cost guide · 9 min read
What owning a car costs: $1,072 a month, line by line, and where to trim
Depreciation, fuel, insurance, repairs, interest and fees: the six lines behind $12,863 a year and what moves each one.
By ThriveBrook editors · Updated October 2026
The largest US motoring club has published a driving-cost study every year since 1950, and this year’s number is $12,863. That’s what the average new car costs to own and run for a year, or $1,072 a month. The payment you signed for is only one part of it, and for a lot of owners it isn’t the biggest part.
Before you read anyone else’s numbers, get your own. Open the last 12 months of bank and card statements and add up every car charge you can find: the loan or lease payment, insurance, gas or charging, repairs, registration, parking and tolls. It takes about half an hour, and you’ll want that total in hand for every section below.
The range behind the average
The $12,863 is a sales-weighted average across 34 popular 2026 models in seven categories, with an average sticker price of $39,376. It assumes you buy the car new, keep it five years and drive 15,000 miles a year, or 75,000 miles in all.
Across the categories the spread is wide, from $9,259 a year for a small sedan to $16,449 for a half-ton pickup, about $7,190 more for the same miles.
If you remember last year’s figure of $11,577, don’t read the jump as pure inflation. The club added hybrid and electric models to its standard categories this year and says the two totals shouldn’t be compared directly. Note which category your own car falls in, because that figure is a fairer yardstick for your 12-month total than the overall average.
Six lines, largest first
The club splits the cost into six lines. Two of them, fuel and maintenance, are figured per mile, so they grow with every trip. The other four are mostly fixed once the car is in your driveway.
Depreciation, the biggest line
Depreciation, at $4,422 a year, is the gap between what the car cost new and what it’s worth after five years and 75,000 miles. It’s about a third of the total, and it’s the easiest line to overlook, since it never appears on a statement.
You pay it in one lump on the day you sell or trade in, when the offer for your car comes in far below what you paid.
It’s also the line where cars differ most. In the club’s side-by-side of medium sedans, the electric models lose $6,786 in value a year and the gas models lose $3,330.
In the same study, the electric sedans spend about $1,500 a year less on fuel than the gas ones, so that $3,456 extra loss is more than double the fuel saving. It’s the main reason they cost more to own overall.
Fuel, insurance and upkeep
Fuel comes to $2,598 a year, or 17.32 cents a mile. The study priced regular gas at $4.152 a gallon, its average over a 12-month window. Prices have risen since then, and the Energy Information Administration’s weekly survey had regular at $4.465 nationwide on September 28, 2026.
Insurance runs $2,098 a year for a full-coverage policy, and maintenance, repairs and tires add $1,760, or 11.73 cents a mile.
Tires don’t get a line of their own. The club’s method notes fold one set of replacement tires into the maintenance line, along with the manufacturer’s scheduled service and the wear-and-tear repairs a car needs over five years.
Interest, registration and taxes
Finance charges average $1,184 a year, the interest on a five-year loan. If you pay cash the line disappears, though the cash you spend can no longer earn interest elsewhere.
License, registration and taxes come to $802 a year, and state law sets most of it. Texas charges a flat $50.75 base registration fee for a passenger car, whatever the car cost. California adds a vehicle license fee of 0.65% of the car’s value on top of its base fee, which on a $39,376 car is about $256 in the first year before any other charge.
The sales tax and fees you pay at purchase are spread across this line too. That is why the line can look larger than your annual renewal bill.
What the study leaves out
Parking and tolls aren’t in the $12,863 at all, and for a city driver they can be one of the biggest lines. Since January 2025, driving into Manhattan below 60th Street at peak hours has cost $9 with an E-ZPass. A commuter who pays that on 240 workdays spends $2,160 a year, more than the study’s entire insurance line. A monthly garage space near work comes on top of that. If your statements show parking and tolls, keep them as their own line.
A different route, a transit pass for some days or a cheaper lot a few blocks away can shrink them without touching the car itself.
