Family and 7-Seater Car Hire in Lisbon

Six seats are easy to find here. The garage, the child seats and the day out take more thought.

47 in the family class 19 minivans Child seats on request Up to 50% cheaper than portals

The counts that matter when there are six of you

Read from the live listing for Lisbon rather than estimated. Two of these are about the cars and two are about the city.

cars in the family class, five seats and a real boot

minivans, the ones that actually carry seven

cars delivered to an address, so somebody collects it

7 km

from the airport to the Baixa, your shortest loaded drive

Sixty six of the 125 cars are already family sized

Forty seven cars in Lisbon sit in the family class and another 19 are minivans, out of 125 bookable in the city. More than half the listing is a large car before you filter for anything, which is unusual, and it means the question here is not whether you will find seven seats. It is which of the two groups you actually want.

The family class is five seats and a deep boot: a week of luggage for two adults and three children, in a car that drives like everything else you have driven. The minivans add the third row, and the third row is the only reason to pay for one. The fleet median falls between 66 and 68 EUR a day, and the seven seat end of the list sits above it.

Filter for seven seats and the same half dozen shapes come back, led by the Dacia Jogger. A few nine seat minibuses share that filter and are a different proposition, covered on the van and minibus page.

Four days out, and what each one asks of the car

The car is for the days you leave Lisbon. Three of these are drives and the fourth is the reason the other three are worth paying for. The routes are set out on the Sintra and Cascais day trip page.

Thirty kilometres west, and the last two are the hard ones

The IC19 gets you there easily enough. Parking in Sintra itself is genuinely difficult, so park low in the town and take the 434 bus up to Pena. A seven seater is the worst possible shape for those lanes. Let the bus have them.

Thirty kilometres west again, by two very different roads

The A5 is the tolled motorway. The N6, the Marginal, runs along the water the whole way and costs nothing but time. With children in the back, take the Marginal out while there is something to look at, and the A5 home when everyone has had enough.

The westernmost point of mainland Europe, and it is windy

Beyond Sintra, out on the cliffs: a car park, a marker and an enormous view, which is exactly the kind of stop public transport handles badly. Take jackets for six even in September, and be glad the back row folds.

Alfama, Bairro Alto and Graca are not for a minivan

Steep, cobbled, one way, and shared with trams in lanes barely wider than the tram. A large family car is miserable up there. Leave it in the garage, walk, and let the trams do the climbing.

Your fully loaded drive is seven kilometres long

Humberto Delgado sits inside Lisbon, about seven kilometres north east of the Baixa. In a resort city the first drive is an hour with every case aboard and the third row has to come down to fit them. Here it is over in minutes, so the suitcases are a short problem and the back row goes up again at the apartment.

The boot problem arrives later, on the day out. Six people generate a second set of luggage within ten minutes of leaving: a folded pushchair, a cool bag, jackets for the cliff, wet things from the coast. That load rides with you all day, and behind a raised third row there is less room for it than you picture. Soft bags for the day out, hard cases for the flight.

The six shapes behind the seven seat filter

Availability moves with the calendar, so read this as the shape of the list rather than a promise about one car. Height is the line that matters most in an underground car park.

Dacia Jogger

The one the filter keeps returning. A long estate with a third row folded into the floor, so it parks like an ordinary car.

Volkswagen Caddy

Van shaped, with a tall square boot and wide back doors. The easiest of the six to put a folded pushchair into.

Citroen Grand C4

The traditional people carrier. Sliding middle seats and a low floor small children climb in by themselves. Older stock than the rest.

Peugeot 5008

An SUV with a third row rather than a van with seven seats. Higher up for the hills, and a boot that is deep rather than tall.

Skoda Kodiaq

The largest SUV in the group. Seven at a squeeze, five in comfort, and the widest of them in a tight garage aisle.

Volkswagen Multivan

Properly a van. Six adults and their bags at once, and the shape to measure against your car park before booking rather than after.

What parents booking for six ask before they pay

Six people need seven seats, so you are booking one of the 19 minivans. The 47 cars in the family class are the better answer for five with a lot of luggage: a deeper boot and a smaller bill than a third row nobody sits in.

Ask before you book rather than after. Every underground car park in the city has a height bar at the top of the ramp, and the shapes on this page are not all the same height. An estate or a mid size SUV usually clears it. A full van is the one to check.

Put them in the booking itself, not on the counter in the morning. Name each child and the age, then check that both seats appear on the confirmation. Turning up and hoping is how a family ends up driving to Sintra with one booster between two children.

Often not. The city is walked and tramed, the hills and cobbles punish a large car, and a parked minivan costs money for nothing. Most families do better hiring for the days they drive out, and handing the car back when those days are done.

Most Portuguese motorways charge electronically, with no booth to stop at, so a hire car carries a transponder for a daily fee and the tolls reach you through the rental. The A5 to Cascais is tolled, the coastal N6 is not, and the Ponte 25 de Abril collects northbound.