Avis Budget

Avis Budget Group is a global vehicle rental and mobility company that operates a family of well known brands, including Avis, Budget, Budget Truck, Payless, Zipcar and several regional banners. The business centers on short term car and truck rentals at airports and neighborhood locations, along with car sharing in urban areas and on campuses. It manages a large rotating fleet and earns most of its revenue from rental activity, add on services and relationships with airlines, hotels, online travel agencies and corporate travel programs.

The company’s roots go back to two separate founders. Warren Avis started Avis Rent A Car in 1946, focusing initially on airport locations at a time when commercial air travel was beginning to scale. Morris Mirkin founded Budget Rent a Car in 1958 with an eye toward value conscious customers. Over the following decades both brands changed hands several times. They were eventually brought together under Cendant Corporation and combined into the current holding company, Avis Budget Group, Inc., in 2006. That step created a multi brand platform that could serve premium, mid market and value segments within one corporate structure and gave the company the scale to compete as a top global player.

As of December 2024, Avis Budget Group counts roughly 10,400 locations worldwide across company operated and licensed sites. The network spans the United States and more than 180 other countries, with a fleet in the hundreds of thousands of vehicles and many millions of rental transactions each year. Over the past decade the company has used acquisitions and new concepts to broaden its reach. It acquired Budget Rent a Car in 2006 to establish a two tier strategy in car rental and bought Zipcar in 2013 to move into car sharing and serve customers who prefer app based, short duration access over traditional counters. Regional acquisitions, including the Maggiore Group in Italy and other local operators, have strengthened its position in Europe and select international markets.

During roughly the last five years, Avis Budget Group has focused less on adding large numbers of new sites and more on reshaping where and how it operates. The company has been reallocating fleet and locations toward higher yielding airports, key European gateways, dense urban neighborhoods, leisure destinations and tourist corridors, while still maintaining a meaningful neighborhood presence for replacement and local business needs. It has invested in digital tools that support reservations, pricing, fleet management and contactless rentals, and has continued to refine Zipcar and other sharing formats on university and corporate campuses as well as in city centers. Public comments and filings describe a disciplined approach to growth, with expansion driven by optimizing existing markets, competing for airport concessions and expanding digital channels rather than rapid, speculative site growth.

For landlords, brokers and developers, Avis Budget Group brings a combination of scale, brand recognition and flexible real estate formats. The portfolio includes airport service centers and ready lots, storefronts in mixed use and street retail settings, positions near transit and hospitality nodes, and truck rental yards in more industrial or auto oriented corridors. The company’s steady role in business and leisure travel, multi brand strategy and active presence at major North American and European airports, high density urban neighborhoods and resort markets make it a familiar and creditworthy counterparty in projects tied to transportation, tourism and everyday mobility. As of December 2024, it remains a large, publicly traded operator with a long operating history and a central role in the global car rental industry.