What moves your number
Six things decide whether you land near $9,000 a year or past $16,000. The table pairs a lower-cost and a higher-cost case for each. Find the rows for your car’s class and your yearly mileage, and set those figures beside your own total.
| Factor | Lower cost | Higher cost |
|---|---|---|
| Vehicle class, per year | Small sedan, $9,259 | Half-ton pickup, $16,449 |
| Miles a year, average car | 10,000 miles, $10,992 | 20,000 miles, $14,799 |
| Medium sedan, per year | Hybrid, $10,204 | Electric, $13,662 |
| Insurance premium by state | Maine, $926 | Florida, $1,994 |
| New-car loan rate by credit | Top tier, 4.41% | Lowest tier, 16.11% |
| Monthly loan payment | Used, $542 | New, $765 |
Costs from the motoring club’s 2026 study, premiums from state insurance regulators’ 2023 data, loan figures from a national credit bureau’s mid-2026 data.
Mileage moves the total more than most people expect. Drop to 10,000 miles a year and the average car costs $10,992. Push to 20,000 and it costs $14,799, because fuel and upkeep scale with the miles and a car with more on the odometer sells for less.
The powertrain row cuts against a common guess. In the club’s gas, hybrid and electric comparison, the hybrid medium sedan was the cheapest to own at $10,204 a year, and the electric one cost $13,662, mostly from depreciation.
Your ZIP code and your credit score
Where you live sets your insurance premium more than almost anything you control. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ latest report, released in February, put the average premium per insured vehicle for 2023 at $926 in Maine and $1,994 in Florida, against a national average of $1,438.
Your credit score works through the loan rate. Mid-2026 data from one of the three national credit bureaus puts the average new-car rate at 4.41% for the top credit tier and 16.11% for the lowest. On the same $35,000 five-year loan, that’s $651 a month against $853.
Over five years, the top-tier borrower pays $4,064 in interest and the lowest-tier borrower pays $16,191. That works out to about $2,400 a year in extra interest, roughly double the study’s whole finance line.
In the same data, the average used-car loan payment was $542 a month against $765 for new, largely because a used car has already taken its steepest drop in value.
Three costs rarely worth paying
Premium gas in a car that only needs regular is the easiest of the three to cut. Check your fuel door or owner’s manual, and if it says regular, take the Federal Trade Commission’s consumer guide, “The Low-Down on High Octane Gasoline”, at its word.
In most cases, using a higher octane gasoline than your owner’s manual recommends offers absolutely no benefit.
When that guide came out, premium cost 15 to 20 cents a gallon more than regular. On September 28, 2026, the federal survey had premium at $5.482 and regular at $4.465. A car that burns 600 gallons a year, about 15,000 miles at 25 miles per gallon, would spend $2,679 on regular and $3,289 on premium, or roughly $610 more. The guide’s one exception is an engine that knocks on the recommended grade.
Dealer add-ons are the worst deal in a car purchase. Fabric protection, paint sealant, nitrogen-filled tires and window etching often show up on the buyer’s order already filled in, and once they’re rolled into the loan you pay interest on them for five years. A federal appeals court struck down the federal rule meant to curb this in January 2025, before it took effect. California’s CARS Act, in force since October 1, 2026, bars dealers there from charging for add-ons that give the buyer no benefit, such as oil changes for an electric car. Anywhere else, you can ask for the price in writing without the extras and decide on each one.
The 3,000-mile oil change spends money for no gain on most modern cars. California’s state recycling agency, CalRecycle, ran a campaign telling drivers the rule no longer applies to most cars, and that many manuals call for 5,000, 7,500, 10,000 or even 15,000 miles between changes. Use the interval in your own manual, and the severe-service schedule only if your driving fits it: short trips, towing or dusty roads.
Start this week
Take the 12-month total from your statements and sort it into the study’s six lines, plus parking and tolls. Then set each one beside the study’s figure: fuel at $2,598, insurance at $2,098, maintenance and repairs at $1,760.
Start with the line where you’re furthest above the study. A premium far above $2,098 is a signal to compare quotes at renewal. If your fuel line is far above $2,598, check whether you’re buying premium for a car that only needs regular.
Write your own total and the study’s $12,863 side by side on one page, then run the same tally with next year’s statements.