Car Loan & EMI Calculator

What goes into a car loan payment

Your monthly car payment depends on more than just the sticker price. The actual amount you finance (the "principal") is the vehicle price plus any sales tax and fees, minus your down payment and the value of any trade-in. From there, the interest rate and loan term determine how that principal splits into a fixed monthly payment over time.

How to use this calculator

Enter the vehicle price, your down payment, and trade-in value if you have one. Add sales tax and fees if they're being financed rather than paid upfront. Set the annual interest rate your lender quoted and the loan term in months, and the monthly payment, total interest, and a full amortization schedule appear instantly.

Reading the amortization schedule

Early in a loan, most of each payment goes toward interest rather than principal — that's normal for any amortizing loan, not something specific to auto loans. The donut chart shows the overall split between principal and interest across the life of the loan; the schedule below it shows how that split shifts month by month (or year by year) as the balance goes down. A longer loan term lowers the monthly payment but increases total interest paid, since you're carrying a balance for longer.

Common mistakes

The most common mistake is comparing loan offers by monthly payment alone rather than total interest paid — a lower monthly payment achieved by stretching the term longer can cost significantly more overall. A second is forgetting that a trade-in's value reduces what you finance but doesn't reduce the vehicle's price for sales tax purposes in every jurisdiction — check how tax is calculated where you are rather than assuming it's always applied after the trade-in is deducted.