The short answer
Our census counts 1,027 independent car rental businesses in 22 Australian cities. The 12 cities with 10 or more of them get 206,300 Google searches a month for “car rental” or “car hire” plus the city name. The table below puts the two side by side. It does not rank the cities, because we have no revenue data to rank them on.
If you are deciding where to open a car rental business, two numbers matter early: how many people in a city search for a rental car, and how many independent operators are already there. We have both for 12 Australian cities. This page puts them side by side, with the limits of the comparison.
Demand and supply, city by city
Supply is the number of independent operators in our census. Demand is monthly Google searches for “car rental” and “car hire” with the city name. Cities with 10 or more independents are included, listed by number of operators, largest first.
| City | Independent operators | Monthly searches | Searches per operator | No Google rating | Average rating | Chain locations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Melbourne | 312 | 37,000 | 119 | 123 of 312 (39%) | 4.37 (189 rated) | 94 |
| Sydney | 246 | 22,900 | 93 | 95 of 246 (39%) | 4.25 (151 rated) | 70 |
| Perth | 91 | 24,700 | 271 | 25 of 91 (27%) | 4.56 (66 rated) | 40 |
| Brisbane* | 87 | 26,200 | 301 | 31 of 87 (36%) | 4.50 (56 rated) | 61 |
| Gold Coast | 72 | 18,100 | 251 | 11 of 72 (15%) | 4.42 (61 rated) | 25 |
| Adelaide | 53 | 14,800 | 279 | 18 of 53 (34%) | 4.66 (35 rated) | 27 |
| Cairns | 33 | 22,200 | 673 | 3 of 33 (9%) | 4.46 (30 rated) | 17 |
| Darwin | 31 | 9,900 | 319 | 10 of 31 (32%) | 4.70 (21 rated) | 19 |
| Hobart | 24 | 18,100 | 754 | 8 of 24 (33%) | 4.70 (16 rated) | 19 |
| Newcastle | 18 | 3,600 | 200 | 6 of 18 (33%) | 4.71 (12 rated) | 16 |
| Sunshine Coast | 18 | 5,400 | 300 | 7 of 18 (39%) | 4.63 (11 rated) | 20 |
| Broome | 10 | 3,400 | 340 | 2 of 10 (20%) | 4.88 (8 rated) | 4 |
How to read it
A high number of searches per operator means many searches for each independent business in our census, and says nothing about whether a new one would make money there. Three things push that number up or down.
The searches come from users located in Australia. A tourist who plans the trip from overseas is not counted, and that matters most in places like Cairns, Hobart and Broome. In the big cities the count runs short: “car rental sydney” does not include “car rental parramatta”, while our census covers all of Greater Sydney. Together these tilt the number towards smaller and tourist cities.
Most of these searches end at a chain or a comparison site, not at an independent. The last column counts the chains: the 12 cities have 412 international chain locations between them, none of them in the operator count.
The no-rating column measures visibility. Across the 12 cities, 339 of 995 independents (34%) have no Google rating. A renter comparing them sees a blank where their competitors show stars.
Ratings: the bar you would be measured against
Across the whole census, the 677 of 1,027 independents that have a Google rating average 4.43. The other 350 have none. City averages in the table range from 4.25 in Sydney (151 rated) to 4.88 in Broome (8 rated). The fewer rated operators behind an average, the less it tells you.
Our city comparisons weigh each operator’s rating by the number of reviews behind it. Operators with no rating are compared and classified but not scored. See the comparison for Adelaide, Brisbane, Cairns, Darwin, Gold Coast, Melbourne, Perth, Sunshine Coast and Sydney, or the national comparison page.
Method and limits
Operators. Every independent car rental business in our census for the city: businesses with a Google listing typed as car rental, from our August 2026 sweep, classified on 17 September 2026. International chains, car share, truck and campervan hire, luxury and accident-replacement businesses are classified separately and left out of the count.
Searches. The monthly Google search volume for “car rental” plus the city name and “car hire” plus the city name. Nothing else: no “rent a car”, no suburbs, no airports. Source: Google Ads search volume via DataForSEO, users in Australia, 12 months to August 2026.
Ratings. A simple average of the Google ratings of the operators that have one, shown with how many that is. Searches per operator is monthly searches divided by independent operators, rounded.
The limits:
- Searches are from users located in Australia. Overseas visitors planning a trip are not in them, which undercounts tourist cities most.
- In the big cities, searches for the city name miss searches for suburbs, while the census covers the whole metro area. Demand is undercounted against supply there, which favours smaller cities in the per-operator figure.
- Google Ads reports volume in steps, not exact counts. Gold Coast and Hobart both come out at 18,100. Cities on the same step, or one step apart, cannot be told apart.
- Google merges “car rental” and “car hire” into one group for some cities and not for others. Where both phrases return the same 12-month series we count it once (Gold Coast, Adelaide, Cairns, Darwin, Hobart, Newcastle and Sunshine Coast); otherwise we add them (Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Brisbane and Broome).
- Most of these searches go to chains and comparison sites. The chain-locations column counts the chains in each city.
- The census only includes businesses with a Google listing typed as car rental. A business without one is not in it. The sweep for Brisbane is marked incomplete.
- Searches were measured on 3 October 2026. If we measure again, the date changes with the data.
If you are going ahead
The table shows how many operators a city has and how often people search there. It cannot show what you would earn. Our guide to starting a car rental business covers the licences and insurance. For the money, read how to price weekly car rentals and rental car unit economics. Once cars are on the road, car rental software handles the bookings, payments and contracts.
Frequently asked questions
- How many car rental companies are there in Australia?
- Our census counts 1,027 independent car rental businesses in 22 cities. On top of that it lists 495 locations of international chains, which we count as locations, not as companies. It is our own count of Google listings, not an official register, so a business without a listing is not in it.
- Which Australian city has the most car rental searches?
- Melbourne, with 37,000 searches a month for “car rental melbourne” and “car hire melbourne”, measured on 3 October 2026. We add the two phrases together unless Google reports them as a single group, in which case we count them once. Google gives these volumes in steps, so two cities a step apart may not really differ.
- Is there room for a new car rental business in my city?
- We cannot tell you. We measure searches and operators, and the table puts them side by side, but we have no revenue, margin or occupancy data, and a search is not a customer. Our guide to starting a car rental business covers the steps, and our post on rental car unit economics works out the payback on a single car.
Cristobal Galilea
Co-founder, Carz
Cristobal builds Carz alongside the operators who use it — fleet software for independent car-rental businesses leasing weekly to gig drivers in Australia.