Coach Hire

Coach hire means chartering a full-size coach with a professional driver, normally 49 to 53 seats, for touring, long-distance transfers or event transport. Send the itinerary and passenger count and we return one fixed price from a local operator, driver and fuel included.

Coaches are built for distance in a way that a minibus is not: a proper luggage hold beneath the floor, reclining seats, air conditioning, and on most touring vehicles a washroom, a PA system for a guide, and USB charging. For anything over about two hours on the road, that difference decides the day.

Why Choose Global Bus Hire for Coach Hire?

How It Works

Driver hours shape every long itinerary

Coach and bus drivers work to published limits, not to your itinerary's wishes. Under Regulation (EC) 561/2006, retained in UK law and applied across the EU, a driver may drive up to 9 hours a day, extendable to 10 hours twice a week, and must take a 45-minute break after 4.5 hours of driving. Daily rest is normally 11 hours. That is why a long touring day gets a built-in lunch stop, and why a genuinely long multi-day tour sometimes needs a second driver rather than an optimistic schedule.

Multi-day touring

On a tour running several days, the coach and driver stay with the group. Two costs follow from that and belong on the quote from the start: the driver's overnight accommodation, and any repositioning if the tour finishes somewhere other than where it began. Operators normally ask that the driver's room be booked with the group's hotel block, which is simpler and cheaper than arranging it separately.

Itineraries also need honest drive times rather than map distances. Mountain roads, historic town centres closed to coaches, and ferry timetables all stretch a day. We plan set-down and pickup points around where a coach can physically stop, which on many European old towns means the edge of the pedestrian zone with a short walk in.

Choosing between a coach and a minibus

A coach wins on distance, luggage and cost per head once a group passes about 25 people. A minibus wins on access: narrow streets, tight venue approaches, mountain lanes and cellar-door wine tours where a 53-seater simply cannot turn. For mixed itineraries, some groups run a coach for the long legs and switch to minibuses for the fiddly local days.

As an indicative UK guide, coach hire runs from around 750 to 1,400 pounds a day depending on distance and date; elsewhere pricing follows the local market and is quoted in local currency. Airport and point-to-point transfers are quoted as fixed fares rather than day rates.

Licensing and standards

Any vehicle carrying nine or more passengers for hire is a public service vehicle, so the operator needs a PSV operator licence, the driver a category D or D1 entitlement plus a valid Driver CPC, and the vehicle a tachograph for journeys within scope. We only place work with operators who hold the right licensing for the country they run in, and the paperwork is the operator's to produce on request.

Official sources

The licensing and drivers' hours rules described above are published by the UK authorities and, for drivers' hours, apply across the EU under Regulation (EC) 561/2006. Check the current detail at source:

• GOV.UK: drivers' hours, EU rules
• GOV.UK: vehicle operator licensing (PSV)
• GOV.UK: Driver Certificate of Professional Competence

Common Questions