Apr. 5, 2026. Maui car rental prices have gone up for the second week in a row, and may be reaching their seasonal Easter holiday peak. In normal years, prices will be coming down from this level as we proceed into the shoulder season that stretches from now until early summer. But there has been nothing normal about this year. The last nine months have been marked by extreme price volatility, with multiple tipping points that lead to short-lived but very significant price increases when compared year-over-year. There have been multiple instances of vehicle prices double, triple, or even quadruple what they were a year earlier for the same periods. Continue reading to explore the reasons behind these price movements.

Fig. 1. Prices for Maui car rental at Kahului Airport (OGG) from January 2025 to now.

HOW MUCH IS THE CHEAPEST MAUI RENTAL CAR ON APRIL 6, 2026?

Every week, we list the lowest available prices for a one-week car rental from Maui's Kahului Airport (OGG), for a selection of vehicle categories, with the company offering the best price. This is our overview of Maui car rental prices for the week of April 6, 2026.

Category Price Company

Economy $389 Dollar

Midsize $613 Thrifty

Jeep $1,339 Dollar

Convertbl $822 Payless

SUV $1,110 Avis

7 St SUV $1,286 Avis

Minivan $1,408 Budget

The prices quoted here include all applicable taxes and fees. Prices for these vehicle types charted week-to-week for the last 14 months are illustrated in Figure 1.

These are the lowest prices in every car category: The lowest price for a compact car from Kahului Airport (OGG) was $389/week, from Dollar. Mid-size cars started at $613/week, from Thrifty. Jeeps were starting at $1,339/week, from Dollar. The lowest price for a convertible was $822/week, from Payless. The cheapest standard SUV's were $1,10/week, from AVIS, and 7-seat SUV's started at $1,286/week, from Budget. The cheapest minivans were $1,408/week, from Budget.

Fig. 2. Maui car rental prices at Kahului Airport (OGG) this week and last week, with the percentage change..

HOW MUCH DID MAUI RENTAL CAR PRICES CHANGE FROM LAST WEEK?

This is how the lowest price for a one week rental from Maui's Kahului Airport (OGG) starting on April 6, 2026 has changed from the week before, for every vehicle category:

Category This week Last Change
Economy $389 $302 +29%

Midsize $613 $420 +46%

Jeep $1,339 $1,203 +11%

Convertbl $822 $1,140 -28%

SUV $1,110 $663 +67%

7 st SUV $1,286 $1,140 +13%

Minivan $1,408 $1,203 +17%

With only one exception, rental rates for all vehicle types rose from last week. The price for the cheapest car from Kahului Airport (OGG) was up 29%. The cheapest midsize car also rose, by 46%. The starting price for Jeeps was up 11%. Standard SUV's were up 67%, 7-seat SUV's were up 13%, and minivans were up 17%. Convertibles were the only category to go against the general upward trend, with their rental price actually coming down by 28%.

Prices for this week and last week, with the percentage change week-to-week, are illustrated in Figure 2.

This week prices have continued to bounce back from the low levels caused by the extreme weather disruptions in mid-March. As expected, prices have gone up for the busy Easter holiday week.

Figure 3. Price comparison for Maui Car Rental as of March 2026 shows mixed changes by vehicle type compared to the year before

HOW DO MAUI CAR RENTAL PRICES COMPARE TO ONE YEAR AGO?

This is how Maui car rental prices look in the first week of April 2026, beginning Monday April 6, compared to the corresponding week of last year, that began Monday April 7, 2025:

Vehicle Now Last Year Change

Economy $389 $269 +45%

Midsize $613 $349 +76%

Jeep $1,339 $430 +211%

Convertbl $822 $925 -11%

SUV $1,110 $334 +232%

7 st SUV $1,286 $489 +163%

Minivan $1,408 $395 +256%

These numbers are charted in Figure 3.

