PortMiami Rental Car Guide: Cruise Desks, Shuttles & Tolls

1:30 PM

Open desk, departed shuttle: the Miami trap

Set your sail day and the time you’ll reach downtown. The checker does the rest, against each desk’s hours and the 1:30 cutoff.

The one time to know

Avis on SE 2nd Street keeps 7 AM to 7 PM hours seven days a week. Budget and Payless next door open at 8 daily, closing at 6 Monday to Friday, at 4 on Saturday and at 2 on Sunday. The pier shuttle keeps its own clock — “The last shuttle is at 1:30pm,” per Avis, and Budget’s page gives the same time.

Day You reach the office at

Try 12:45 on a Sunday, then move it to 2 PM and watch what changes.

At 2, Avis still has five hours of office time left. That’s exactly what catches people — the office is open, the shuttle isn’t, and the ship is a cab ride away.

Hand the keys over well before 1:30, not at it.

SE 2nd Street

Who runs a pier shuttle, by their own account?

“There are no on-site car rental agencies at PortMiami,” the port says, “however some provide shuttle services to their offices.” The desks below name themselves, not the port — here is what each one says.

Avis

Avis Port Miami Cruiseship Shuttle

99 SE 2nd St, downtown Miami · 305-379-1317

Port shuttleCruise passengers only

HoursEvery day 7 AM–7 PM

ShuttleFree with the Q8M booking; every 20–30 minutes; last run 1:30 PM

“The Avis shuttle that services the pier, passes by the port every 20-30 minutes depending on traffic as well as the number of ships in port.” And: “The last shuttle is at 1:30pm.”

“No fee for pick up” when you book the Q8M cruise code. The plain downtown Avis office at the same address (M6I) doesn’t mention the port — book the cruise code. The shuttle “will only stop if there is a shuttle space available,” and an ambassador at the port shows you where to stand.

Cars go back to the downtown office and you’re “shuttled back to the pier.” Return inside office hours.

Source: avis.com/en/locations/nam/us/fl/miami/q8m Checked Sept 28, 2026

Budget · Payless

Budget & Payless Port Miami Cruiseship Shuttle

93 SE 2nd St, downtown Miami · 305-377-4410

Port shuttleCruise passengers only

HoursMon–Fri 8 AM–6 PM · Sat 8 AM–4 PM · Sun 8 AM–2 PM

ShuttleFree with the P2F or M15 booking; Budget gives the same 1:30 PM last run

Budget: “No fee for pick up when booking Port of Miami Cruise ship Shuttle pick up P2F.” Payless: “The Payless shuttle will meet passengers at the pier.”

Budget’s ordinary downtown code (M5E) points you to P2F for the port shuttle, so book the cruise code. Payless (305-789-4298) shares the office.

Budget allows no after-hours returns here. Cars come back to 93 SE 2nd St, then the shuttle takes you to the pier.

Source: budget.com/en/locations/us/fl/miami/p2f Checked Sept 28, 2026

No, in writing: Enterprise at the DoubleTree downtown, at the JW Marriott in Brickell, on South Beach’s 5th Street and on Collins Avenue all carry the line “This branch does not service the Port of Miami for pickup or drop off service,” and Alamo and National on Miami Beach print it word for word. Payless in South Miami Beach adds “Shuttle service is not available.” Silent either way: Hertz downtown at 229 SE 2nd St, Sixt at the InterContinental, and the MIA pages for Hertz and Enterprise.

Where the port’s list goes wrong. PortMiami’s transportation page names Dollar and Hertz as rental companies with shuttles, “fees may apply.” Neither company’s own page backs that up: Hertz’s downtown office doesn’t mention the port, its old Port of Miami page returns an error, and Dollar’s site blocked every check we tried. The three brands above are the ones that describe a pier shuttle themselves.

Six Enterprise, Alamo and National branches don’t merely skip the port — they say so, in the same sentence, on their own pages.

The answer is short. Book Avis, Budget or Payless on the cruise-shuttle code, and return the car downtown inside office hours.

Booking codes

Three booking codes that come with a ride to the pier

The desks run two sets of codes from the same addresses, and only one set includes the ride to the pier.

