The advertised auto loan rate you see in an ad is almost never the rate you get. What decides your rate is your credit tier and whether the car is new or used, and the second one matters far more than most buyers expect.
In the first quarter of 2026 the average new car loan came in at 6.39% APR and the average used car loan at 11.43%. That gap is not a rounding error. It is the single largest cost variable in car financing, and it widens the further down the credit ladder you go.
Rate data from Experian's State of the Automotive Finance Market, Q1 2026, and the Federal Reserve G.19 release of 7 August 2026. Lender terms verified 25 August 2026. Rates change; confirm with the lender before you apply.
Average auto loan rates in 2026, by credit score
These are the averages actually being written, not advertised teaser rates. Experian scores these tiers on VantageScore 4.0.
| Credit tier | Score range | New car APR | Used car APR | Used car penalty |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Super prime | 781–850 | 4.55% | 6.30% | +1.75 pts |
| Prime | 661–780 | 6.23% | 8.77% | +2.54 pts |
| Near prime | 601–660 | 9.67% | 14.03% | +4.36 pts |
| Subprime | 501–600 | 13.44% | 19.42% | +5.98 pts |
| Deep subprime | 300–500 | 16.01% | 21.77% | +5.76 pts |
| All borrowersMarket average | All tiers | 6.39% | 11.43% | +5.04 pts |
Source: Experian, State of the Automotive Finance Market, Q1 2026. The “used car penalty” column is the difference between the two APR columns.
For a separate reference point, the Federal Reserve's G.19 release put the average 60-month new car loan at commercial banks at 7.14% in June 2026, and the 72-month new car loan at 6.97%. The Fed does not publish a used car rate in that series, which is part of why the Experian tier data above is the more useful number for a used buyer.
What the average loan looks like in 2026
Experian, State of the Automotive Finance Market, Q1 2026. Terms shown new / used.
Compare auto loan sources
| Lender | Type | Starting APR | Loan amount | Fees | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| myAutoloanBest overall | Marketplace | Refinance from 4.24% | Set by each lender | Set by each lender | Comparing offers at once |
| LightStreamExcellent credit | Direct lender | From 7.79% | $5,000–$100,000 | None | Large loans, no fees |
| PenFed Credit UnionCredit union | Direct lender | From 3.39% | Up to $150,000 | None published | Membership pricing |
Starting rates are not comparable to one another and should not be read as a ranking. PenFed's 3.39% requires buying through its own car buying service and membership, which begins with a $5 savings account; its standard new car rate is 4.19%. LightStream's rates assume AutoPay, and without it you add 0.50%. myAutoloan's 4.24% is a refinance rate, not a purchase rate. Every figure here was read from the lender's own published rate page in August 2026.
The best auto loan rates of 2026
A lender network, not a single bank. One form returns up to four pre-qualified offers to compare side by side.
The single most valuable thing you can do before walking into a dealership is arrive with a rate already in hand, and a marketplace is the fastest way to get one. myAutoloan returns up to four pre-qualified offers from its lender network off one application, which gives you both a rate to use and a benchmark to judge the finance office against. Its published refinance rate starts at 4.24%, and the company is explicit that this is the lowest rate its participating lenders have recently offered rather than a rate you should expect. It does not publish a ceiling for that range, or starting rates for purchase loans, so treat 4.24% as a floor and nothing more. Because it is a network rather than a lender, the actual loan amount, fees and minimum credit score are set by whichever lender makes you the offer.
- Up to four pre-qualified offers from one application
- Covers refinancing as well as purchase
- Gives you a rate to negotiate against at the dealer
- Published refinance rates start at 4.24%
- Not a lender, so terms vary by whoever funds you
- No published APR ceiling or minimum credit score
- The 4.24% floor requires strong credit
A direct lender with no fees at all and the highest loan ceiling here.
LightStream charges no origination fee and no prepayment penalty, which means the full amount you borrow reaches you and paying the loan off early costs nothing extra. It lends from $5,000 to $100,000 on terms as long as 240 months depending on the loan type, the widest span of any option here. Two caveats matter. It does not publish a standing APR range on its auto pages, so we are not going to print one, and every rate it quotes assumes you enrol in AutoPay; choosing to be invoiced instead adds 0.50 percentage points. It also will not refinance an existing LightStream loan. This is a lender for buyers with genuinely strong credit, and the company says as much.
- No origination fee and no prepayment penalty
- Borrow $5,000 to $100,000
- Terms out to 240 months on eligible loan types
- Funds directly, so no dealer sits between you and the rate
- No published APR range to compare in advance
- Quoted rates assume AutoPay; invoicing costs 0.50 points more
- Cannot be used to refinance an existing LightStream loan
- Excellent credit required for the best pricing
- Offers new- and used-car loans and refinancing options
- Competitive interest rates
- Fast application process
- FICO scores of 575 or above considered
The used car penalty gets worse as your credit gets worse
Most auto loan guides tell you that used cars carry higher rates than new ones and leave it there. The more useful fact is that the size of that penalty is not constant. It scales with your credit tier, and it scales hard.
A super prime borrower pays 1.75 percentage points more to finance used instead of new. A subprime borrower pays 5.98 points more. The buyer with the least room in their budget is charged the largest premium for buying the cheaper car.
