E-scooters on Kos: which app to use, what a ride costs, and where Greek law says you can’t ride

Which e-scooter app works on Kos?

Three operators hire out stand-up e-scooters by the minute, each with its own app; the “scooters” in most Kos rental shops are mopeds and quads, which need a driving licence.

• Hoppy (app: Hoppy Mobility), a Belgian company and the one on our map: the Kos map showed 323 Hoppy scooters on the afternoon of 14 October 2026, a snapshot rather than a fleet size. They cover Kos town, Lambi and Psalidi, plus one parking spot each at the Tigaki and Agios Fokas ends.
• Volta (app: Volta Ride), run by MOOV, a Kos company with local shareholders.
• Scoot, a Greek company from Patras, which expanded to Kos for summer 2026 and lists it as active. Its e-mopeds need an AM licence.

Volta and Scoot publish no open data, so they aren’t on our map. Hopp still lists Kos on its website, but its live data showed no scooters in October 2026. How many are there in all? Reporting on a municipal committee debate in July 2026, local press put the island’s total at “about 600 to 700”.

What does a ride cost on Hoppy, Scoot and Volta?

Hoppy charges €1 to unlock, then by the minute, moving or not. On 14 October 2026 its Kos scooters showed three rates: €0.30 on 189, €0.35 on 101 and €0.33 on 33. The app shows yours before you unlock.

Volta’s FAQ says prices “start at” those figures; Scoot’s terms say the app shows any unlock fee before you ride. Hoppy’s terms add an insurance excess of up to €1,000 per claim for damage you cause to others.

Signing up as a visitor: phone, card and ID

Nothing the operators publish limits sign-up to Greek phones, cards or documents:

• Hoppy needs a valid credit or debit card before your first ride.
• Scoot confirms your number by text (enter the country code) and takes a card to top up its wallet.
• Volta checks your ID in the app: a passport, ID card or driving licence.

No driving licence is needed. The legal minimum age is 17, but Volta and Scoot ask for 18. Hoppy’s app-store pages say riders must be 18 or over, although one clause of its terms allows 16 or the local legal age. Take your passport or ID card on every ride: Greek law requires riders to carry ID, though the insurance certificate can stay in the app. Our guide on how to rent an e-scooter covers a first ride.

Kos’s own e-scooter rules: passed, struck down, not in force

Kos tried to write its own rulebook. Council decision 105/2026 of 24 June 2026 banned scooters from Eleftherias, Kazouli and Konitsis squares and from the carriageway of twelve streets, the harbour front among them, with €40 fines.

Volta’s company, MOOV, and Hoppy appealed. On 24 August 2026 the Decentralised Administration of the Aegean, the state’s regional authority, annulled most of it: every traffic rule, the parking spots reserved for rental firms, the towing fees and most fines. Closing streets, it found, takes a separate traffic decision based on a traffic study.

What survived, such as a €200 fine for throwing a scooter into the sea and a duty on firms to check the coast monthly and fish theirs out, applies only once published in the Government Gazette. We found no publication by 15 October 2026.

No municipal e-scooter rule is in force on Kos. Greece’s national road code applies, and the apps add their own slow zones. Reports of €40 fines or scooter-free streets describe the annulled version.

The municipality said in September 2026 that it is updating its traffic study to cover e-scooters, so new rules may follow.

Can you ride through Eleftherias Square and the old town?

No. The town’s ban fell, but Greek law itself bans e-scooters on squares, pedestrian streets and pavements: €350 and 30 days’ licence removal. Walk the scooter across Eleftherias Square, around the Plane Tree of Hippocrates and through the old town’s pedestrian lanes.

The apps slow you rather than stop you. Hoppy cuts its scooters to 6 km/h, about walking pace, around Eleftherias Square, Diagora Square and the Plane Tree, and to 18 km/h on the harbour front (Akti Kountourioti and Akti Miaouli). Volta told the local press in September 2026 that it uses 5 km/h zones in Eleftherias and Konitsis squares, Exarcheia, Platanos and the old town, and 15 km/h on the seafront.

A Hoppy ride ends only inside one of its 108 parking zones; Volta and Scoot ask for a photo when you finish. National parking rules apply on top: keep 5 metres clear of pedestrian crossings and 12 metres clear of bus stops, and stay off ramps and disabled bays. That’s a €30 fine, or €150 for ramps, disabled bays and pedestrian-street entrances.

Kos cycle paths: where e-scooters must ride

Kos is known as the island of bicycles: the municipality’s tourism site, kos.gr, counts “more than 10 miles of bike lanes along the coast”.

On a scooter, Greek law says that where a road has a cycle lane, you must ride in it (€30 if you don’t). The seafront path through Psalidi, where Hoppy has 18 parking zones, is the obvious example. You share it with families on hire bikes, so keep your speed down and give way.

Airport, Kardamena, Tigaki and the Bodrum ferry

Hoppy’s scooters stay around Kos town: a large no-ride zone in its app covers the interior and the west, Zipari and Marmari included. Its nearest zone is about 13 km from the airport and 12 km from Kardamena in a straight line; Volta and Scoot publish no zone maps. Wherever a road’s limit is over 50 km/h, the law bans e-scooters anyway.

Buy your ticket on the bus, as KTEL Kos asks. Its bus station on Kleopatras Street has a Hoppy zone about 40 metres away.

Tigaki has a single Hoppy spot, about 500 metres from the beach; on 14 October 2026 one scooter stood near it, so don’t count on a ride back.

The ferries. Kos port is about 300 metres from the nearest Hoppy zone. Don’t leave a scooter on the quay: Greek law bans parking in port zones used for boarding. A shared scooter can’t come on the boat to Bodrum or another island either. Heading to Rhodes? See our Rhodes guide.

Greece’s e-scooter rules and fines in one table

With the town’s rules annulled, national law is what applies on Kos. Law 5322/2026, published in the Government Gazette (ΦΕΚ Α΄ 117) and in force since 24 July 2026, amended the Highway Code (KOK, law 5209/2025): it set the minimum age at 17, raised several fines and made third-party insurance compulsory.

Helmets, late-night rides and the winter season

Scoot’s FAQ says a helmet is “strongly recommended … though not legally required” on its scooters. That’s wrong in Greece: the law requires an approved, fastened helmet on every e-scooter, at any age, and Scoot’s own terms tell riders to wear one. No operator leaves helmets on its scooters (Volta says some of its stations rent them out), so pack your own.

Volta has also said its scooters run from 07:00 to midnight, and that from 20:30 to midnight and 07:00 to 08:00 its app makes you pass a reaction test first: fail it and you’re locked out for 12 hours. Hoppy’s data say “24/7”.

No operator publishes a winter season. Hoppy had over 300 scooters out in mid-October 2026; if you visit in winter, open the apps to see what’s still running.