The price on a dealership window tells only part of the story. Once depreciation, financing, insurance, fuel, maintenance and registration are included, owning a vehicle becomes a much larger recurring expense.

AAA’s latest published annual Your Driving Costs study estimates that the average cost of owning and operating a new vehicle in the United States was $11,577 in 2025, equivalent to about $964.78 a month. That was $719 less than AAA’s 2024 estimate of $12,297.

The figure is an estimate rather than a measure of what every American driver actually spends. It applies specifically to new vehicles under a standardized set of assumptions, and the true cost can vary considerably by vehicle, location and driving habits.

AAA has published its Your Driving Costs analysis since 1950. For the 2025 study, it examined five top-selling models across nine vehicle categories and estimated the cost of personal transportation over five years and 75,000 miles, equivalent to 15,000 miles a year.

Its methodology incorporates data from multiple sources, including Vincentric, and covers six major areas. These are depreciation, financing, fuel, full-coverage insurance, license and registration costs, taxes, and maintenance, repairs and tires.

AAA’s sample had a sales-weighted average manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $38,938. That figure describes the vehicles included in the study. It should not be confused with the average price actually paid for a new vehicle across the entire U.S. market.

The biggest single cost in AAA’s calculation was depreciation.

The study estimated an average $4,334 a year in lost vehicle value, based on the gap between the purchase price and the expected trade-in value after five years and 75,000 miles.

That makes depreciation more significant than many highly visible expenses such as gasoline.

Financing was estimated at $1,131 a year. AAA based that calculation on a five-year loan with a 15 percent down payment and the national average interest rate used in its methodology.

Full-coverage insurance averaged $1,694 a year, based on a personal-use policy for a driver under age 65 with more than six years of driving experience, no car accidents and a suburban or urban residence. License, registration and taxes added another $813 annually.

AAA calculated fuel expenses at approximately 13 cents per mile. Its 2025 methodology used fuel prices over the 12 months ending in May 2025, during which regular gasoline averaged $3.151 a gallon.

At 15,000 miles a year, the rounded per-mile estimate would amount to roughly $1,950 in annual fuel spending.

Maintenance, repairs and tires were estimated at 11.04 cents per mile, or about $1,656 over 15,000 miles. The calculation includes manufacturer-specified routine maintenance, repairs to wear items, an extended warranty assumption and one replacement set of tires over five years.

Because the published per-mile figures are rounded, calculations based on them will not necessarily reproduce AAA’s overall annual figure exactly.

The national average also hides large differences between vehicle types.

AAA estimated that a small sedan cost 55.87 cents per mile at 15,000 annual miles, the lowest figure among the categories in its main 2025 analysis. A hybrid averaged 63.94 cents per mile, while a compact SUV averaged 68.53 cents.

At the other end of the range, a half-ton pickup averaged 98.54 cents per mile, making it the most expensive category in the study. Medium SUVs averaged 83.89 cents per mile.

The difference illustrates why the cost of car ownership cannot be reduced to fuel economy alone. A vehicle with higher depreciation, insurance or financing expenses can remain costly even if its energy costs are relatively low.

The broader new-car market has also continued to operate at historically high price levels. Kelley Blue Book reported that the average U.S. new-vehicle transaction price reached $50,089 in August 2026, up 1.9 percent from a year earlier. That metric measures actual transaction prices across the market and is therefore different from the sales-weighted MSRP used in AAA’s 2025 ownership study.

The distinction matters. AAA’s $11,577 figure provides a standardized benchmark for comparing ownership costs, not a guarantee of what a buyer purchasing a vehicle today will spend.

For consumers, the main lesson is that a monthly loan payment is only one part of the cost of having a car.

Under AAA’s latest annual benchmark, a new vehicle costs nearly $965 a month to own and operate when the major expenses are considered together. Depreciation alone accounts for thousands of dollars a year, while insurance, fuel, maintenance and financing add substantial additional costs.

The exact number will differ from one household to another. But the broader calculation shows why the true price of driving begins well beyond the amount printed on the purchase agreement.