Die Bedeutungen von „rent“, „hire“ und „lease“ sind sehr ähnlich. Vielleicht kennen Sie schon die Unterschiede. Testen Sie Ihr Wissen am Ende des Artikels mit einer kleinen Übung.
The words ‘rent‘, ‘hire‘ and ‘lease‘ are synonyms, but there are differences in their usage. For example, you can hire someone to do a job, but if you say, ‘I rented someone to do some work for me‘, it sounds a bit strange.
To rent
This means to pay money for the use of something (especially land). We mainly rent real estate, land or cars. (Note: the noun ‘rent‘ means the money that you pay for the use of something.)
To lease
This was originally a legal term relating to land law. If you lease a building, you rent it for a long period of time and are under an obligation to look after and maintain the building. By extension, if you lease a car, then you rent it for a long period of time. You usually rent a car while on holiday, but your company will lease cars for use by its employees. You can lease real estate, land, cars or equipment. (Note: ‘a lease‘ means a rental contract, especially a long-term rental contract.)
To hire
This means to pay money for the use of something, especially for a short time. It is similar to rent but does not relate to real estate. You can hire cars, other types of vehicles or equipment. You can also hire a person. This usually means that you employ that person permanently (but sounds less formal). However, it sometimes means that you pay for someone‘s services on a temporary basis to do a particular job.
In the U.S., hire applies only to employment, both permanent and temporary.
Look at the five sentences below and decide which word (rent, hire or lease) is most appropriate.
1 - We need to rent / lease / hire some more staff so that we can deal with our increased workload.
2 - I‘m going to hire / rent / lease for a short time while my house is being redecorated.
3 - We need to rent / lease / hire some bicycles when we are on holiday.
4 - We lease / hire / rent all of our factory equipment. It works out better for our taxes.
5 - I‘ve leased / rented / hired some power tools because I‘m renovating my house.