Localiza Rent a Car Reviews 13,808

I am writing to express my deep dissatisfaction with my recent rental experience. I rented a car for four days and paid in full. The documents provided clearly stated a one-hour grace period for return. However, when I returned the car within that grace period, I was charged for an additional full day, despite not having entered a new 24-hour rental period. This practice feels dishonest and unfair. I will not rent from Localiza again and will actively advise my friends and contacts to avoid booking with this company.

Nobody speaks English or has material in English. When I picked up my car, the contract (in Portuguese) given to me did not cover what I had ordered (total coverage), which I discovered when my tire blew up due to a hole on the road.

When I had the accident, I called the 800 number, which seemed very helpful, but when I got to the agency (Passos) to get the new car, the options were either a downgrade that didn't meet my needs or buying a new tire myself. That's when I found out that the contract didn't match my order. The agency made a review request of my order vs my contract, which was never answered. My rental period was for 3 weeks.

I tried to call the 800 number again several times to hear about the review, but it was always unreachable. I visited another Localiza shop (Itú), and the lady was extremely rude. She refused to listen to my problem and to look into my review request.

I do speak Portuguese, and I alone couldn't solve the "simple" problem of a blown-up tire. The issue was solved by my sister, who has a close relationship with Localiza through her work. She contacted the Idaiatuba department, which showed great professionalism and solved my contract problem on the day of my departure. I'm grateful for their help! But I had 2,5 weeks of stress on the crazy Brazilian traffic without knowing if I had total coverage in the case of an accident - and we had a couple of close calls besides the blown-up tire.

I'm waiting to get the money back from the tire.

Good shuttle service, good value for money, good check out experience, fast and effective.

To be improved: the check in experience is too "aggressive" in trying to convince the customer to buy additional insurances and services. The customer is given inaccurate information like "the current reservation includes no insurance, not even the basic". A more customer-oriented and transparent service would be appreciated.

The 24/7 emergency number is a catastophe. Even for the locals....
As a tourist it was Even worse.

So there is another Service Hotline for English speaking tourist, but nobody tells you that and you can find it nowhere. In Addition you cant contact anyone by person. Just this WhatsApp number with that cant be used as I dont have a CPF... And Even with the cpf nobody wanted to help...

We’ve just had the worst experience with Localiza which left us stranded at night in a potentially dangerous situation! We have rented from them before, we come usually in July and spend at least a month. We made our reservation 4 months ago and in Belo Horizonte which is 3 hours away from our desired location just because they had a bigger car that we require since we travel with kids and a lot of luggage! We’ve missed our connecting flight in Brasilia and my husband contacted them to let them know that we will be several hours late. First he was told that they can not keep the car for because that was their policy. We started looking for different options. Localiza contacted us and said that they will keep the car for us. When we arrived in Belo Horizonte we had to get a taxi since this location is 40 minutes away. Upon arrival we confirmed the reservation paid the whole amount which was over US $ 1100 and then we were told that they can not rent the car to us because my husband’s “profile” wasn’t approved. No explanation what the problem is!!! Their policy! We called the number they told us same thing. We leave abroad so my husband does not have much credit history over here if that’s what the “profile” means but he also doesn’t have outstanding debt and owns properties over here! We’ve rented from them before and never had a problem. No explanation, no excuse, not even polite treatment! They left us with 2 kids, 6 big suitcases, 4 small suitcases and a bunch of backpacks at night in the middle of a dangerous city without any options. I’m not sure what their process involves but whatever it is it should be done in advance! This should be absolutely illegal!!! Never again!

Avoid renting a car in Cancun with Localiza unless you want to experience an extremely persistent attempt to scare you into buying their own overpriced insurance despite already having fully paid up CDW and TPL insurance and full excess protection

Very DISAPPOINTED with the new charges that showed up a few days after the account had been closed. One charge of over 500 reais made to my credit card, and another for 11 and change that can’t seem settled no matter what. Several attempts had been made using links provide by localiza that never completes the transactions!

Stung with a £200 bill for ‘compulsory’ third party insurance on arrival. Told by Booking.com I didn’t have to pay it and shouldn’t have.
The email address in the below response to this review is also not working- delivery failed. Just pretending to be helpful.

