Autopartage: The scheme that helps you get by in France without owning a car

For the many car owners who don’t need their vehicles every day, but do they need them sometimes for longer trips or buying heavy or bulky items, France has a third way – autopartage.

The country has a rapidly growing network of autopartage schemes – which essentially works as short-term, low-cost vehicle hiring, aimed at locals (in some areas proof of residency is required).

What’s more, with ambitious government targets in place and new laws around rural transport provision being discussed, the network looks set for significant further growth.

Listen to the team at The Local discuss autopartage on the latest episode of the Talking France podcast

Jennifer Ramsey, a Scottish woman living Rennes, doesn’t own a car – but when she has family to stay, furniture to move, or a big shop to do, she opens an app on her phone, selects a car, and promptly has access to one.

She said: “It’s so flexible and so easy to use – especially living in the centre, where there are loads of cars stationed nearby. And the parking is a huge thing – you don’t have to worry about it. You just return the car to its station.

“You also get flexibility with the vehicles – so for a short trip I might take a small electric vehicle, for a longer journey or when I have family staying I’ll have a larger and slightly more luxurious model.

“To me, car sharing feels like an obvious element of city planning. It’s win-win. It just makes sense.”

Jennifer is far from alone in enjoying the benefits of car sharing. According to the latest data, published in Baromètre National 2025 de l’Autopartage by the Association des Acteurs de l’Autopartage (AAA), France had one million registered car-sharing subscribers – an 11.5 percent increase on the previous year.

During the same period, the number of shared vehicles was 13,862 – up 3.7 percent on 2024 – and the government aims to bring that total to 70,000 by 2031.

How does it work?

It’s easy to confuse car sharing (autopartage) with carpooling (covoiturage), but there’s an important distinction: carpooling means sharing a journey with someone going the same way; car sharing means accessing a vehicle on your own, using it for the journey you need, and then returning it.

It’s essentially similar to the city-based bike share schemes such as Vélib, and requires registering in advance with an app or website and providing details such as your driving licence. Some schemes also require a justificat de domicile – proof that you live in the local area.

You pay only for what you use — time and distance — with fuel, insurance and maintenance all included in the price, which is generally cheaper than classic car rental services which are aimed at tourists such as Hertz or Avis.

There are two main models for formal car sharing in France:

Station-based (en boucle). You book a vehicle in advance via an app or website, pick it up from a dedicated station point, and return it to the same station when you’re done.

This is the most common model and suits planned journeys — a day trip, a weekly shop, a holiday. La Rochelle’s Yélomobile service is a good example: its 55 vehicles, a mix of hybrids and electrics in various sizes, are spread across fixed stations throughout the town, bookable for anything from one hour to several weeks.

Free-floating. No reservation, no fixed station — perfect for spontaneous, short urban trips. You open an app, find the nearest available car on a map, walk to it, unlock it, drive to your destination and park it anywhere within the authorised zone. Paris is the main city offering this model, with operators including Share Now (around 600 fully electric vehicles) and Free2Move.

Beyond the formal operators, two looser models are also worth knowing about.

Commercial peer-to-peer. Private car owners list their vehicles on a platform – most commonly Getaround – and rent them out when they’re not using them. Renters get access to a much wider variety of cars, often parked in residential areas, suburbs or rural villages that aren’t served by the bigger providers. For owners, it’s a way to offset the cost of a car that would otherwise sit idle.

Autopartage entre particuliers – community-organised schemes. In smaller communities where no commercial or cooperative operator has yet arrived, groups of residents are organising their own arrangements.

In fact, some of France’s most established car-sharing services began this way – in 2001, a group of Bordeaux residents created a small association to share a single car. That association eventually became Autocool, now the Gironde operator within the Citiz network, France’s largest car-sharing cooperative.

Beyond the cities

It’s not just the number of users that’s on the rise; as the network has grown, it’s moved into more areas, expanding beyond major urban centres and into some of the country’s smallest towns and villages.

The cooperative network Citiz, France’s largest car-sharing provider, now covers 17 different areas, with cars in 270 locations, including 130 SNCF railway stations.

Its local operators and partners serve communities well beyond the cities – in Gironde, for example, Citiz vehicles are available not only in Bordeaux but in smaller towns like Langon, La Réole and Libourne.

In Ardèche – France’s only mainland département with no passenger rail service – the Communauté d’agglomération Privas Centre Ardèche (CAPCA) has run a car-sharing scheme since 2021, with three electric vehicles stationed in Privas, Alissas and Coux, managed through the operator Clem’.

Government policy

The growth of car sharing in France is not accidental. It has been built, deliberately and incrementally, on two decades of government policy, and the process is still very much under way.

The Grenelle de l’environnement of 2007-2010 gave car sharing its first legal definition and created a national quality label, entitling certified operators to reserved parking spaces and preferential rates from local authorities.

But the real game-changer came a decade later with the Loi d’Orientation des Mobilités (LOM), enacted in December 2019, which required every corner of French territory to be covered by a local mobility authority (Autorité Organisatrice de la Mobilité, or AOM), tasked with providing transport alternatives to the private car – including car sharing.

In December 2025, Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot formalised the government’s next ambition: 70,000 shared vehicles by 2031, five times the current fleet.

List of autopartage services in France

In addition to the operators listed above, informal car-sharing groups run by residents’ associations exist in a growing number of rural communes, including in Maine-et-Loire, the Drôme and the Puy-de-Dôme. These are typically organised as associations loi 1901 and are not open to the general public. You could ask your local mairie if there’s one already established in your area.