When you book

Pick the cruise code, not the downtown one

Avis Q8M, Budget P2F, Payless M15. Avis and Budget both promise “no fee for pick up” with those codes, while Avis’s plain downtown code at the same address never mentions the port and Budget’s (M5E) sends you on to P2F for the shuttle.

Sail morning

Drive in to SE 2nd Street

Avis sits at 99 SE 2nd Street and Budget and Payless at 93, on the same block. Refill the tank if your contract asks, and arrive inside office hours.

At the counter

Keys in, bags on the shuttle

You and your luggage ride to the pier together, and Avis says the shuttle passes the port “every 20-30 minutes depending on traffic as well as the number of ships in port.”

The cutoff

1:30 PM is the last run

Avis puts its final shuttle at 1:30 PM, and Budget’s page matches it. When only one ship is in, Avis says the last run depends on how many cars are coming back.

After the cruise

Find the ambassador, then wait for space

An ambassador at the port shows you where to stand. The shuttle “will only stop if there is a shuttle space available,” so on a busy morning you may watch one go by.

7.1 miles

From MIA, a car is the long way round

Our take

The port counts 7.1 miles from MIA to the ship, and on cruise days there are taxis waiting at each terminal. Where a rental pays is at the edges of the trip, not the transfer. Think of a Fort Lauderdale or Palm Beach landing, a drive down from Orlando, or the Keys before or after.

When you do rent, book one of the three downtown cruise desks and hand the car back well before 1:30.

Worth renting if

You land at FLL or Palm Beach rather than MIA
Orlando or Disney comes before the ship
The Keys are on the itinerary, either side of the cruise
Four or more of you share it across more than one stop

Not worth it if

You fly into MIA and ride straight to the terminal
You’re on Miami Beach the night before, paying $52–$76 a night to valet it (the range across the hotels we checked)
You’d reach downtown after about 1 PM on sail day
Your airport hotel already drives you to the ship

If you’re still torn, four questions will make the call.

Plan B

Downtown desk, or MIA’s car center after 1:30

Back to a downtown cruise desk

A free pier shuttle, if you booked the cruise code
No airport charges when you also rented there
Avis 7–7 every day; Budget and Payless 8–6 weekdays, 8–4 Saturday, 8–2 Sunday
Last run to the pier at 1:30 PM
Avis, Budget and Payless only

Back to MIA’s Rental Car Center

Thirteen companies in one building
Avis and Budget never close; some others shut from 11 PM to 5 AM
Then about 9 miles by taxi — roughly $34 on the meter, our estimate — or a rideshare
Or your airport hotel’s morning run to the ship
The fallback once 1:30 has gone

At the airport, the free MIA Mover leaves from the terminal’s third level, between the Dolphin and Flamingo garages, and Avis puts the ride at about 4 minutes. Counters are on Level 4, cars on Level 2.

Coming one-way from Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach or Orlando? The downtown desk is the tidier finish if you’ll make the 1:30 shuttle — if you won’t, MIA is the net, not the plan.

Full drives: from FLL and Palm Beach, and from Orlando.

Luggage

Pick the car by the suitcases

Count the suitcases before you count the people, because on a cruise week the bags set the car size, not the seats.

Bags Enterprise lists	Classes that carry them (seats)
5	Standard SUV (5) · 7-passenger minivan (7) · 8-passenger minivan (8)
3	Midsize car (5) · full-size SUV (7; the 3-bag figure looks like it assumes the third row is up)

Enterprise’s published US capacities, grouped by how much luggage they take. Checked Sept 27, 2026

Enterprise lists three bags for a midsize. That’s the car’s real limit, not its five seats, so four adults carrying a week of luggage should book a standard SUV or a minivan.

Florida’s rule covers every child 5 and under: a crash-tested carrier or integrated seat through age 3, then a carrier, integrated seat or booster at ages 4 and 5.

Rented seats get pricey: Avis quotes “usually” $14 a day and $84 at most per rental (Budget: $14.50 a day, $87 cap). Avis also charges $50 when the seat isn’t returned to the location it left — a real risk on a one-way.

