Car Hire at Tivat and Podgorica Airports

Both take fifteen to twenty minutes if your paperwork is in order. Tivat is a small airport where the rental desks sit in the arrivals hall and the car waits three minutes away. Podgorica is larger and calmer: shorter queues, but a longer drive to the coast — an hour and a quarter to Budva, against half an hour from Tivat.

Here is what actually happens at the desk, and what to have ready.

Tivat: closer to the sea, tighter in August

TIV is the coast’s main airport. Budva is 20 kilometres away, 25–30 minutes by car; Kotor is 7 kilometres, 15 minutes; Herceg Novi is about an hour including the ferry (the Kamenari–Lepetane crossing costs €5 for a car).

There is one modest arrivals hall. The rental desks are immediately past baggage reclaim and the cars stand in the open car park opposite the exit. In August, when three flights land together, a queue forms: allow an extra twenty minutes.

One thing to know: the airport does not operate around the clock, and not every company staffs late arrivals. If your flight is a night one, agree it when booking — otherwise you can land to a closed desk.

Options and prices for this airport are on the car rental in Tivat page.

Podgorica: calmer, but further out

TGD is the capital’s airport, served from more countries. From Podgorica it is about 65 kilometres and an hour and a quarter to Budva, and about 85 kilometres and an hour and three-quarters to Kotor.

Fewer queues, a bigger car park, the same procedure. It is the better start if your first stop is not the sea but Lake Skadar, Ostrog or the north: twenty minutes to Virpazar, an hour to Ostrog.

Details are on the car rental in Podgorica page.

What to bring

Your licence. A national one is fine if it is in Latin script and carries a photo. For older licences, or ones entirely in Cyrillic, an International Driving Permit is requested — it takes a day to obtain at home and costs very little. Carrying one is cheaper than arguing at the desk.

A card in the driver’s name. The deposit is blocked on it, and debit cards are not accepted everywhere. Local companies take a deposit of €100–300, and some cars come without one; international chains block €900–2,000 on a credit card. This is the single most common reason a pick-up falls apart.

Passport and booking voucher. Showing the voucher on your phone is enough.

Your flight number. Give it when booking: if the plane is late, the company knows and holds the car.

The driver’s age. Under the new road traffic law in force since 7 August 2026, drivers under 21 may not drive between 00:00 and 05:00 or drive a car more powerful than 80 kW (109 hp). If the driver is under 21, check the engine power before you book. The other rules are in driving rules in Montenegro.

How the handover goes

First the contract: the agent enters your details, checks the card and blocks the deposit. Then you walk to the car and inspect it together.

That inspection is your five minutes and it is worth spending. Walk around the car, photograph every scratch and chip, open the boot, check that the spare and the warning triangle are there. Everything you find belongs on the handover form. Any dispute on return is settled by exactly those photos.

What else to read in the contract — excess, fuel policy, mileage limit — is covered in rental car pitfalls.

Returning the car

Faster than collection: the agent walks around the car, checks the fuel and closes the contract. Local companies hand the deposit back on the spot; with the international chains the block on your card takes 5 to 30 days to lift — that is your bank’s timing, not the rental company’s.

Allow forty minutes before check-in. The rental car park in Tivat is beside the terminal; in Podgorica it is slightly further.

If you do not need the car for the whole trip

A common and sensible arrangement: take a transfer to your hotel on arrival and hire a car for the two or three days you head inland. A transfer from Tivat airport to Budva costs from €58 per car, and from Podgorica airport to Budva from €73; prices to other towns are on the airport transfers page. The comparison with actual numbers is in car, bus, taxi or transfer.

And if the point of the trip is the sea rather than the roads, you may not need a car at all: the coves without roads are reached by boat. A boat with a skipper for your group starts at €355 for three hours — see yacht charter. For the north without your own transport, a coach excursion is the simplest answer: routes and prices are under things to do.

Conditions vary by company. Confirm the exact requirements on licence, driver age and deposit when booking. Prices checked in September 2026.