Can you rent a car in Egypt? What tourists may drive in Sinai
Short answer: yes, a tourist can rent a car in Sharm El Sheikh and drive it themselves, and our local partner companies rent to tourists with a national licence. We found no official ban on tourists driving the Sharm to Dahab to Nuweiba to Taba routes. That is not the same as a confirmed permission, so below we separate what is established from what depends on the company or on current advice. Information checked on 15 October 2026; check the current rules before you travel.
Can you rent a car in Egypt: the short answer
Yes, in Sharm El Sheikh a tourist can rent a car from a local company and drive it themselves. According to our partners (October 2026), a national licence from any country is enough. Details on the licence and the international permit are in the international driving permit guide, and the other documents in the documents guide.
On the road you will meet police and army checkpoints, covered in the driving rules guide. If you would rather not drive yourself, you can choose a car with a driver.
The routes: Sharm, Dahab, St Catherine, Nuweiba and Taba
We found no official source banning foreigners from driving themselves from Sharm to Dahab, from Dahab to Taba via Nuweiba, or on the road to St Catherine. Silence is not the same as a confirmed permission, though, and the UK Foreign Office is cautious about the interior of the peninsula: it advises against all but essential travel to the northern part of South Sinai beyond the St Catherine to Nuweiba road, except for the coastal areas, and advises against all travel to North Sinai. It describes the Red Sea tourist areas of southern Sinai as generally low risk.
Road estimates from Sharm, without traffic and without checkpoint delays (computed from OpenStreetMap data): Dahab about 90 to 95 km and 1 hour 15 to 1 hour 30, Nuweiba about 150 km and 2 hours, Taba about 220 km and 2 hours 45 to 3 hours 15, St Catherine about 205 km and 2 hours 45 to 3 hours 30. Real journeys are usually longer. For the monastery see the Mount Sinai and St Catherine guide, and for Dahab the Dahab day trip guide.
The Sinai stamp versus a full visa
According to the FCDO, if you arrive by air at Sharm El Sheikh and stay less than 15 days in the resorts of Sharm El Sheikh, Dahab, Nuweiba or Taba, you do not need a visa and you get a free entry stamp at the airport. To travel outside the resorts or stay longer you need a visa. So the stamp covers the Sharm to Dahab to Nuweiba to Taba strip, but not Cairo, Hurghada or Luxor.
St Catherine and Ras Mohammed are described differently by different sources, so check with your tour provider or the park before you go. According to our partners (October 2026), Russian and Ukrainian citizens receive the Sinai entry stamp for about a month, that is 28 to 30 days. The full rules are in the entry rules and Sinai visa guide.
Driver age
Minimum age and experience are set by the rental company, and the sources give different values. The German motoring club ACE says an international permit holder must be at least 21 and have held the licence for a year; the Austrian OeAMTC says rental drivers must be at least 23 with two years of licence, and that under-25s may pay a surcharge. You confirm the final conditions for a given car in your request.
Insurance and contract: what to ask in the request
Rental guides suggest checking that the agreement explicitly covers all of South Sinai, and that one-way rentals to the mainland are often expensive or refused. That is a low-authority source, so treat it as a reason to ask. We do not state the insurance terms of individual companies: write in your request where you want to go and ask the company to confirm that the contract and the insurance cover those routes.
The Foreign Office adds that to travel in a 4-wheel-drive vehicle from mainland Egypt through the Suez crossing you need a permit, and that off-road driving needs a qualified guide and a permit. That is about off-road driving, not ordinary coastal routes.