One-way car hire from Zagreb to Dubrovnik and between the airports

Can I pick up in one city and drop off in another?

Yes. One-way car hire from Zagreb to Dubrovnik, or between any two of the airport cities, is part of the same search: choose the pick-up, open the drop-off tab and choose a different city, and the cars that can make that journey are the ones shown. For hire from 5 October to 19 October 2026, 51 cars were offered from Zagreb to Dubrovnik, 53 from Zagreb to Split and 48 from Split to Dubrovnik. With car hire at Split, the car can end at any of the other airport cities.

Most one-way cars go back at the destination airport. For hire from 20 to 27 October 2026, every car offered from Zagreb to Dubrovnik was due back at Dubrovnik Airport and every car from Split to Zagreb at Zagreb Airport; from Split to Dubrovnik most were due back at the airport and a few by city delivery.

Is there an extra charge to drop off at a different location?

It is already inside the price you see. For the same car on the same dates, the one-way total is higher than a same-place hire by that car's drop-off charge. The charge varies by car and by pair, and some cars carry none.

For hire from 5 October to 19 October 2026, the typical charge from Zagreb to Dubrovnik was €125, ranging from €125 to €200 across the cars that carried one. From Split to Zagreb it was €90, and 16 cars on that pair had no charge at all. Checked 2 October 2026; each car shows its exact total before you pay.

Zagreb to Dubrovnik one-way

Centre to centre, the drive is 605 km and 7 hours 15 minutes without traffic. The A1 motorway carries you from Zagreb to the Ploče interchange and the Karamatići toll station, where the motorway currently ends. From there the road runs past Duboka, over the Pelješac Bridge and past Ston to Dubrovnik, without leaving Croatia. The bridge is free to cross.

The older coast road through Neum crosses about 9 km of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a border crossing at each end. Through Neum the drive is 7 hours 15 minutes over 600 km; by the bridge it is 7 hours 15 minutes over 605 km. Travel outside Croatia needs permission under the rental conditions: the cross-border option is added during booking, for a fee, and the permission is arranged by email with the booking partner's help desk, so the bridge route is the one to plan on unless that permission is on your booking.

From Split the drive to Dubrovnik is 3 hours 25 minutes over 235 km by the bridge, or 3 hours 25 minutes over 230 km through Neum.

Should we drive Dubrovnik to Zagreb, south to north?

Either direction works, and each is searched on its own, so the numbers can differ. For hire from 5 October to 19 October 2026, 51 cars were offered from Zagreb to Dubrovnik and 53 from Dubrovnik to Zagreb, with a typical drop-off charge of €125 southbound and €125 northbound. Search both directions for your dates before booking flights around one of them.

Most cars hired in Zagreb are collected at the airport, so a southbound trip starts with the drive down the A1 from the Lučko junction on the Zagreb bypass, through the Mala Kapela and Sveti Rok tunnels, each about 5.7 to 5.8 km long, to the coast near Zadar. Northbound, the trip uses the same road in reverse.

Split, Zadar and the coast between them

From Zadar to Split is 2 hours without traffic, centre to centre, and the one-way works in both directions: 48 cars from Zadar to Split and 48 back in the same search. With car hire at Zadar, most cars are collected at Zadar Airport, and 39 of the Zadar cars could be left in Zagreb.

The rental rules that still apply on a one-way

A one-way is an ordinary rental with a different return point. The minimum chargeable period is 24 hours. The car goes back with the fuel level it left with, or the difference is charged at the company's rates. Fuel, parking, tolls and fines are the renter's to pay; the A1 is tolled, today at barrier plazas that take cash in euros, cards and ENC devices, until the barrier-free system the government has set for 1 March 2027 replaces them. The standard insurance excludes the wheels, undercarriage, windscreen and interior, and how the cover works after an accident is set by the rental conditions: immediate notice to the rental agent and a police report.

Dubrovnik and Pula as start or end points

Dubrovnik had 79 cars in the same search, 62 of them collected at the airport, and 53 cars were offered from Dubrovnik to Zagreb. The airport is 22.5 km from Dubrovnik, a drive of 30 to 35 minutes and up to an hour in summer. From 1 March to 30 November the area around the Old Town is a special traffic zone: a hire car may enter only with a reserved space in one of the zone's public car parks or registered parking at accommodation inside it.

Pula, at the southern tip of Istria, had 35 cars, 35 of them collected at the airport. Istria sits away from the Dalmatian coast: without traffic, the drive from Pula Airport is 3 hours 30 minutes to Zagreb and 6 hours 5 minutes to Split. In the same search 35 cars were offered from Pula to Zagreb and 23 from Pula to Split.

Planning a one-way trip

A one-way is one rental from the first airport to the last, with the drop-off charge in its price, so the trip can start in Zagreb and end with a flight home from Dubrovnik. Joined up with Plitvice Lakes, Zadar and Split, it makes a road trip down the coast in short legs, the longest of them Split to Dubrovnik at 3 hours 25 minutes without traffic.

Search one-way cars for your dates