Thailand Car Loan Calculator

Car payment table by price — 20% down, 3% flat rate

Payment schedule — 640,000 baht over 60 payments

Comparing loan terms — payment and effective rate

Early settlement — the minimum interest rebate the law requires (individual hirers, private use, contracts from 10 Jan 2023)

This calculator works out the monthly payment on a Thai car loan from the price, the deposit and the flat rate the finance company quotes. It covers both new and used cars, and adds a payment schedule plus a table of payments by car price so you can find your own row at a glance.

Almost every car loan in Thailand is quoted as a flat rate, which works completely differently from the reducing-balance interest used on mortgages. The distinction matters enormously and very few borrowers are aware of it. It leads people to believe that 3% on a car is cheaper than 6% on a house, when in reality a 3% flat rate costs about the same as a reducing-balance rate of 5.5% to 5.7%.

It matters more than it first appears, because Thai hire-purchase law caps the interest rate in effective terms, not in the flat terms lenders quote. The effective rate this page calculates is therefore the exact number that decides whether the deal you were offered sits inside the legal limit.

How a car payment is calculated, step by step. A flat rate resolves in four steps.

1. Amount financed = car price − deposit 2. Total interest = amount financed × annual flat rate × number of years 3. Monthly payment = (amount financed + total interest) ÷ number of payments 4. Every payment is the same size, but the split between principal and interest changes from one payment to the next

Using this page defaults: a car at 800,000 baht with 20% down leaves 640,000 baht financed. At a 3% flat rate over 5 years the interest is 640,000 × 3% × 5 = 96,000 baht, the total repayable is 736,000 baht, and dividing by 60 gives 12,266.67 baht a month, the same figure every month.

What most car payment calculators get wrong, and why it throws the settlement figure out by tens of thousands. The instalment is identical every month, but the split between principal and interest is not. Item 4 of the OCPB question-and-answer page states that this split must follow the Accounting Standards Committee notification on leases, and must be attached to the hire-purchase agreement as a liability schedule showing the principal and the interest in every single period.

That allocation charges interest against the balance actually outstanding in each period, so interest is heavy at the start and tapers off, exactly like a mortgage schedule. On the defaults above, the first instalment is about 3,009 baht of interest against about 9,258 baht of principal, while the final one carries only about 57 baht of interest — not a flat 1,600 baht every month, which is what many sites show. The liability schedule above is built this way, so you can check it line by line against the schedule attached to your own contract, and it is the same basis used for the early settlement figure.

Why a flat rate costs more than it appears. The interest is charged on the full original amount for the entire term, even though you are paying the principal down every month. By the final payment you might owe only a few tens of thousands of baht, yet you are still being charged interest as though you owed the whole sum. This is why the effective rate works out at nearly double the quoted figure.

The effective rate, and why you can trust this one. It is found by solving for the reducing-balance rate that would produce exactly this monthly payment. That is the number to use when comparing options. If you have the cash and are deciding whether to buy outright or finance, compare the effective rate against what that money could reasonably earn if invested instead.

The formula on this page reproduces the pairs that lenders publish themselves. A 3% flat rate over 48 payments gives 5.67%, matching the figure in the Tisco hire-purchase rate table. A 5.60% flat rate over 84 payments gives 9.94%, matching what SCB states on its new-car loan page. And an 8.60% flat rate over 72 payments gives 14.84%, matching the SCB used-car page. Enter those numbers yourself and check them in the term comparison table above.

The legal ceiling on car hire-purchase interest. The Contract Committee notification on car and motorcycle hire-purchase businesses, issued in 2022 and applying to contracts signed from 10 January 2023, caps the rate at 10% a year for new cars, 15% a year for used cars and 23% a year for motorcycles.

The trap is that the cap is written as an effective rate per year, not as the flat rate a lender quotes, so comparing a quoted 5% against the 10% ceiling compares two different units. Converted back with the formula on this page, the 10% new-car ceiling corresponds to a flat rate of roughly 5.37% to 5.64% a year, and the 15% used-car ceiling to roughly 8.18% to 8.87% a year. It is a range because the figure depends on the number of payments; once you pick a term, this page states the exact threshold for it underneath the results.

One recent change worth knowing: since 2 December 2025, hire-purchase and leasing businesses have been supervised by the Bank of Thailand. A contract charging above the ceiling can be reported to the Financial Consumer Protection Centre on 1213.

How a used car differs from a new one. Four things change the numbers directly.

First, the legal ceiling is different: 15% a year for used cars against 10% for new ones, both measured as effective rates.

Second, quoted rates are visibly higher. As an illustration of what one lender publishes on its own site, SCB states a flat rate of 2.20% to 5.60% a year on new-car loans, equivalent to effective rates of 4.20% to 9.94%, and a flat rate of 4.00% to 8.60% on used-car loans, equivalent to 7.51% to 14.84%. Notice that the top of each range stops just under the legal ceiling. That is one lender only — rates differ between companies and also depend on your credit, the deposit, the age of the car and the model. Enter the rate you were actually quoted rather than these examples.

Third, on a used car the loan is sized against the finance company appraisal, not the price you agreed with the seller. SCB, for instance, states a maximum of 90% of the appraised value. This page simply takes the price you enter and subtracts the deposit, so if the appraisal comes in below the agreed price you will have to find the difference in cash. Ask for the appraisal figure before you pay a holding deposit.

