What is the average car payment in Canada?

The most-quoted estimates put it near $915 a month for a new vehicle and $612 for a used one (Finder Canada, January 2026), and Ratehub's 2026 model puts the loan portion of an average financed car at about $714 a month. All three are models built from average prices, rates and terms, not surveys of actual loan payments: no Canadian body publishes a measured average, which is why every figure on this page names its publisher and its date.

Is $500 a month a normal car payment?

It is below every published new-car benchmark on this page and a little under the used-car ones, so as loan payments go it is unremarkable. But a loan payment is not what a car costs: insurance, fuel, maintenance and licensing land on top, and in Ontario they can rival the payment itself. What $500 a month actually buys, on both readings of the word payment, has its own page.

Why is the average payment so much lower than the average cost?

Because the payment is one line of the bill. Ratehub's 2026 model puts the total monthly cash outflow of running an average financed car at about $1,373, roughly twice its own loan line, once gas, insurance, maintenance, fees and parking are counted. That total carries caveats of its own, spelled out on this page, but the direction is the honest headline: the payment is where the cost starts, not where it ends.

Average car payment in Canada, 2026

The most-quoted Canadian estimates put the average car payment at about $915 a month for a new vehicle and $612 for a used one. Hold on to one fact before comparing yourself to either number: they are models, built from average prices and average rates, because nobody in Canada publishes a measured average of what borrowers actually pay. This page lists the credible benchmarks, who published each one, and what each one quietly assumes.

The published benchmarks, dated
What it measures	Figure	Source	As of
Average payment, new vehicle	$915 a month	Finder Canada, modelled	2026-01-20
Average payment, used vehicle	$612 a month	Finder Canada, modelled	2026-01-20
Loan portion of an average financed car	$714 a month	Ratehub, modelled	2026-04-29
Total monthly cash outflow, average financed car	$1,373 a month	Ratehub, modelled, caveats below	2026-04-29

None of these is a payment anyone was offered: each is its publisher’s model of an average buyer, and the two publishers do not even model the same buyer. Full sources at the foot of the page, and on the assumptions page with the rest of our dated figures.

The average payment is not the average cost

Ratehub’s 2026 model is useful precisely because it keeps going past the loan: it puts the total monthly cash outflow of running an average financed car at about $1,373 a month, roughly twice its own loan line. Quote that number with its two caveats or not at all. First, $200 of it is parking, an urban assumption most drivers outside a big-city core do not pay. Second, it is a cash-outflow figure, not a cost of ownership: it counts every dollar of loan principal, which you get back as equity, and no depreciation, which you never get back. It also assumes the car is being financed at the average price on average terms, so it is not the cost of running a paid-off car.

What a real scenario costs, all-in

Our own engine, run on one illustrative scenario rather than an average: a $30,000 used SUV in Toronto with nothing down costs about $1,344 a month all-in at 9.64% APR over 60 months (7.29% to 11.99% for your credit). That is one worked example, labelled as such, not a national figure: it is what the benchmarks above leave out, the loan plus insurance, fuel, maintenance and licensing for a specific car in a specific city. Change the city or the car and the number moves, which is the point of a calculator over an average.

Whatever the average is, most people say it is too much

In a March 2026 Angus Reid Forum survey commissioned by Turo, a car-sharing marketplace, 77% of Canadians said their monthly vehicle expenses are more than they can afford, up ten points on the year before. Read it carefully: it measures how the costs feel against people’s budgets, not that 77% of Canadians cannot afford a car. And because the Angus Reid Forum is an opt-in panel, no margin of error can honestly be quoted with it. The sponsor sells an alternative to owning, which is worth knowing when you weigh the finding.

The terms and rates behind the averages

Two more dated figures put the benchmarks in context. The average new-vehicle loan now runs about 72 months, which is how a record-priced car still produces a survivable payment: the term absorbs what the price adds. And the Bank of Canada’s average car loan rate sat at 6.57% as of 2026-04-30, a market anchor rather than a rate anyone is quoted. A longer term at that rate means more interest and more months upside down, which is why every payment figure on this site carries its term beside it.

Sources

Finder Canada, what is the average car payment (as of 2026-01-20)
Ratehub, what is the total cost of owning a car (as of 2026-04-29)
Angus Reid Forum survey for Turo, via Cision Newswire (released 2026-03-04)
Loans Canada, average car loan interest rate (as of 2026-04-30)

Dated figures, refreshed annually: every benchmark above carries its own as-of date, the year in this page’s title is the vintage of the figures on it, and when the publishers update, the assumptions file updates and this page follows. A benchmark with no named publisher and no URL does not appear here at all.