10 States With the Most Expensive Annual Car Costs

It’s no secret that buying and owning a new car is always a pricey proposition — not just because of what it costs to roll a new car off the lot. The average down payment across the United States is $9,745, and the average cost of annual financing is $9,228, but you also can add expenses such as gas, insurance premiums and repairs/maintenance.

Not only are those costs the bare-minimum requirements for owning (and maintaining and insuring) your own vehicle, but they also vary from state to state. For example, annual insurance premiums are $1,000 more in Florida than in Illinois. Some states quite simply make it far, far more expensive to own, maintain and insure a car than others do.

Recently, GOBankingRates compiled a study analyzing such state-by-state factors and data as MSRPs, sales tax, insurance premiums, gas prices, average repair costs and wear and tear expenditures — all as means to determine which states have the most expensive annual car costs.

See which states have the most expensive annual car costs.

• Total annual cost: $26,691
• Annual car repairs: $408
• Annual insurance premium: $1,970

• Total annual cost: $26,717
• Annual car repairs: $402
• Annual insurance premium: $1,825

• Total annual cost: $26,755
• Annual car repairs: $379
• Annual insurance premium: $1,532

• Total annual cost: $26,786
• Annual car repairs: $356
• Annual insurance premium: $2,352

• Total annual cost: $26,840
• Annual car repairs: $374
• Annual insurance premium: $1,900

• Total annual cost: $26,982
• Annual car repairs: $387
• Annual insurance premium: $2,061

• Total annual cost: $27,016
• Annual car repairs: $392
• Annual insurance premium: $1,608

• Total annual cost: $27,235
• Annual car repairs: $396
• Annual insurance premium: $2,694

• Total annual cost: $27,357
• Annual car repairs: $398
• Annual insurance premium: $2,060

• Total annual cost: $28,504
• Annual car repairs: $416
• Annual insurance premium: $2,416

Methodology: To generate these rankings, GOBankingRates surveyed and totaled the cost of buying and owning a car for one year in all 50 states. This total included four key car expenses: (1) Car sales tax, based on rates provided by PolicyGenius; taxes were based on the average car transaction amount of $48,724 in November 2024 as reported by Kelley Blue Book; (2) average annual car insurance premiums, sourced from CarInsurance.com’s 2024 report; (3) average annual gas expenses, based on an average of historical regular gas prices in each state sourced from AAA’s Fuel Gauge Report on Dec. 11, 2024; the expense was calculated based on the assumption of a driver filling up a 14-gallon tank once a week; (4) average annual car maintenance and repair costs, sourced from CarMD’s 2022 State Repair Cost Rankings. These expenses were combined with the cost to finance a new vehicle — based on $48,724 MSRP, 20% down payment of $9,745, an average credit score of 716 as sourced from Experian, an interest rate of 6.48% as sourced from Experian loan length of 60 months, which equals $769 per month or $9,228 per year — to determine the cost to own a car for a year. All data is up to date as of Dec. 11, 2024.