Fourth, VAT. Buying from a dealer registered for VAT usually means the quoted price already includes 7%, whereas a private sale between individuals does not carry VAT at all. This page does not add VAT — enter the price actually agreed, and ask the seller whether it is VAT inclusive, because calculators on different sites treat this differently and their payment figures are not comparable as a result.

What does not differ is the maximum term: major lenders go up to 84 payments on both new and used cars, which matches the options offered here.

A longer term is not cheaper. With a flat rate, total interest rises in direct proportion to the number of years, unlike reducing-balance interest where extending the term raises the cost more than proportionally. The term comparison table above makes this concrete: choosing 7 years over 5 genuinely lowers the monthly payment, but the total interest rises sharply.

Costs on top of the monthly payment. The instalment is not the only money you need. The items below are ordered by how firmly they can be sourced, strongest first.

Registration transfer fees charged by the Department of Land Transport, per its public service manual for vehicle transfers: 5 baht per application form, 100 baht per transfer, and stamp duty on the sale of 0.5% of the appraised value — on an 800,000 baht appraisal that is 4,000 baht.

Stamp duty on the hire-purchase contract itself, at 0.1% of the total contract value, charged as 1 baht per 1,000 baht or part thereof. On this page default example, where the total repayable is 736,000 baht, that comes to roughly 736 baht.

Comprehensive (class 1) motor insurance: the OIC registrar sets the permitted band for the base premium in law. For passenger cars, class 1 runs from a minimum of 7,600 baht to a maximum of 12,000 baht, and for pickups from 13,000 to 17,000 baht. That is the band for the base premium, which insurers may not price above or below — it is not what you will pay, because engine size, sum insured, vehicle age, vehicle group and driving history all adjust it. This page does not calculate premiums; get a quote from an insurer.

One thing this page cannot verify is the compulsory (por ror bor) premium. We tried to check it against the OIC site directly and could not open the rate table, so we will not publish a figure. Ask an insurer or agent. Numbers circulating on general websites may well be right, but we are not vouching for them.

Also worth knowing: the one published fee schedule we were able to open, from Tisco, contains no line item called a loan arrangement or approval fee. Schedules differ between lenders, so if someone charges one as a separate lump sum, ask to see their own published schedule first. Registration services the finance company performs on your behalf, such as renewing road tax for 250 baht, are optional service charges for doing the errand rather than mandatory fees — doing it yourself at the transport office costs nothing extra.

Settling early — a right most borrowers never hear about. The same notification obliges the lender to rebate the interest that has not yet fallen due when you ask to pay the contract off early, on a three-step ladder set by how far through the instalments you are. Up to one third paid: at least 60% of the not-yet-due interest must be rebated. From one third to two thirds: at least 70%. Past two thirds: the whole of it. The wording most other sites skip is that the interest must first be "calculated according to the accounting standard" before the rebate is applied. That means the not-yet-due interest comes from the liability table, where interest is front-loaded — not from dividing total interest by the number of instalments. The gap is large: on this page default figures, 30 instalments in, the averaging method claims 48,000 baht of interest remains outstanding when the correct figure is 25,523, a difference of about 15,700 baht in the payoff. This page uses the accounting-standard method.

The early-settlement table above turns that ladder into figures for your own contract, one row per instalment. Three cautions. The figures are the most the lender may legally ask for, not the actual quote, because the wording is "not less than" and a lender may rebate more, and your contract may carry other charges this page cannot know about. At exactly one third the wording covers both the 60% and the 70% step, so this page applies 70%, the outcome that favours the borrower. And the notification only covers hire-purchase to an individual for private use — a company, or a vehicle used commercially for carrying goods or passengers, falls outside it, in which case the lender own settlement terms apply instead. One thing the table does not include, and which can push the real figure higher, is VAT under your contract. Item 18 of the same notification refers to "the VAT remaining under the contract" as something the hirer still owes. This page cannot know how your contract handles VAT or whether it is already inside the instalment, so it does not calculate it, and there may also be unpaid default interest or collection charges. Treat the table as the legal ceiling on the interest component, not the net amount to transfer. Ask for the payoff figure in writing and for it to be itemised — principal, interest after rebate, then tax and fees — and compare only the first two against the table. If they differ materially with no explanation, ask for one before you pay.

What happens if you fall behind. Collection fees are not a price each lender sets for itself. Question 3 of the OCPB Q&A states they must follow the rules laid down by the debt collection supervision committee: at most 50 baht per collection cycle when one instalment is overdue, at most 100 baht per cycle from two instalments onward, and at most a further 400 baht per cycle when someone is sent out to visit. Those are legal ceilings binding on every lender, so anything higher can be challenged. Note also that this is not the same charge as the cost of repossessing the vehicle.

Three more rules apply to every lender alike. Default interest is capped at 5% a year, calculated on the amount actually in default rather than the whole outstanding balance. Before any of your instalment money is applied to collection charges or default interest, the lender must give you seven days written notice; without it they have no right to do so. And if the contract is terminated and the car is auctioned for less than the debt, the shortfall the lender may pursue covers principal only — interest that had not yet fallen due cannot be added to it.

Two further rights are commonly lost through not knowing them. Before the car goes to auction the lender must notify you and any guarantor at least 30 days in advance, and during that window you, your guarantor, or someone acting for you may settle the account with the same rebate ladder described above. And if the auction fetches more than the outstanding debt, the surplus belongs to you, not to the lender.