Understanding Your Trip Price: Fees Explained
Your total price is shown in full before you pay — trip cost, our service fee, and your protection plan, added up into one number. Nothing new shows up at pickup.
What makes up your trip price
Every Carvia trip is built from a small number of clear pieces:
1. Trip subtotal — the host's nightly rate times the number of nights.
2. Carvia service fee — a flat 12% of the trip subtotal. Same rate on every trip, every time. We don't use "varies by factors" pricing — if you want to know why your fee is what it is, it's always this one number.
3. Protection plan — a percentage of the trip price based on which of the three plans you choose (Basic, Standard, or Premium). See Choosing a Protection Plan (Guest).
4. Extras, if you add any — child seat, roof rack, prepaid mileage, and so on, priced by the host. See Vehicle Extras Explained.
5. Mileage overage, if it applies — see below.
That's the whole list. There's no separate cash security deposit line item (we use a card authorization hold instead — see Security Deposit Explained), and there's no fee that appears only after you've already picked up the car.
A worked example
Here's how it comes together for a 3-night trip at $100/night with Standard protection:
| Line item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Trip subtotal (3 nights × $100) | $300.00 |
| Carvia service fee (12%) | $36.00 |
| Standard protection (18%) | $54.00 |
| Guest total | $390.00 |
You'd see this exact breakdown on your checkout screen before you pay — every line spelled out, adding up to the total you're charged. No rounding surprises, no fee revealed after the fact.
The three protection plans, at a glance
| Plan | Cost | Your damage responsibility if at fault |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | 10% of trip price | up to $3,000 |
| Standard | 18% of trip price | up to $1,000 |
| Premium | 28% of trip price | up to $250 |
Full detail on what each plan includes: Choosing a Protection Plan (Guest).
Mileage overage
Every trip comes with a default allowance of 200 miles per day (some hosts set it higher). If you go over, the overage is billed per mile at a rate the host sets — and that rate is shown to you at booking, not discovered afterward. If you know you'll need more miles, look at prepaid mileage packages under Vehicle Extras Explained, which can work out cheaper than paying overage after the trip.
Why the flat service fee matters
A lot of rental marketplaces show a fee that shifts around based on the car, the dates, or factors they don't explain. Carvia's service fee is 12% of your trip subtotal, full stop — you can calculate it yourself before you ever open the app. We think that's what "transparent pricing" should actually mean: a number you can predict, not one you have to trust.
If your trip is cancelled
If you cancel and qualify for a refund under your host's cancellation tier, your service fee and protection cost are refunded proportionally along with your trip price — Carvia doesn't keep its cut on a trip that didn't happen. See the Cancellation Policy and Refunds and Receipts for details.