- Decide whether you actually need oneFor Tirana, Berat and Gjirokastër in summer, buses do it. For the Riviera, the Alps road, or anything in April or October, the car is the trip: coastal services reach the villages on the SH8 and not the bays below them, and seasonal routes are the first to disappear.
- Settle the cross-border question at the deskTaking a hire car out is allowed with a fee and paperwork: Kosovo about EUR 20-40, Montenegro EUR 40-60 plus a Green Card, North Macedonia EUR 60-80. Agree it when you collect the car rather than at the border.
- Read the road type, not the distanceThe six corridors on this site carry their measured distance and the router's time. Ninety kilometres of the Shkodër to Theth mountain road takes longer than 150 km of the run to Berat, and the map will not tell you that.
- Fill up before the mountains and before the coastFuel is frequent on the SH1 and across the plain. It is intermittent and seasonal along the Riviera, and there is nothing dependable between Koplik and Theth, which is about seventy kilometres of mountain road.
- Do the mountain and coastal legs in daylightUnlit pedestrians and animals on the shoulder are the recurring hazard on the SH1, and the coastal villages have sections with no pavement. The road over the Llogara pass adds switchbacks and weather that changes at the top; the tunnel beneath it, open since July 2024, avoids both.
The figures
| What | Value | Checked |
|---|---|---|
| Cross-border car hire fees | Kosovo about EUR 20-40; Montenegro EUR 40-60 plus a Green Card; North Macedonia EUR 60-80 | 2026-10-01 · Car Hire Albania, cross-border fee table by country |
| The Theth road in winter | No published closure dates. The road authority (ARRSH) clears snow and closes the road when it is unsafe; avalanches blocked it completely on 5 February 2026 | 2026-10-01 · Top Channel, ARRSH: Qafë Thorë to Theth road fully blocked by avalanches (5 February 2026) |
Asked about this
Are the roads as bad as people say?
No. The SH1 north and the SH8 along the coast are ordinary national roads, and the Theth road is now paved the whole way. What is true is that mountain sections are slow, and that the only road along the Riviera has no detour when something blocks it.
Can I take the hire car into Kosovo or Montenegro?
Usually yes, for a fee agreed with the rental company: roughly EUR 20-40 for Kosovo, EUR 40-60 plus a Green Card for Montenegro, EUR 60-80 for North Macedonia. A car hired in Corfu is the exception and cannot come into Albania at all.
How long do the drives really take?
Each corridor page states what OSRM measured over OpenStreetMap data, and that is a measurement of the road rather than a promise. The Riviera is 125 km and about three and a half hours with no stops, and nobody drives it without stopping.