Car Rental in Barcelona

Forget the “or similar” lottery. At CarVia Barcelona, you get exactly the rental car you booked: the same model, spec and color you saw online. That’s our guaranteed-model promise, and it’s one of the reasons customers keep coming back - whether they’re picking up a Porsche 911 for the hairpins around Montserrat or a BMW X7 for a family week on the Costa Brava.

Our Barcelona hub is on Avinguda Diagonal in Sarrià-Sant Gervasi, in the upper part of the city, just a few minutes from Turó Park, L’Illa Diagonal and the Maria Cristina metro station.

We operate it together with our partner Hertz, so you get a proper walk-in location with staff on site.

And if our location is too far away for you, that’s fine too. We’ll bring the car anywhere to you - whether that’s the airport, your hotel or any other address in Barcelona, across Catalonia or, if you prefer, anywhere in the EU.

Find us in Barcelona

Address: Av. Diagonal, 622, Sarrià-Sant Gervasi, 08021 Barcelona, Spain

Opening hours:

• Monday - Friday:
• • 8:30 AM – 1:30 PM
  • 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM
• Saturday:
• • 8:30 AM – 1:30 PM
• Sunday: Closed

Contact:

info@carvia.de
Phone: +49 89 9545 7364 0

Getting here from the airport:

Josep Tarradellas Barcelona–El Prat (BCN) is about 15 km away, roughly 20–30 minutes by car or taxi via the Ronda de Dalt, depending on traffic .

Rather skip the taxi? We deliver directly to the airport and hand the car over at the terminal.

Delivery & collection:

Airport, hotel or any address of your choice, in Barcelona, throughout Catalonia and across the EU. Choose "Deliver to address" in the booking tool and enter your location; the price is shown before you book. Collection at the end of your rental works the same way, and can be done at the place of pickup or any other spot in the EU.

Driving & parking in Barcelona

Barcelona is a fantastic city to drive out of and a strict city to drive in. A few things worth knowing before you turn the key:

Low Emission Zone (ZBE)

The whole city inside the ring roads (Rondes) is a Zona de Baixes Emissions (ZBE), camera-enforced Monday to Friday, 7 am to 8 pm, but weekends and public holidays are free of restrictions.

Only vehicles with a Spanish DGT environmental sticker (0, ECO, C or B) or a pre-registered foreign plate may drive inside during those hours; getting it wrong costs a hefty fine. All CarVia cars are cleared for the zone, so there's nothing you need to do.

Read the lines on the road

Blue-marked bays (Àrea Blava) are paid public parking open to everyone, and the maximum stay is usually 1–2 hours in central areas, up to 4 hours further out; pay at the meter or with the city's SMOU app.

Green bays (Àrea Verda) give priority to residents: non-residents may park for a limited time at a higher rate, but bays marked "Exclusiva Residents" are off-limits at all times. A yellow line means no parking, full stop.

Towing is fast and expensive

Barcelona's municipal tow trucks don't wait, and retrieving the car from the depot means paying the fine plus a recovery fee.

For anything longer than a coffee, use a car park: Parking Galvany (Carrer de Calaf, 28) is open 24 hours and only a few minutes' walk from our station. The larger BSM Cotxeres de Sarrià (Passeig de Manuel Girona, 73-77) and SABA L'Illa Diagonal (Av. Diagonal, 545) are also open 24 hours, about a 15-minute walk toward L'Illa Diagonal.

Barcelona Superblocks

In the "superilles" and green axes of the Eixample, plus Poblenou, Sant Antoni and Horta, through traffic is banned, the limit is 10 km/h and you have to turn at every corner, so you can't drive straight across.

Your navigation app should route around them; if a street suddenly looks like a plaza, it is one.

Barcelona Tolls

Good news first: the AP-7 and AP-2 towards France, Girona and Tarragona have been toll-free since September 2021, and so are the C-33 and the C-32 along the Maresme coast.

A few tolls remain: the C-32 Garraf tunnels towards Sitges (€8.42 for a car), the Vallvidrera tunnels on the C-16 (€5.28 at peak times, €4.70 off-peak) and the Túnel del Cadí towards the Pyrenees (€14.56). Barriers accept bank cards.

Prices are adjusted every January, so treat these as a guide.

Speed limits & fines

In the city it's 30 km/h (19 mph) on most streets with one lane per direction, 50 km/h (31 mph) on the main multi-lane avenues and 80 km/h (50 mph) on the Rondes ring roads.

On the open road: 90 km/h (56 mph) on conventional roads, 120 km/h (75 mph) on motorways. The blood alcohol limit is 0.5 g/l – and just 0.3 g/l for drivers in their first two years.

Fines are steep, but if you pay within 20 days you get a 50% discount, for national and municipal penalties alike.

Barcelona Car Rental FAQ