SamuiAbout Samui Cars
We are a car rental company on Koh Samui, run from Bo Put by people who live on the island rather than from an office that has never driven the ring road. We keep our own fleet, we deliver it, and we publish what it costs. This page is what a reader is entitled to know before handing over a deposit: who we are, how the price is put together, and what happens when something goes wrong.
- 44 cars on the island
- ฿700 per day from
- Free delivery island-wide
- 3 days minimum rental
Who runs Samui Cars
We are based in Bo Put, on the north coast of Koh Samui, a few minutes from the airport and the Bophut beach road. Our Thai team does the deliveries, the collections and the day-to-day driving; our fleet manager decides which cars we buy, when they come off the road for service and what condition they go out in. Everyone involved lives here, which is the only way to know that a villa driveway above Chaweng Noi needs ground clearance rather than a sunroof.
We started because renting a car here was worse than it needed to be: rates that changed at the counter, deposits taken in cash or against a passport, and arguments about a scratch that nobody had photographed. None of that is difficult to fix. It just requires publishing the price, writing the terms down, and taking pictures of the car at both ends of the rental.
How a rental is priced
Every model page publishes six figures - day, week and month in both seasons - along with the deposit and the minimum rental period, and those figures are the whole cost. Comprehensive first-class insurance with a Collision Damage Waiver, delivery and collection anywhere on the island, 24/7 roadside assistance and unlimited mileage are inside the rate. There is no excess-reduction product to decline, no airport surcharge and no cleaning fee for the ordinary sand of a beach week.
What is not included, we say plainly: fuel or charge, which is full-to-full at pump price, the refundable deposit of ฿3,000 to ฿10,000, any traffic fine you collect, and the vehicle ferry if you take the car to the mainland. Long stays are priced separately rather than by multiplication: a month comes out at about 17 days of hire for thirty days of use, which is roughly 43 per cent below thirty daily rates.
The photograph record at both ends
When a car is delivered we photograph every panel, the wheels, the interior, the fuel gauge or state of charge and the odometer, and you get that set before you drive away. We repeat it at collection. The settlement at the end of a rental is therefore a comparison of two sets of photographs rather than a disagreement about memory, and if something genuinely is damaged you see the pictures and an itemised invoice from the garage doing the work before anything is deducted.
The fleet, and how it is kept
We keep 44 cars across petrol and diesel rentals and electric car rentals, from small hatchbacks up to seven-seat SUVs and pickups. They are serviced on schedule rather than on failure, and a car comes off the road when it is due rather than when a booking allows, which is why the shortest rental we take is 3 days and why a few models are marked on request rather than promised.
Where we are, and where we deliver
Delivery and collection are free anywhere on Koh Samui, including Samui Airport arrivals, and they are included in the rate rather than added to it. Give us a flight number and we track the arrival, so a delayed landing is our problem rather than a missed handover. Our address is 119, 22 Tambon, Bo Put, Ko Samui District, Surat Thani 84320, Thailand, and the fastest way to reach a person is hello@samui-cars.com.
Who writes the guides on this site
Everything published here is written in-house and signed. If you want to know who is telling you which car to book, read about the people who write this site: what they do for us, how long they have lived on Koh Samui, and every article each of them has published. Their work sits on the Samui Cars blog, where each piece quotes its prices from the same rate card that prices the model pages, so an article and a car cannot disagree with each other.
About Samui Cars - frequently asked questions
Is Samui Cars a local company or a booking platform?
We are a rental company based on Koh Samui, at 119, 22 Tambon, Bo Put, Ko Samui District, Surat Thani 84320, Thailand. We keep and maintain our own fleet of 44 cars on the island, and we hand them over ourselves rather than passing your booking to whoever a platform assigns. A small number of models are sourced from vetted local partners when demand outruns our own cars, and those are marked on request on the model page before you book, with our contract, our photo record and our support line still applying.
What does the rate include?
Comprehensive first-class insurance with a Collision Damage Waiver, free delivery and collection anywhere on Koh Samui, 24/7 roadside assistance and unlimited mileage. Petrol and diesel cars start at ฿700 a day in low season and electric cars at ฿850. What is not included is fuel or charge, the refundable deposit, traffic fines, and the vehicle ferry to the mainland - those are yours, and we say so before you book rather than at handover.
How much is the deposit and when do I get it back?
The deposit runs from ฿3,000 to ฿10,000 depending on the vehicle, and the exact figure for a car is published on its model page before you book. It is a card payment, never your passport, and it covers the insurance excess. It is refunded within three bank days of collection, to the card that paid it, once the car has been checked against the photographs taken when it was delivered.
Do you rent for a month?
Yes, and it is a large part of what we do for residents and long-stay visitors. A monthly rate works out at about 17 days of hire for thirty days of use, roughly 43 per cent below thirty daily rates, and it is published on every model page rather than quoted on request. The shortest rental we take is 3 days.