Auto Loan Payments by Term at the Average APR — Q3 2026
Published 2026-07-05 · 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 7.2% (FRED, as of 2026-06-01). On a $30,000 loan, stretching from 36 to 84 months cuts the payment from $929 to $456 but raises total interest from $3446 to $8280.
Data freshness: The APR input is our last-known-good editorial figure (as of 2026-06-01, source linked below), pending a live FRED refresh. The model math itself is exact.
Key findings
- At 7.2% APR, a $30,000 loan costs $929.06/month over 36 months versus $455.72/month over 84 months.
- The 84-month term pays $4834.29 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 | 7.2 | 619.37 | 2,297.41 |
| 48 | 20,000 | 7.2 | 480.78 | 3,077.58 |
| 60 | 20,000 | 7.2 | 397.91 | 3,874.83 |
| 72 | 20,000 | 7.2 | 342.9 | 4,689.1 |
| 84 | 20,000 | 7.2 | 303.81 | 5,520.27 |
| 36 | 30,000 | 7.2 | 929.06 | 3,446.11 |
| 48 | 30,000 | 7.2 | 721.17 | 4,616.37 |
| 60 | 30,000 | 7.2 | 596.87 | 5,812.25 |
| 72 | 30,000 | 7.2 | 514.36 | 7,033.64 |
| 84 | 30,000 | 7.2 | 455.72 | 8,280.4 |
| 36 | 40,000 | 7.2 | 1,238.74 | 4,594.82 |
| 48 | 40,000 | 7.2 | 961.57 | 6,155.16 |
| 60 | 40,000 | 7.2 | 795.83 | 7,749.67 |
| 72 | 40,000 | 7.2 | 685.81 | 9,378.19 |
| 84 | 40,000 | 7.2 | 607.63 | 11,040.54 |
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) — 7.2 % APR (as of 2026-06-01)