Weeks or months on Tenerife

On a weekly rental the deposit is a footnote. Over three months it’s the thing worth thinking about hardest.

The amount is blocked on your credit card, not charged, but it’s gone from your available limit for the entire rental. If you’re wintering here on a €2,000 limit with €800 blocked, you notice it every month.

And rental offices differ a lot. In earlier rentals the two southern offices blocked less than the three in the north, in some cases by a wide margin. That is four data points, not a rule. On a week that difference is bearable. On three months it’s a selection criterion.

So for long-term rentals, ask about the deposit before you ask about the daily rate. We ask for it for your dates, and you get it with the offer. We reply by email, usually within a few hours. Sometimes it takes a day, because we check with the rental office.

No rental office charges thirty days at the daily rate. The tiers work similarly everywhere:

• From 3 days the day gets a little cheaper. On our list, three days on a 125 cost €119 rather than 3 × €43.
• From 7 days clearly so: in the price lists we know, a week costs about six daily rates.
• From a month it’s worth asking for a monthly price rather than paying four weekly rates.
• From three months many rental offices negotiate individually. At that length you’re predictable revenue, and they know it.

What the vehicle list on the vehicle pages shows are daily rates: €36 for the cheapest scooter, €43 for the cheapest motorcycle. For long-term, expect considerably less per day, but get the actual figure confirmed. A blanket percentage won’t help you if the rental office calculates differently.

Insurance. Some policies are capped at 30 days per rental. On a three-month booking that has to be extended or covered differently. It isn’t a dealbreaker, but it has to be settled before handover. Afterwards it gets expensive.

Servicing. A motorcycle running for three months will need an oil change, possibly tyres. Agree in advance who pays, where it’s done, and whether you get a replacement machine meanwhile. Serious rental offices have a clear answer. Some run their own workshop, others work with one.

Mileage. Daily and weekly rentals usually come with unlimited mileage. Long-term rates don’t always. Ask explicitly if you intend to circle the island regularly.

For a two-week holiday almost everyone takes the bigger machine. People staying three months usually decide differently, and for good reasons.

For a scooter: a cheaper monthly rate, a much lower deposit, less servicing, parking everywhere. If you’re mainly shopping, going to the beach and riding to the next town, you need nothing else. A 125 covers the whole south.

For a motorcycle: the mountains. Anyone heading up to Teide regularly or riding Anaga won’t be happy on a 125. Two thousand vertical metres in one go is hard work.

A good middle way: a scooter for the months, a motorcycle for individual days. Short rentals here start at one day, so you can add something bigger for the good ride without paying for it across three months. The detail is in scooter or motorcycle.

Our booking records from 2010 to 2023 produce a clear curve: February and March are the strongest months, June the weakest. That is around 330 rentals, so a tendency rather than a statistic.

This isn’t summer holiday business. These are people escaping the northern European winter, and they come between November and March.

In practice: if you want a vehicle for three months starting in February, ask in October, not in January. In high season the good machines at the smaller offices are taken, and a long-term booking blocks a vehicle for months. Rental offices allocate those early and are reluctant to do it at short notice.

The reverse also holds: if you’re flexible and come in May or June, you get the best choice and the best negotiating position.

If you hold an EU or EEA passport, this doesn’t concern you. Stay as long as you like.

If you travel on a UK or other non-EU passport, it does. As a third-country national you may spend 90 days within any 180 in the Schengen area, and Spain is part of it. A three-month rental sits right at that ceiling, and days spent elsewhere in Schengen earlier in the same window count against it.

That isn’t a reason against long-term rental. It is a reason to check your own dates before you commit to a vehicle for twelve weeks. Anyone planning to stay longer needs the appropriate visa or residence status, and that’s a question for the Spanish consulate, not for us.

In the south, long-stay guests cluster less in the hotel zones than in the apartment areas. Costa del Silencio is the example: fewer hotels, more apartments, quieter and cheaper than Costa Adeje. People living there rent for weeks rather than for a weekend far more often than average.

That matters to you because proximity to the office counts over three months: for handover, for servicing, for the return, and because if something goes wrong you don’t want to ride ninety minutes across the island.

If you prefer the north, Puerto de la Cruz has the same structure: greener, more Spanish, twistier, and in winter noticeably more rain.