It was booked shortly after six that same morning, perhaps on the tram, after the message came that a shelf has to be collected today after all.

This person stands for the most common patterns in the rentals analysed; no individual journey was followed.

His Wednesday is typical too. The car is booked at short notice, collected in the morning and returned in the evening. It serves neither as a status symbol nor for a long holiday trip. It solves one concrete problem for one day.

## Zurich does not plan its rentals weeks in advance

For half of the bookings examined, less than 10 hours and 21 minutes pass between confirmation and the planned start. 39 per cent of rentals even begin within two hours.

The car is therefore often booked only once the need is already there: a shopping trip turns out bigger than expected. A piece of furniture has to be collected. The weather changes the weekend plans. An appointment outside the city is awkward to reach by public transport.

| Booking lead time | Share |
|---|---:|
| Less than 2 hours | 39% |
| Less than 24 hours | 65% |
| Typical lead time | 10 hrs 21 min |

These figures rest on a narrower base than the rest of the analysis. A complete booking timestamp was available for 62 completed rentals. For older rentals migrated from a predecessor platform, that timestamp was not available.

Despite this limitation, a clear pattern emerges: for many people, a rental car is not a decision made long in advance. It is a short-notice addition to everyday life.

## The rental day starts in the morning

The most common start times fall between 8 and 10 am. After that, demand stays high into the afternoon. Only about one in five rentals begins between 5 pm and 10 pm.

That, too, says something about the purpose of the trips. The car is mostly not collected in the evening for a night out. It is more of a tool for a day on which something needs to be transported, visited or done.

A move within the city. A trip to the lake or the mountains. A big shop. A wedding. An appointment outside the ZVV network. Or simply a day on which one's own plans, for once, need four wheels.

| Pick-up time | Demand |
|---|---|
| 8 to 10 am | highest demand |
| 11 am to 4 pm | still strong |
| 5 pm to 10 pm | 21% of rental starts |

## One day is usually enough

In the subset of 1,048 GoMore invoices with complete start and end timestamps, 676 rentals lasted no more than 24 hours. That is 64.5 per cent, rounded to 65 per cent. The typical booking is therefore not an extended road trip but a manageable outing.

Estates are in particular demand. Among bookings with a known model, the BMW 3 Series Touring recorded 242 rentals, narrowly ahead of the BMW 5 Series Touring with 236. A model was missing for 1,051 archive rows, however, so the ranking only describes the documented subset.

The choice of car apparently follows less a holiday image than a practical question: what fits into everyday life, and what fits into the boot?

## What does such a day cost?

Complete scheduled start and end times and a booked total of at least CHF 5 were available for 68 completed DRAIV rentals lasting no more than 24 hours. In this clearly defined group, the historical median total was CHF 57.48; the arithmetic mean was CHF 62.00.

| DRAIV rentals up to 24 hours | Amount |
|---|---:|
| Typical total (median) | CHF 57.48 |
| Arithmetic mean | CHF 62.00 |
| Rentals analysed | 68 |

The total includes the discounts and extras recorded on the booking, but no deposit. Later refunds are not deducted. This is the price of the whole booking, not a daily rate extrapolated to 24 hours.

Across all rental lengths, the historical median was CHF 97.70 for 1,422 GoMore invoices and CHF 96.47 for 148 completed DRAIV bookings with a total of at least CHF 5. The two platforms did not store price components identically, so their medians are disclosed separately rather than combined.

The median means that half of the observed amounts lie below it and half above it. It is used as the typical value because a few especially expensive long rentals can pull the mean sharply upwards.

Day rentals at DRAIV start at CHF 44. The actual price depends on the car, the timing and the length of the rental.

## A week can be cheaper than many think

For multi-day rentals, the observed daily median can be compared reproducibly. The groups contain different bookings; they do not show how the price of the same booking changes when it is extended.

| Rental length | Observed median per day | n |
|---|---:|---:|
| 2 to 3 days | CHF 89 | 240 |
| 4 to 7 days | CHF 64 | 98 |
| 8 days or more | CHF 57 | 34 |

Rentals of up to 24 hours are deliberately not shown as a daily rate: many last only a few hours. Dividing by exact elapsed time would annualise those partial rentals to 24 hours and produce a hard-to-interpret comparison. The total shown above is therefore used for this group.

The observed median is markedly lower for the 4-to-7-day group than for the 2-to-3-day group. Vehicle mix, weekday, booking period and discounts may contribute; this analysis does not control for those factors and therefore does not establish a causal volume discount.

Anyone who needs a car on several consecutive days should compare the concrete total. DRAIV shows the price for the selected period with all applicable discounts; that current calculation, not the historical group median, is what matters.

For city dwellers this creates an interesting middle ground: available for longer than classic car sharing, but without the running costs and obligations of a car of one's own.

## Saturday stays popular; price effects remain open

Saturday is the most important single rental day. Since 2023, depending on the year, roughly every fourth to every third rental has begun on a Saturday:

- 23 per cent in 2023
- 28 per cent in 2024
- 30 per cent in 2025

In the fourth quarter of 2025, Saturday reached a peak of 36 per cent of all rental starts.

The more interesting development, however, is happening during the week. In 2023 and 2024, more than 40 per cent of rental starts fell on Monday to Thursday. In 2025 that share dropped to 36 per cent.

At the end of December 2025, prices from Monday to Thursday were reduced by 25 per cent. In the third quarter of 2026, 33 per cent of rental starts fell on these four days, while Saturday's share stood at 21 per cent.

The most recent quarter contains only 42 rentals that had already started and can therefore fluctuate more. This observation does not establish either an effect of the price change or a shift from weekends to weekdays. That would require more time and a comparison controlling for season, vehicle mix and availability.