Great experience renting a car from Localiza - managed it all in English language as well - THANKS

For all U.S Citizens! PLEASE BE AWARE!
I had been leasing with Localiza rent a car during my travel to Medillin Colombia. However I am shocked of the corruption among the staff and manger at the Localiza in El Publado: They staff charges foreigners what ever price they want to charge once you are there to pick up your car that you have reserved. This women named Laura that works at Localiza en El poblado Medillin , acts like an immigration officer and discriminates U.S Citizens. She was telling me that I only have a week left in Colombia: However I had arrived to Colombia only a week ago. They are also non cooperative and have No manners. Very bad attitude. Before your travel to Colombia. I suggest you book your Car Rental through Expedia to avoid direct contact with Localiza. Very unprofessional and rude to Foreigners:

PT: Primeira locação sem problemas, na renovação da locação, me foi negado por problemas que a central não pode me informar, mas no entanto tive o valor integral da locação da renovação debitado do meu cartão junto com a pré autorização, sendo que o atendente do balcão não conseguiu fazer o estorno e a central da localiza me alegou que eu tenho que esperar até sete dias para o valor me seja reembolsado ou então entrar em contato com a operadora da American Express para que o problema seja solucionado.

EN: Stay away from this company in Brazil; it's the worst experience with payment when you face issues, where the company cannot say the reason, but they debit the full amount of your credit card, and you need to complain to credit card emissor, because the attendants cannot solve the issue.

PS: Please refrain from sending emails to "fidelidade at localiza," as previous interactions suggest that the team may not fully understand or accurately interpret the issue. It is likely that you will receive a generic response that does not address your specific concerns.

Enai Rent a Car, my husband rented a car from this rental car company, and it was a complete disaster. The owner, who claimed to be Ivan, was very unpleasant. He didn't speak a word of English. He was very rude and brutal, and impolite.

The car was very dirty, and he wanted to charge us for gas that wasn't there. It was a disaster. I don't recommend it.

I've rented from Localiza twice in Brazil and this was my first time visiting and I don't speak Portuguese, the staff at both locations ( Brasilia and Salvador Bahia) were both super friendly, helpful and the pick up and return process were efficient and clear. There were no hidden fees and the cars are in great shape. And I rent cards all over the world regularly and this was a greeat experience.

I rented a car to get from São Paulo to Rio De Janeiro.
Pretty good experience for a rental company.
Clean car, nice staff, no reservation issues.

Hassle-free rental through booking.Com. They didn't make me buy TPL insurance. Car was clean and new and run well. No complaints at all. I wish all car rental companies were this easy.

Back in November, I booked a car for one week in Colombia. When I arrived at the agency in Monteria to pick it up, the agency was closed due to Good Friday, even if I had confirmation by email that they were open until 17h.

As a consequence, me and my family of 5 (with 3 small children) where stuck in a city we didn't have accommodation and lost one day of our vacation. We had to find a last minute place to sleep.

The following day, I was at the agency at opening time to pick up the car and had to be there for over 2 hours, as I was considered a no-show and they wanted to apply a price almost twice the price as the one I had, as if the fault had been mine! Thankfully, the staff was very helpful and after around 20 phone calls they managed to get approval to keep the original price.

Also, terrible support via whatsapp on the day of the pickup, no help at all despite the situation

Invoicing sucks. In Mexico, companies will only emit an invoice if requested DURING the month the car was rented. The problem is that the links to invoicing don't work and customer service simply doesn't answer. Again, in Mexico you need the invoice to deduce the expense from taxes.
In summary, BEWARE of this. You may lose quite a bit of money if you rent from them.

The total amount of my online reservation was not respected. I was charged over €200 more than the confirmed price for the same vehicle, dates, and add-ons.

When I questioned the charge upon returning the car, the staff member told me there was nothing he could do and that my only option was to pursue legal action. As someone who doesn’t live in Brazil, seeking legal help there is both difficult and expensive. I can’t help but feel this may be a deliberate strategy to take advantage of international customers who have limited means to contest these issues.

The car itself was fine, but I feel completely ripped off.
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Edit:
I sent the details to Localiza, but I wasn't reimbursed. They didn't honor the value of the reservation. What a shame!

The overall service was just okay—slow, but at least the staff were polite.

However, the return process was stressful and inconsistent. During my last drop-off at Guarulhos, they messed up and overcharged me by R$180. I had to fight hard to get a refund, and even though they promised to deposit the amount back into my account, it never happened.

A company of this size shouldn’t need to steal from its customers. That experience alone is enough to make me reconsider renting from Localiza again.

Reserved a van for family vacation however when we arrived, the van had “damage” and was unavailable. Then they charged us extra for a new car. Clearly trying to scam people