Southwest, American, JetBlue and Delta all check a car seat free, which makes your own the easy call.

Miami-Dade

What Miami-Dade adds to the daily rate

Pickup location decides most of it — the airport adds lines that a downtown desk shouldn’t.

Item	Rate	What it’s made of	Status
Miami-Dade (MIA, downtown, Miami Beach)	7%	The 6% state rate and a 1% county surtax	Verified
Broward (FLL)	7%	Same split as Miami-Dade	Verified
Orange (Orlando)	6.5%	State 6%, county 0.5%	Verified
State rental surcharge	$2.00 per day, 30-day limit	Fla. Stat. 212.0606, and sales tax lands on it too	Verified
Facility charge at MIA and FLL	Not published	Each airport charges one, and we couldn’t find the amount on either airport’s site or any company page	Not published
MCO (Orlando) facility charge	$9 daily, 7-day cap (reported)	Reported from Nov 1, 2024 onward; MCO’s notice no longer loads, so we can’t confirm it	Reported
Concession recovery, vehicle licence and so on	Up to each company	Set by the company, with no published figure	Not published

Tax follows the county where you collect the car, using Florida DOR’s 2026 surtax table.

Downtown beats the airport on the bill. Miami-Dade and Broward tax a rental at 7%, Orange and Palm Beach at 6.5%, and an airport pickup piles on charges that neither MIA nor FLL prints as a figure. The downtown cruise desks aren’t airport locations. Discover Cars notes that a US quote may not show every tax and surcharge, so look at “Rate Excludes” before lining quotes up.

S.R. 836

66 cents at 17th Avenue, and what it sets off

The toll is small; the fee it triggers is where the money goes.

Heading downtown from MIA you pass one Dolphin Expressway (State Road 836) gantry, at 17th Avenue. It costs $0.66 with a transponder and $1.32 by plate on the Greater Miami Expressway Agency’s posted schedule — dated 2022, the newest it links. The PortMiami Tunnel itself is toll-free.

In a rental, that one gantry is enough to start the company’s toll program for the day. That’s $4.95 with Enterprise, Alamo or National and $6.95 with Avis or Budget, with the toll itself billed at the plate rate. Your 66 cents becomes roughly $6 to $8 — mostly a fee, not a toll.

Use your own transponder instead. Put the rental’s plate on your SunPass or E-ZPass and you pay the 66 cents, nothing more.

From Fort Lauderdale, I-95’s general lanes cost nothing — the 95 Express lanes accept a transponder and nothing else (95 Express rules).

A SunPass PRO, SunPass, E-ZPass or E-PASS works on any Florida toll road, and one of your own, with the rental’s plate and dates added and later removed, is the only way into those express lanes.

	Enterprise group (TollPass)	Avis Budget (e-Toll)	Hertz group (PlatePass All-Inclusive)
Charged	Each day a toll is used	Each day a toll is used	Every rental day, toll or not
Fee	$4.95	$6.95	$14.99 in Florida, tolls included
Most per rental	$34.65	$34.95	A weekly maximum we couldn’t confirm
Tolls billed at	Video, cash or undiscounted rate, whichever is higher	Non-discounted rates	Included. Decline it and a cashless toll still costs $9.99 that day, plus the toll
Watch for	Starts automatically at the first gantry	e-Toll Unlimited is a different, daily product	It bills even on days you never see a toll
Terms	National	Budget	PlatePass

Compared side by side from the companies’ toll pages (Sept 27, 2026). The programs apply across Florida, whichever airport or desk the car comes from. Checked Sept 27, 2026

Checkout

Last check: the code on the confirmation

One search shows who’ll handle your pickup-to-Miami pair and what each charges all in.

What it can’t show is whether you landed on the desk’s cruise-shuttle code — Q8M, P2F or M15 — and whether you’ll be downtown before 1:30. Check both before you pay.

Book it

Compare Miami rentals on Discover CarsStarting from Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach or Orlando? Change the pickup and leave Miami as the return.

