๐ Car Ownership Cost Calculator
This is only an estimate. Actual insurance, tax, and maintenance costs vary by vehicle and contract terms.
Enter the car's price, down payment, loan interest rate, and loan term, along with annual insurance, vehicle tax, and maintenance costs and your monthly fuel spending, to calculate the total monthly and yearly cost of owning the car.
How to use
- Enter the car's price, down payment, loan interest rate, and loan term (for a cash purchase, set the down payment equal to the car's price).
- Enter annual insurance, vehicle tax, and maintenance costs.
- Enter your monthly fuel spending โ the total monthly and yearly cost is calculated automatically.
How the calculation works
This tool calculates the monthly and yearly cost of owning a car, split into loan payments, running costs and fuel. The monthly loan payment uses the fixed-payment formula: Monthly payment = loan ร monthly rate ร (1 + monthly rate)^payments รท ((1 + monthly rate)^payments โ 1) Loan = car price โ down payment Running costs (monthly) = (annual insurance + annual tax + annual maintenance) รท 12 Monthly total = loan payment + monthly running costs + monthly fuel Yearly total = monthly total ร 12 The default tax of ยฅ30,500 is Japan's annual automobile tax for a passenger car over 1.0 L and up to 1.5 L first registered from October 2019.
Worked example
Car price ยฅ2,500,000, down payment ยฅ500,000, 3% interest, 5-year loan Loan: ยฅ2,000,000 Monthly payment: about ยฅ35,937 (about ยฅ156,243 interest over 5 years) Insurance ยฅ80,000/year, automobile tax ยฅ30,500/year, maintenance ยฅ60,000/year Running costs: (80,000 + 30,500 + 60,000) รท 12 โ ยฅ14,208 a month Fuel: ยฅ8,000 a month Monthly total: about ยฅ58,146; yearly about ยฅ697,749 After the loan is repaid, the yearly cost drops to about ยฅ266,500.
Things to be aware of
- The yearly total applies while the loan is being repaid. After that, the loan payment drops out.
- Add weight tax, inspection (shaken) costs, parking and tyres, spread per year, to the tax or maintenance fields for a more realistic figure.
- Automobile tax depends on engine size; kei cars pay the light vehicle tax (ยฅ10,800 a year).
- The car's resale or trade-in value is not included.
FAQ
Should I include other taxes and fees besides the basic vehicle tax?
For a more realistic total, include any other recurring vehicle-related taxes or fees (annualized) in the "annual tax" field along with the basic vehicle tax.
How do I calculate this for a cash purchase with no loan?
Set the down payment equal to the car's price. The loan payment will be calculated as zero, leaving only insurance, tax, maintenance, and fuel in the monthly cost.
Does this include vehicle inspection costs?
There's no dedicated field for inspection costs, but since inspections typically recur every year or two, you can add an annualized inspection cost into the "annual maintenance" field to include it in the estimate.