Who Owns Budget Truck Rental?

Budget's truck rental operations predated the dedicated brand, but the modern business was assembled in June 1998 when Budget Group bought Ryder TRS, Ryder's consumer truck rental arm, and combined it into the Budget Truck Group. The integration retired thousands of Ryder's bright-yellow trucks and restaged the fleet in Budget blue by 2003.

Cendant Corporation bought Budget's car and truck operations in late 2002, and when Cendant split into four companies in 2006, Budget Truck landed inside the newly formed Avis Budget Group. The business built distinguishing features along the way: in 2008 it became the first consumer truck rental company to offer GPS navigation devices through a Garmin partnership, and in 2009 it established an AARP member savings program.

The dealer network model kept the brand's capital light. Rather than staffing 1,600 locations, Budget Truck supplies vehicles, pricing, and branding to dealers, often paired with storage facilities, gas stations, and hardware stores that earn commissions on rentals. That structure made it the second-largest US consumer truck rental operator behind U-Haul.