Pula · The Istrian base camp
Rent a car in Pula
No hidden feesNo depositFree cancellation
17 cars live in Pula nowfrom €63/daydeposits shown up front
Pula · The Istrian base camp
17 cars live in Pula nowfrom €63/daydeposits shown up front
Featured cars
Volkswagen Polo
5 seatsManual2022
from €63/daytoday's cheapest in this class
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Volkswagen T-Roc
5 seatsManual2022
from €82/daytoday's cheapest in this class
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Volkswagen Golf
5 seatsAutomatic2022
from €88/daytoday's cheapest in this class
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Peugeot 2008
5 seatsAutomatic2022
from €90/daytoday's cheapest in this class
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Peugeot 308 SW
5 seatsAutomatic2022
from €88/daytoday's cheapest in this class
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Volkswagen Tayron
7 seatsAutomatic2025
from €80/daylowest in this class across Croatia
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Opel Zafira
8 seatsAutomatic2022
from €105/daylowest in this class across Croatia
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Peugeot Traveller
9 seatsAutomatic2022
from €127/daylowest in this class across Croatia
Check availability →One featured car from each class we list, not our full fleet. Live prices refresh through the day and move with the season. Your exact car and total show on the next step.
Drag or swipe for more cars →On the ground
Pula is where an Istrian trip should start on four wheels. The town itself deserves a day (the Roman arena sits right on the harbour, and several suppliers hand cars over within sight of it), but the real reason to rent here is everything around it. Istria is small, and a car makes it smaller: the A8 and A9, the motorway locals call the Istrian Y, put almost any point on the peninsula within an hour of Pula, and the airport is only about 8 km from town, roughly 15 minutes door to door.
Inland is where the car earns its keep. Motovun and Groznjan are the hill towns everyone photographs, Buzet is the truffle capital your dinner will thank you for, and none of them are practical without your own wheels. One honest tip: the lanes up to the old walls are steep, tight and often one-way, so park in the lot below the walls and walk the last five minutes. This is also the one corner of Croatia where we would nudge you toward an automatic for the Istrian hill towns; a hill start on a cobbled ramp below Motovun is nobody's idea of a holiday.
South of town, Kamenjak cape is a half-hour drive and the best swimming on the peninsula; go early, because the gravel tracks inside the park crawl by noon in summer. And once Istria is done, you can continue south to Zadar: about three and a quarter hours through the Ucka tunnel and down the A1, close enough that plenty of renters do both coasts on one booking, or make it a one-way and finish by flying out from Zadar Airport rather than driving the peninsula twice.
Pula is also the corner of Croatia where borders stop mattering much. Trieste is around an hour and forty minutes away including the crossing, Slovenia is even nearer, and most suppliers here allow both; the cross-border terms show on each listing before you pay. If your route runs one direction only, look at one-way car rental across Croatia and drop the car in Split or Dubrovnik instead of doubling back up the coast.
Before you book
For the coastal towns alone you could scrape by on buses, but inland Istria, the hill towns and the truffle country around Buzet, has next to no public transport. If Motovun, Groznjan or a konoba lunch in the Mirna valley is on your list, the answer is yes; distances are short and almost nothing is more than an hour from Pula.
Rovinj's old town is closed to cars; use the large lots on the approach roads and walk in ten minutes. The hill towns work the same way: Motovun and Groznjan have lots below the walls, and the lanes above them are steep, narrow and mostly resident-only, so leave the car low and climb on foot.
Usually, yes. Trieste and the Slovenian coast are day-trip distance from Pula and most suppliers here permit both countries; each listing shows its own cross-border terms before you book, so check the car you pick and declare the trip when you reserve.
If you fly into Pula Airport, take the car at arrivals; the airport is only about 15 minutes out, so you skip the taxi entirely. If you arrive by bus or ferry and are staying in Pula a night or two first, book a town handover for the day you actually start driving; the old town is walkable and the car would just sit.
Yes. Plenty of renters here finish in Zadar, Split or Dubrovnik rather than driving the peninsula twice, and a one-way drop carries a fixed per-route fee that shows on the listing before you pay. Tell us the return city when you book so the right cars and the exact fee appear.
Croatia's motorways are toll roads, so the run down to Zadar through the Ucka tunnel and along the A1 is paid either at the booths as you pass or with an ENC transponder if the car carries one. There is no national road vignette, so you only pay for the motorway sections you actually use, and the short hop out to Pula Airport stays toll-free.