This week, with one exception, the prices for most types of Maui rental cars were up significantly and even dramatically (if not insanely) from one year ago. Economy cars were up 45%, and mid-size cars were up 76%. Is that all we've got? No. The increases for vehicles affected by safety recalls were even more substantial. The Chrysler minivan recall of last summer, the Jeep recall of this fall, and the Ford SUV recall of this spring are limiting the availability of mainstay fleet vehicles, that by law cannot be rented until compliance repairs are completed. As a result, this week, year-over-year, Jeeps were up 211% (that's more than triple), standard suvs were up 232% (also more than triple), 7-seat suv's were up 163% (that's nearly triple), and minivans were up 256% (that's approaching four times the price from one year ago). But for convertibles, that as we've just seen bucked the general week-to-week up-trend of the other vehicles, the price of a rental was down year-over-year, by 11%.

As we've reported previously, convertibles are a baffling category with price movements that often are difficult to explain.

But what about the "boring" categories of compact cars and mid-size cars? Why are they up as much as they are, when they are not subject to recall or any other unusual factors? The answer is a substitution effect. As the available supply of the recalled vehicles dwindles, and their rental costs climb, customers look for alternatives. They settle on compacts and mid-size cars as substitutes, and driving up the demand for these vehicles. So their rental cost goes up too. It's the famous adage "rising tide lifts all boats," seen in action.

Figure 4. Year-over-year price fluctuations for various car rental types at Kahului Airport, showing significant spikes and trends from July 2025 to April 2026.

YEAR-OVER-YEAR TREND OF MAUI CAR RENTAL PRICES

In our latest round of data collection, we began to gather weekly data for multiple vehicle types in July 2024. In an attempt to improve our understanding of the movement and direction of rental car prices in the Maui market, we are in a position to present a review of the year-over-year change seen week by week from July 2025 to the present, covering a period of about 9 months.

This is shown in Figure 4 - it illustrates not the actual prices, but the change in the price on any date relative to the year before.

As you can see from Figure 1, actual prices of vehicles show a high level of volatility affecting price movements week-to-week. From Figure 4, we also see a high level of volatility, affecting movements in price year over year!

From this visualization, we see that the year-over-year movement is characterized by multiple tipping points that send prices suddenly and temporarily sky-rocketing to levels that are double, triple, or even higher multiples than the year before. In the last nine months, there have been nine instances where prices for at least one category of vehicle were more than double the year before. Of these, five were instances of prices triple the year before. All of these price spikes are short-lived and prices do fall back quickly from those levels - but only until the next tipping point that sends prices soaring upward again. So what is the general trend in prices year-over-year? With this level of volatility, it is very difficult to quantify any actual secular trend in prices. We may be able to see it more clearly as we continue to gather more data.

WHY ARE MAUI CAR RENTAL PRICES SO VOLATILE?

It's not enough to say that Maui car rental prices are driven up by vehicle recalls. One must also answer the question of why prices are affected to such a dramatic extent. There are multiple factors at play, that are unique to Maui and make the price action here different from most other places. Two of the factors are connected to fleet composition, the third is structural - almost literally. As we see below,

1. Low Level Of Vehicle Brand and Model Diversification in the Maui Rental Fleets.

This makes the rental stock more vulnerable to vehicle-specific shocks like recalls (as they are in 2025-2026) or delays in delivery (as we reported in 2024-2025). For example, we estimate that more than 80% of the minivan rental fleet are recent model Chrysler Pacifica minivans. So when these models are recalled, as they were last summer, then there go 80% of the minivans, out of service. The same goes for recent model Jeep Wranglers hybrids, that constitute more than 80% of the Jeep rental fleet, and were recalled in the late fall. With SUV's, recalled by Ford this winter, we have seen better resilience, due to a more diverse representation of manufacturers and models. But the SUV category suffers from carry-over shock (or, again, a substitution effect), when Jeep and minivan availability are limited. This, coupled with the recall, sends their prices soaring. What is the reason behind this lack of diversification? It's the Southwest Airlines effect. In their early years, Southwest made famous the strategy of relying on just one type of aircraft for all their operations. Similarly, Maui rental car operators seeks to achieve economies in vehicle acquisition and operation by limiting the number of different vehicle types that they select for their fleets - but it's a choice that comes back to bite them.