Here is what that costs in cash. Each row holds the loan at $27,070 over 68 months, which is Experian's average used car loan and term, and changes only the rate. That isolates the rate effect from the loan size.
| Credit tier | Payment at the new car rate | Payment at the used car rate | Extra per month | Extra interest over the loan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Super prime | $452 | $474 | +$22 | +$1,499 |
| Prime | $474 | $507 | +$33 | +$2,250 |
| Near prime | $519 | $579 | +$61 | +$4,125 |
| Subprime | $571 | $659 | +$89 | +$6,022 |
| Deep subprime | $608 | $696 | +$88 | +$5,983 |
Our calculation, using Experian's Q1 2026 tier APRs applied to Experian's average used car loan of $27,070 over 68 months. Illustrative, not a quote.
The practical read: if you are near prime or below, moving up one credit tier before you finance is worth more than any amount of haggling over the sticker price. Going from near prime to prime on that same used loan saves roughly $4,900 in interest. You will not negotiate $4,900 off a $27,000 car.
That is the argument for spending a few months on your score first. Paying down revolving balances and correcting errors on your report are the two fastest levers, and both are covered in our guides to establishing credit history and the best credit building apps.
Your rate is set twice, and the second time is at the dealer
There is a second cost most buyers never see. When you finance through a dealership, the dealer sends your application to lenders and a lender responds with what the industry calls a buy rate. That is the rate the lender is willing to fund you at. The rate the finance office then quotes you can be higher than that.
This is not a fringe practice. The CFPB described it directly in Bulletin 2013-02, published 20 March 2013, stating that some indirect auto lenders have policies allowing dealers to mark up lender-established buy rates and that compensate dealers for those markups in the form of reserve. The bureau's concern at the time was that the discretion involved created a significant risk of pricing disparities. Congress repealed that bulletin under the Congressional Review Act on 21 May 2018, and the CFPB's own hosted copy now carries a notice stating it has no force or effect. The supervisory guidance went away. The pricing mechanism it described did not.
We are not going to put a number on the average markup, because there is no current, reliable public figure for it and inventing one would be worse than useless. What we can say is structural: the markup exists, it is discretionary, and it is invisible unless you have an outside offer to compare against. A pre-qualified rate from a marketplace like myAutoloan or a direct lender like LightStream turns an unknowable number into a visible one. If the finance office beats your outside offer, take theirs. If it cannot, you have lost nothing by asking.
Not ready to finance yet?
If your score sits below the prime tier, the rate table above shows what waiting is worth. A few months of score repair can move you a full tier, and a tier is worth thousands on a used car loan.
Start by building a payment history you control. Our picks are in the guide to the best credit building apps, and a credit card used carefully remains the fastest way to build a file from nothing.
See Credit Building Apps →Building credit takes months, not days. Plan the purchase around it.
Refinancing later is a real lever, and the gap has widened
If your rate today is worse than you want, the number worth knowing is what refinancing actually recovers. In Experian's Q1 2026 data the average original loan rate was 10.29% and the average refinanced rate was 8.05%, a drop of 2.24 percentage points. That spread has widened every quarter since the start of 2024, when it was only 0.47 points. The average borrower cut their monthly payment by $81, and the average loan was about 28 months old when it was refinanced.
Who you refinance with matters more than most people expect. Credit unions delivered the largest average payment reduction at $101 a month, banks $60 and finance companies $37. The category Experian labels other lenders raised average payments by $20 a month, which is a reminder that refinancing is not automatically a saving. If the new payment is lower only because the term got longer, you are paying more interest for a smaller bill.
Other lenders worth comparing
These come up repeatedly in auto loan research and are worth a quote alongside the two above. We have not verified their current rates, so we are not publishing numbers we cannot stand behind, and we have no partnership with any of them.
Listed for reference only. Not ranked, not linked, and not independently rate-checked.
How we picked
We started from primary sources for the rate data rather than from other comparison pages. The tier table is Experian's State of the Automotive Finance Market for Q1 2026, and the commercial bank figures are the Federal Reserve's G.19 release of 7 August 2026. Every lender term was checked against that lender's own website on the day this page was updated.
Where a lender publishes only a starting rate, we say “from” and note that the ceiling is unpublished. Where a lender publishes no rate at all, we write “not published” rather than borrowing a number from somewhere else. That is why this page shows fewer figures than most auto loan roundups, and it is deliberate.
The previous version of this page listed six lenders and no verified rates at all. Upstart's auto refinance product has been discontinued and its page now redirects to an unavailable notice, so it was removed. PenFed is listed without a link because our partner link for it no longer resolves, and we would rather show it unlinked than drop a lender that belongs in the comparison.
How we make money: some links on this page are partner links and we may be paid if you apply through them. That has no bearing on the ranking or on which figures we publish. Several lenders here carry no partner link at all and are still listed.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good auto loan rate in 2026?
Why are used car rates so much higher than new?
Should I get pre-approved before going to the dealership?
Does a longer loan term get me a better rate?
Will applying to several lenders hurt my credit score?
Is refinancing an existing auto loan worth it?
What if I cannot afford the car once I see the real rate?
- Offers new- and used-car loans and refinancing options
- Competitive interest rates
- Fast application process
- FICO scores of 575 or above considered