The weekend surcharge that was later abolished has not been visible in the available data for long enough to judge its effect seriously.

Data: [weekdays per quarter as CSV](https://draiv.ch/data/so-mietet-zuerich/wochentage-je-quartal.csv) · [JSON](https://draiv.ch/data/so-mietet-zuerich/wochentage-je-quartal.json)

## June is for driving, November leaves more choice

The strongest month is June. 11.4 per cent of all rental starts analysed fall in this month. It is followed by January with 10.8 per cent and May with 10.4 per cent.

At the other end is November with 5.3 per cent. The strongest month thus records more than twice as many rental starts as the weakest.

The seasonal curve is easy to connect with life in and around Zurich: in spring and summer, outings, weddings, moves and days outdoors pile up. In late autumn, demand falls.

For renters this has a practical side effect. Anyone who is flexible on timing often finds a larger choice of cars in the quieter months. Anyone who needs a particular car on a Saturday in June, on the other hand, is better advised to book early.

## The one-off solution becomes a habit

In the early years, almost every second rental already came from someone who had booked before. Today, more than eight out of ten bookings come from returning renters.

The most loyal customer of the period analysed rented 27 times.

This development is remarkable because many first bookings arise from a single occasion: «Just this once, for the move.» Or: «Just for the trip at the weekend.»

When booking simply works and the car is nearby, the exception becomes an option that stays available in everyday life. The question shifts from «Should I buy a car?» to «Do I need one today?»

The rental car does not replace public transport. It complements it on the days when a direct journey or extra storage space is needed.

## In 99 out of 100 rentals, no damage is confirmed

A damage case was confirmed in less than one per cent of the more than 1,400 rentals analysed.

That does not mean nothing can happen when driving. It does show, however, that the normal rental day is far less eventful than many people fear before their first booking.

The car is collected, used, returned and locked with a smartphone. Done.

DRAIV currently charges no deposit. This product decision is separate from the observed damage rate; no additional amount is blocked on the credit card before the trip begins.

Changes of plan are part of everyday life too. Around one in ten paid bookings was cancelled free of charge. A flexible rental offer has to do more than make short-notice bookings possible; it also has to cope with an outing being called off or a transport being postponed.

## Most renters come from the neighbourhood

Six out of ten renters live in the city of Zurich. A large share of the remaining customers come from the surrounding area, including Dübendorf, Adliswil and Winterthur.

The three most common Zurich home postcodes are:

- 8048 Altstetten
- 8004 Kreis 4
- 8050 Oerlikon

These are also the neighbourhoods and districts in which cars are available. The short distance is an important part of the offer: a rental car is above all practical in everyday life when you do not first have to cross the city to collect it.

The data therefore points less to a tourist offer than to a local form of mobility. Practically all renters with a recorded address live in Switzerland.

For many people in Zurich, what matters is not owning a car but being close to one when they need it.

## What the numbers say about Zurich

From more than 1,400 rentals emerges the picture of a city that uses the car selectively.

Zurich rents spontaneously, but not aimlessly. It rents in the morning, because something needs doing that day. It rents an estate rather than a convertible. It often brings the car back the same evening. And when the experience works, a one-off stopgap becomes a recurring habit.

The car of one's own is not only competing with bus, tram and bicycle. It is also competing with a car that is only paid for when it is actually needed.

The typical rental is therefore precisely not spectacular. It is a Wednesday with a boot.

## What renters can take from the data

**If you need a car spontaneously:**  
Many rentals are booked only on the same day. Subject to availability, you can often be on the road within a few hours.

**If you want a particular car:**  
Saturdays and the spring and summer months are in particular demand. Then an earlier reservation pays off.

**If you are flexible:**  
During the week and in November, the choice is often larger.

**If you are away for several days:**  
Compare the concrete total price. The historical groups show lower daily medians from four days, but they are not a price promise for an individual booking.

**If you are renting for the first time:**  
No deposit is required, and a damage case was confirmed in less than one per cent of the rentals analysed.

## About the analysis

The analysis is based on more than 1,400 documented rentals of the DRAIV fleet between 2023 and 7 September 2026. Only bookings whose start time was no later than the cut-off were included; five confirmed DRAIV bookings starting later were excluded.

Where a «typical» value is mentioned, the median is used. Half of the values observed lie below it, the other half above.

The platform-wide total-price figures use 1,422 GoMore invoices with a positive rental amount and 148 completed DRAIV bookings with a total of at least CHF 5. The DRAIV price figures include bookings that had started by 10 September 2026 at 07:26 UTC. Their medians are disclosed separately because the price fields differ.

The up-to-24-hour price uses 68 of those DRAIV bookings with complete scheduled start and end times. The duration is the booked period, not a subsequently measured driving time. The total includes recorded discounts and extras, excludes any deposit, and is stated before any later refund. Rental length and daily-price groups in the historical fleet analysis use 1,048 GoMore invoices with complete start and end timestamps; only the 372 multi-day rentals among them enter the daily-price comparison.

The figures on booking lead time are based on 62 completed rentals on the current platform for which a complete confirmation timestamp was available. 80 bookings migrated from a predecessor platform were excluded from this sub-analysis because no reliable booking timestamp was stored there.

Historical start times were reconstructed, depending on the year, from invoices and booking confirmations. Quarters with very few bookings should not be interpreted in isolation. The second quarter of 2026, for example, comprises only 16 rentals and is not suitable for robust comparisons.

The damage rate is based on confirmed and internally documented damage cases. The returning-renter rate describes the share of bookings, not the share of individual people.

**Analysis as of September 2026.**

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