2. Unique Rental Vehicle Mix in Maui. 

The visitor demographics for the island and their unique preferences have led over time to disproportionate representation of some vehicle categories compared to rental fleets elsewhere. In particular, minivans, Jeeps, SUV's, and convertibles are over-represented compared to mainland fleets, that rely more on "boring" four-door sedan type vehicles preferred by the business travels who account for the lion's shar of travel in those markets. These vehicles are more interchangeable, making them less at risk to supply shocks like those induced by recalls for example.

3. Operational Constraints Of The Maui Airport Rental Car Facility (ConRAC). 

We have previously presented our analysis of rent-a=car operations at Kahului Airport (OGG), where we are led to the conclusion that airport concession rental car operators in Maui are hamstrung by the new rental car facility (ConRAC) that was completed in late fall of 2019. Shortly afterward, the Covid-19 pandemic (2020-2021) then the Lahaina wildfire disaster (2023-2024) caused sharp drop-offs in visitor numbers and rent-a-car activity. So the operational limitations of the new facility did not begin to be truly tested until the fall of 2024, when a recovery in travel to Maui began to get under way. And that's exactly when we began to see and report dramatic roller-coaster movement and wild short-term swings in prices, that we had not seen before in our historical data that covers multiple years of Maui car rental prices, beginning in 2013. At this time, the evidence for this hypothesis is entirely unofficial, and hypothetical even - but we are seeking more direct confirmation.

HOW DO WE GET OUR MAUI CAR RENTAL PRICE DATA?

Prices for Maui car rentals vary from week to week, and the company offering the lowest price also changes from week to week. Furthermore, one company may be offering the lowest price in one vehicle category, for example mid-size cars, while a different company has a better price on another category, for example mini-vans.

Beginning in July 2024, we've tracked the prices on seven vehicle categories - compact, mid-size, Jeep, convertible, SUV, 7-seat SUV, and minivan - from 10 different companies at Maui's Kahului Airport (OGG): Alamo, Avis, Budget, Dollar, Enterprise, Hertz, National, Payless, SiXT, and Thrifty. Each week, for every vehicle type, we noted which company offered the lowest price. Our weekly price-tracking for the lowest price economy car category goes back to July 2023 - more than one year. These are the data for the charts we post every week.

Figure 6. Week-by-week variation of Maui car rental prices averaged over five years, from 2013 to 2018.

Previously we conducted a five-year price-tracking study for the lowest price economy car category beginning in February 2013 and continuing to February 2018. A sample of these results is in Figure 6, that shows the five-year average of the price over a one-year duration. For details of this massive price-tracking undertaking, and the most important findings on how and when to rent a car, see our blog post of July 14, 2024 titled "When is the best time to rent a car in Maui?" 

HOW TO CHECK RATES AND AVAILABILITY FOR MAUI CAR RENTAL

Either click through to to our Cars & Rates section, or check our booking site at rentals.mauicarrental.biz. This site gives you access to all vehicles from eight different companies - Ace, Alamo, Avis, Budget, Dollar, Enterprise, Payless, and Thrifty - at all their Maui locations, that include the Airport rentacar center, Kahului town locations nearby the airport, and resort locations in Kihei/Wailea, and Ka'anapali. With so many options to choose from, you are assured to find the rental car that matches your preferences and your budget for your Maui trip - and there is never a cancellation penalty if you have to change plans.

ABOUT THIS BLOG

Frank Saab is a thought leader in the rental car industry, quoted by influential publications like SFgate.com. He is the editor of this blog published by Frank's Friendly Cars Maui Car Rental LLC, an independent car rental company operating in Maui, Hawaii, since 2006. Frank's offers low prices on used local cars and discount prices on new cars, with a "Lowest Price Guarantee" that assures you of getting the best deal on your rental. Visit our website at www.mauicarrental.biz, or call us at 808-280-1196.

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Price Data Sources: rentalcars.com, rentals.mauicarrental.biz