Auto Loan Payments by Term at the Average APR — Q3 2026
Published 2026-07-17 · Dataset licensed CC BY 4.0 — cite with a link.
Monthly payments and total interest for financed amounts of $20,000, $30,000 and $40,000 across 36–84 month terms, computed with standard loan amortization at the US average new-car APR of 7.47% (FRED, as of 2026-07-17). On a $30,000 loan, stretching from 36 to 84 months cuts the payment from $933 to $460 but raises total interest from $3580 to $8615.
Data freshness: The APR input is our last-known-good editorial figure (as of 2026-07-17, source linked below), pending a live FRED refresh. The model math itself is exact.
Key findings
- At 7.47% APR, a $30,000 loan costs $932.77/month over 36 months versus $459.70/month over 84 months.
- The 84-month term pays $5035.31 more total interest than the 36-month term on the same $30,000 — 2.4× as much.
- Each 12-month term extension on a $30,000 loan lowers the payment less than the one before it, while total interest keeps climbing with every extra year in the loan.
- Total interest scales proportionally with the amount financed: at any term, a $40,000 loan pays exactly twice the interest of a $20,000 loan.
Full dataset
The same rows as the CSV download.
| term months | amount financed usd | apr pct | monthly payment usd | total interest usd |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 36 | 20,000 | 7.47 | 621.85 | 2,386.56 |
| 48 | 20,000 | 7.47 | 483.3 | 3,198.31 |
| 60 | 20,000 | 7.47 | 400.47 | 4,028.43 |
| 72 | 20,000 | 7.47 | 345.51 | 4,876.85 |
| 84 | 20,000 | 7.47 | 306.47 | 5,743.44 |
| 36 | 30,000 | 7.47 | 932.77 | 3,579.84 |
| 48 | 30,000 | 7.47 | 724.95 | 4,797.46 |
| 60 | 30,000 | 7.47 | 600.71 | 6,042.65 |
| 72 | 30,000 | 7.47 | 518.27 | 7,315.27 |
| 84 | 30,000 | 7.47 | 459.7 | 8,615.15 |
| 36 | 40,000 | 7.47 | 1,243.7 | 4,773.12 |
| 48 | 40,000 | 7.47 | 966.6 | 6,396.62 |
| 60 | 40,000 | 7.47 | 800.95 | 8,056.87 |
| 72 | 40,000 | 7.47 | 691.02 | 9,753.7 |
| 84 | 40,000 | 7.47 | 612.94 | 11,486.87 |
Methodology & sources
Payments use the standard fixed-rate amortization formula M = P·r/(1−(1+r)^−n) with r = APR/12 — the same vitest-verified implementation behind our auto loan calculator (src/core/finance/loan.ts). The APR input is the Federal Reserve's average 48-month new-car commercial-bank rate (FRED series TERMCBAUTO48NS), applied uniformly across terms; real lender pricing varies a few tenths by term and heavily by credit tier, so treat cross-term differences as structural, not quoted offers. Amounts are financed principal after down payment and trade-in.
- US average new-car auto loan APR (48-mo commercial bank, FRED TERMCBAUTO48NS) — 7.47 % APR (as of 2026-07-17)