Car-sharing company Zipcar to end UK operations

Zipcar said in December 2025 that it would suspend all operations in the UK by the end of the year. It also indicated that it would not take any new bookings after December 31, 2025, until it had properly communicated to its UK workers. The company's UK general manager sent out the notification, which indicated that all current bookings will be fulfilled until the end of December. Customers who need to cancel future appointments will get their money returned, even if they are on a subscription plan and only need to cancel part of their booking. Zipcar UK had more than 650,000 members across the country at its peak. The business has roughly 3,000 cars in London, and more than 1,000 of them run on electricity. This made the shutting even more essential in the capital. Zipcar's most recent financial records show that the UK subsidiary lost more money in 2024. Sales fell from around £53 million to roughly £47 million, while losses after taxes rose. The firm noted that these losses were caused by a mix of higher operating costs, primarily for the energy and maintenance expenditures of its largely electric fleet, and lower-than-expected use. Changes in policy were a major blow. Starting in early 2026, electric cars that entered central London would have to pay a new daily congestion charge of £13.50.

If the rules had changed, Zipcar's business model would have cost a lot more. It involves the expense of gas and billing, and cars often have to go through or into congested zones. This would have rendered the service too expensive to run at these costs. Leaving the UK will not only mean that hundreds of thousands of individual members won't be able to utilize their on-demand fleet, but it will also undermine the country's shared mobility infrastructure. Some estimates claim that this might cut the UK's capacity to share automobiles by as much as 60%. A lot of city governments and businesses that utilized Zipcar to rent vans, send personnel on trips, or take one-way journeys don't know how to get around now that Zipcar is gone. CoMoUK and other groups that serve people with impairments and mobility challenges have claimed that Zipcar's leaving could mean that more people will have their own cars. This would make it tougher to ease traffic, cut carbon emissions, and promote sustainable mobility in locations like London. Zipcar was a flexible option for many people to travel around without needing to buy a car. This was especially true for students, renters, small business owners, and others who only drove sometimes. The fact that it left indicates how weak the economics of fleet-based shared mobility are in the UK, especially when expenses are going up and demand is not obvious. A specialist in the sector suggested that Zipcar's failure could be a "stark warning" about how successfully car-sharing can function without significant regulatory and structural backing.