Car Hire in Phuket: Excess, Deposit and What Appears at the Counter

The rate you booked is the one number in a car hire that will not surprise you. Everything that goes wrong financially goes wrong in three places: the excess, the deposit, and the compulsory Thai insurance that people assume covers the car and does not.

This article explains the mechanics and then gives you the figures Phuket suppliers publish. It deliberately does not tell you what your deposit will be. That number is on your own booking page and in your own rental agreement, and a wrong figure in an article costs a reader real money.

Excess is not deposit, and neither is insurance

Three words get used as if they meant the same thing.

Excess – on some American paperwork, deductible – is the maximum you can be asked to pay if the car is damaged or stolen. Discover Cars puts it in one line: “This is simply the maximum amount you’d be asked to pay if the car is ever damaged or stolen.” It is a cap on your liability, not a fee. If the excess is 5,000 THB and the repair is 60,000 THB, you pay 5,000; if the repair is 2,000 THB, you pay 2,000.

CDW, the Collision Damage Waiver, is what creates that cap. It is the standard protection in almost every rental price, and its name does the damage: it sounds like fully comprehensive cover and it is not. It waives most of the repair bill above the excess, and it typically excludes exactly the parts that get broken – tyres, wheels, glass, mirrors, the roof and the underside.

The deposit is the money the supplier holds while you have the car, usually blocked on the main driver’s credit card. Its job is to secure the excess. It is refunded when the car comes back undamaged, but it is genuinely unavailable to you in the meantime, which matters on a card you are also using for hotels.

One consequence catches people out every season, and Discover Cars states it plainly: buying Full Coverage online does not remove the deposit. Full Coverage is a reimbursement product – you settle with the supplier first, and you are paid back afterwards, for costs the basic CDW excludes, up to a stated limit. The hold at the desk happens regardless.

What Thailand’s compulsory insurance does not do

Every registered vehicle in Thailand carries Por Ror Bor, the compulsory motor insurance created by the Motor Victims Protection Act. It is worth knowing exactly what it is, because its existence reassures people who have not read it.

It pays for injury to people. Published limits run to around 30,000 THB per person in medical expenses where you are at fault, with higher figures where you are not, and a separate sum for permanent disability. What it never pays for is material damage – not your hire car, not the other vehicle, not anything in either of them.

So the compulsory policy is not the reason your rental car is insured. The CDW in your rental agreement is. Suppliers carry third-party liability well above the compulsory minimum – one established Phuket firm, Braun Car Rental, publishes cover of 10,000,000 THB per accident for third-party vehicles and property – but that protects the other party, not you.

The figures Phuket suppliers publish

These are real published numbers, not estimates, and they are here to show you the shape of the market. Your supplier’s figures are the ones that count, and they are on the booking page.

The pattern is the useful part: on Phuket the excess and the deposit tend to be the same order of magnitude, in the low thousands of baht for an ordinary car, and both climb steeply with the vehicle class. A supplier quoting a deposit of 30,000 THB on a small hatchback is telling you something about the supplier.

The eight things to check before you pay

1. The excess figure, in baht, in writing. Not “low excess” on a comparison page – the number in the rental terms. It is the single figure that decides your worst case.

2. What the CDW excludes. Ask specifically about tyres, glass, wheels, the underside and the roof. On an island with steep access roads and gravel car parks, the underside is not a theoretical exclusion.

3. How the deposit is taken, and whether a credit card is required. Practice varies more in Thailand than in Europe: some suppliers block a credit card in the main driver’s name and will refuse the car without one; others take cash. If your card has a low limit, find out before you fly.

4. Whether your extra protection reimburses or waives. A zero-excess product bought from the supplier at the desk usually removes the liability outright. A third-party policy – including Discover Cars’ Full Coverage – reimburses you afterwards. Both are legitimate; only one saves you the argument at the counter.

5. Minimum age and the young driver surcharge. Suppliers set their own thresholds, commonly 21 or 23, and a surcharge for drivers below a stated age is normal. The driver-age brackets on the Discover Cars Phuket page start at 18, but that is the comparison filter, not a promise – the individual supplier’s terms decide.

6. The fuel policy. Full-to-full is the one to want. Anything else means paying the supplier’s price for a tank you may not use, at a station you do not choose.

7. Additional drivers, named on the agreement. An unnamed driver at the wheel usually voids the cover. Some Phuket firms add nothing for a second driver; assuming it is free without asking is the mistake.

8. Your licence and your international permit. The UK Foreign Office tells drivers to “carry both the 1968 version of the international driving permit (IDP) and your UK driving licence while driving” in Thailand, and warns that driving “without a valid licence … could invalidate your travel insurance”. An IDP cannot be bought after you arrive. Check it covers the right vehicle category: a category B permit does not authorise a motorbike, however small.

The photograph that saves the argument

Every established piece of hire-car advice ends here for a reason, and it costs nothing.

Before you drive away, walk round the car with your phone recording. Get the bumpers, both sills, all four wheels, the windscreen, the roof and the fuel gauge, with the date visible. Photograph any existing damage individually and make sure it is listed on the check-out sheet before you sign. Do the same when you return it, and keep the final receipt until the deposit has actually come off your card – a hold released “immediately” can take days to appear.

If damage does happen, report it to the supplier before you move the car, and get a police report where one is available. Most insurance disputes in car hire are not about whether a policy covers something; they are about whether anyone can prove when the damage occurred.

Then there is the scooter question

It sits in this article rather than elsewhere because it is a money question, not a convenience one. The Foreign Office notes that hire motorcycles and scooters in Thai tourist areas “are often unregistered and cannot be used legally on a public road”, and that a helmet is required by law. A vehicle that cannot legally be on the road is a vehicle your travel insurer has a straightforward reason to decline. The saving against a car is real; so is the exposure.

If you have not yet decided whether to hire at all, the prior question is whether Phuket needs a car – for a week on the west coast, often not. If you have decided, one drive on this island earns the hire on its own. And when you are ready to compare what is actually available on your dates, the Phuket rental listings show the deposit level and the excess alongside the rate, which is the only sensible way to read a price.

Sources: Discover Cars help centre on protection and Full Coverage · Braun Car Rental Phuket rental conditions · UK Foreign Office travel advice for Thailand · Thailand’s compulsory motor insurance (Por Ror Bor)