Pickup: MIA, FLL, Palm Beach or Orlando
Return: a downtown cruise desk, or MIA
Drop fee counted in the total
Cancel free up to 48 hrs ahead

Compare Miami rentals Discover Cars’ policy: no charge to cancel up to 48 hours before pickup, and refunds come back as credit toward another booking unless you request cash.

Partner link. Seabound Journeys is a Discover Cars affiliate: if you book through our link we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It doesn’t change what we tell you, which comes from each company’s own published terms. How Discover Cars works, fees and all.

Deposits and Full Coverage are explained in our Discover Cars review. For drops at other cruise ports there’s the one-way guide.

FAQ

Miami cruise rental questions, answered

Is there a rental car counter at PortMiami?

No. The port says it has no on-site car rental agencies. Downtown there are cruise-passenger desks for Avis at 99 SE 2nd St and for Budget and Payless at number 93, each with a free shuttle to and from the pier — on the condition that you book their cruise-shuttle codes.

What time is the last rental car shuttle to PortMiami?

1:30 PM, according to Avis, and Budget’s page lists the same time. The desks themselves stay open later, so after 1:30 you’d be taking a taxi or rideshare to the ship.

Which rental companies shuttle cruise passengers at PortMiami?

Three describe it on their own pages, all on SE 2nd Street downtown: Avis on code Q8M, Budget on P2F and Payless on M15. Enterprise’s downtown, Brickell and Miami Beach branches, plus Alamo and National on Miami Beach, say they don’t serve the Port of Miami for pickup or drop-off.

Are there tolls from Miami airport to PortMiami?

Just one, the Dolphin Expressway gantry at 17th Avenue: $0.66 with a transponder, $1.32 by plate, on the expressway agency’s posted schedule. The PortMiami Tunnel charges nothing. In a rental, though, that single gantry sets off the company’s daily toll fee.

Do I need a rental car for a Miami cruise?

To get from MIA to the ship, 7.1 miles away, you don’t. It starts to make sense if you land at Fort Lauderdale or Palm Beach, spend time in Orlando first, or add the Florida Keys before or after.

What is the sales tax on a rental car in Miami?

Miami-Dade charges 7%, plus Florida’s $2 daily rental surcharge, and the tax applies to that surcharge as well. An airport pickup adds airport charges MIA doesn’t publish as a number.

Want the whole trip handled?

Tell us your ship and dates. A real advisor plans the flights, the night before and the ride to the terminal, at no extra cost.

PortMiami Rental Car Guide

Where are you coming from?

Open desk, departed shuttle: the Miami trap

Who runs a pier shuttle, by their own account?

Avis Port Miami Cruiseship Shuttle

Budget & Payless Port Miami Cruiseship Shuttle

Three booking codes that come with a ride to the pier

Pick the cruise code, not the downtown one

Drive in to SE 2nd Street

Keys in, bags on the shuttle

1:30 PM is the last run

Find the ambassador, then wait for space

From MIA, a car is the long way round

Worth renting if

Not worth it if

Downtown desk, or MIA’s car center after 1:30

Back to a downtown cruise desk

Back to MIA’s Rental Car Center

Pick the car by the suitcases

What Miami-Dade adds to the daily rate

66 cents at 17th Avenue, and what it sets off

Last check: the code on the confirmation

Miami cruise rental questions, answered

Want the whole trip handled?

Got it — thank you.

Open desk, departed shuttle: the Miami trap

Who runs a pier shuttle, by their own account?

Avis Port Miami Cruiseship Shuttle

Budget & Payless Port Miami Cruiseship Shuttle

Three booking codes that come with a ride to the pier

Pick the cruise code, not the downtown one

Drive in to SE 2nd Street

Keys in, bags on the shuttle

1:30 PM is the last run

Find the ambassador, then wait for space

From MIA, a car is the long way round

Worth renting if

Not worth it if

Downtown desk, or MIA’s car center after 1:30

Back to a downtown cruise desk

Back to MIA’s Rental Car Center

Pick the car by the suitcases

What Miami-Dade adds to the daily rate

66 cents at 17th Avenue, and what it sets off

Last check: the code on the confirmation

Miami cruise rental questions, answered

Where to read next for a Miami sailing

Want the whole trip handled?

Got it — thank you.