Car Loan Calculator for Ontario, BC and Alberta

How the payment is calculated

First the calculator works out what you are borrowing: the price, plus add-ons and fees, plus sales tax, plus anything still owed on your trade-in, minus your down payment and the trade-in value. That is the amount financed.

Then it finds the one fixed payment that pays that amount off, with interest, in the number of payments you chose. In words: multiply the amount financed by the rate for one payment period, then divide by one minus what a dollar due at the very last payment is worth today. The period rate is the APR divided by 12 for monthly, 26 for bi-weekly or 52 for weekly.

Written out, the payment is P × r ÷ (1 − (1 + r)⁻ⁿ), where P is the amount financed, r is the period rate and n is the number of payments. Each payment covers that period's interest first; the rest lowers the balance. Early payments are mostly interest, late ones mostly principal.

APR versus the interest rate, and why fees belong in it

The interest rate is what the lender charges on the balance. The annual percentage rate (APR) is the cost of the credit as one yearly rate, including fees the lender charges you to set up the loan: an administration fee, a lender fee, a mandatory product bundled into the financing.

That is why the field asks for the APR with all fees in. Say one lender offers $25,000 at 8.99% but adds a $995 lender fee to the balance, and another offers 9.99% with no fee. Over 72 months the first payment is $468.45 and the second is $463.02. Counting the fee, the first loan's APR is about 10.42%: the lower rate is the dearer loan.

The law reads it the same way. The Criminal Code's 35% ceiling counts fees, commissions and similar charges as interest, so a loan cannot get under it by moving cost out of the rate and into a fee. This calculator will not take an APR above 35% and tells you so if you type one.

Dealer documentation fees, extended warranties and protection packages are different: they are things you buy, not the cost of credit. Put those in the add-ons and fees field so they are taxed and financed, and put only the lender's charges into the APR.

What each credit tier typically pays

The buttons under the APR field fill in a typical rate for each credit tier. Each is a figure a named source published, checked on 15 October 2026. They are starting points, not quotes: lenders also price on income, the vehicle's age, the term and the down payment.

The good-credit preset is the Bank of Canada's average rate on new auto loans from chartered banks, 6.66% for July 2026. Banks lend mostly to prime borrowers, so treat it as a ceiling for strong credit, not a floor for weak credit.

The excellent, fair and poor presets are Finder Canada's example rates for each score band, worked on a $48,000 new car over five years with 20% down. Used cars and longer terms usually price higher.

The rebuilding preset is 29.99%, the top of the 12.9% to 29.99% range Finder gives for bad credit auto loans. Loans Canada puts poor credit anywhere from about 19% up to the 35% legal maximum. The two sources disagree by several points in the fair and poor tiers, which is the honest picture: below prime, the offer varies a lot from lender to lender.

If card balances are what is holding your score down, the credit card payoff calculator shows how fast they can come down and what that does to your utilisation. For how lenders set rates in each tier, see car loan rates by credit score.

Sales tax in Ontario, BC and Alberta

Sales tax is usually financed with the car, so it changes the payment and collects interest. What you pay depends on the province and on whether the seller is a dealer (a GST/HST registrant) or a private seller.

Ontario

A dealer charges 13% HST on the price plus fees and add-ons. On a private sale there is no HST; instead you pay 13% retail sales tax to ServiceOntario when you register the car, on the purchase price or the wholesale value in the Canadian Red Book, whichever is greater.

British Columbia

A dealer charges 5% GST plus PST. For a passenger vehicle the PST rate steps up with the price, and the price includes documentation charges. The tier is set by the price before your trade-in is deducted.

On a private sale there is no GST, and ICBC collects 12% PST at registration on the purchase price or the average wholesale value, whichever is greater. It rises to 15% from $125,000 and 20% from $150,000. Electric and plug-in vehicles use a separate table with a $75,000 first step.

Alberta

Alberta has no provincial sales tax. A dealer charges 5% GST only, and a private seller who is not a GST registrant charges nothing, so a private sale in Alberta carries no sales tax at all.

Trade-ins lower the tax

At a dealer in all three provinces, GST or HST is charged on the price minus the trade-in value (Excise Tax Act, section 153(4)). BC applies the same reduction to PST, as long as the trade is on the same sales agreement. On a $30,000 BC car with a $10,000 trade, tax is charged on $20,000: $2,400 instead of $3,600.

The credit is for the trade's value, not your equity in it. Money still owed on the trade does not change the tax; it is simply added to the new loan.

How the term changes the total cost

A longer term spreads the same balance over more payments, so each payment is smaller and you pay interest for longer. Here is the same $25,000 at 9.99% APR over each preset term.

Going from 60 to 84 months lowers the payment from $531.06 to $414.91 a month, both at 9.99% APR, and adds $2,988 of interest. FCAC's own example makes the same point at 5%: $25,000 over 84 months costs more than twice the interest of 36 months.

Long terms are also where lenders place weaker credit, because a lower payment is easier to approve. The result card always shows the same loan over a shorter term, so you can see what the lower payment is costing before you sign.

Negative equity: when the trade-in is underwater

You have negative equity when you owe more on your car than it is worth. It is common on long loans, because the car loses value faster than the balance falls. When you trade it in, the shortfall does not disappear: the dealer pays off your old loan and adds the difference to the new one.

FCAC's advice is to avoid trading in a car that is in negative equity. If you have to, the cheapest ways out are a bigger down payment, a shorter term, or keeping the current car until the balance drops below its value. How much to put down on a car covers the first.

For the full picture of financing a car with weaker credit in Ontario, BC or Alberta, start with the NotchUp guide to auto loans.