Estimate your monthly payment on a new car or truck lease before you visit the dealership. Enter the MSRP, selling price, residual, money factor, term, taxes, and fees from your quote. This free car lease calculator shows your payment, your due at signing, and what the lease costs in total. No signup required.
Enter the numbers from your dealer worksheet to calculate your monthly lease payment.
Need the correct residual? Check it by term and mileage in Pro.
Missing an incentive? Check current rebates and programs in Pro.
Monthly payment
Add an MSRP, a negotiated selling price, and a residual to price this lease. Every line below fills in as you type.
Effective monthly cost
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Everything the lease costs, spread across 36 months. Compare this, not the monthly payment, when one deal has money down and another does not.
Deal health
Lease deal rating
Enter an MSRP, selling price, residual, and money factor and this rates your deal on the 1%-of-MSRP rule, the same scoring the full calculator uses.
Brand guides
Payment Companion Lite is free for personal use, offered as a courtesy to car shoppers. It produces estimated payments from the numbers you enter and from program data available to us, which may be incomplete or out of date. We work to keep it accurate, but the figures here are estimates, not quotes, approvals, or offers, and any deal you negotiate using the calculator is your own responsibility. Use these estimates as a reference while you shop; the signed contract governs your final terms.
This score only judges the numbers you entered. Pro checks whether those numbers match real-time lender programs: the current base money factor, the residual for this term and mileage, and the rebates this vehicle may qualify for.
The difference is who supplies the residual, money factor, and rebates. Lite is free and runs lease payments on whatever you enter, which means you have to find those three first. None of them are published. They come from the manufacturer's captive lender, they change every month, and they vary by vehicle, term, mileage, and region. Guessing is expensive: on a $45,000 lease, a money factor marked up by 0.0004 adds $27.56 a month, or $992 over 36 months, and a residual two points low adds another $23.42 a month, or $843. Miss on both and the lease costs $1,822 more than it should. Pro carries that data live. Pick the vehicle, term, and mileage, and the current program fills itself in.
| Feature | Lite (Free) | Pro (Subscription) |
|---|---|---|
| Residuals, money factors, and rebates | You enter them | Looked up for you, current each month |
| Lease and finance math | Yes | Yes |
| Price | Free | Paid subscription |
| Account required | No | Yes |
| Regional and ZIP-based programs | No | Yes |
| VIN and exact-trim matching | No | Yes |
| MSD and one-pay analysis | Enter rates manually | Automatic |
| Tax and fee handling | Manual settings | Expanded state rules |
| Side-by-side deal comparison | No | Yes |
| Save and share deals | Share by link | Save and share |
Pro data availability varies by brand, lender, and region.
Every plan includes the full Pro toolkit and 50 pulls a month. Pick the billing term that fits how long you expect to shop.
$20 / month
Billed monthly, with a 2-month minimum.
Renews every month until you cancel.
Everything in Pro
A pull is one live program lookup, and reopening a car and ZIP you already pulled this month is free. If you cancel, you keep Pro until the end of the period you paid for. Program coverage varies by brand, lender, vehicle, region, and month.
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To calculate a car lease payment, add the depreciation charge, the rent charge, and the tax. Depreciation covers the vehicle's loss in value during the lease. The rent charge is the financing cost, set by the money factor. Both are calculated from the adjusted capitalized cost, so everything else in the deal reaches your payment through that one number: the acquisition fee, the doc fee, title, registration and plates, add-ons such as GAP or an extended warranty, and any negative equity from a trade. Each of those is a choice. Capitalize it, which dealers call rolling it in, and the payment goes up. Pay it at signing and your drive-off goes up instead. Cap cost reduction works the other way: cash down, rebates, and trade equity all lower the adjusted cap cost. Tax treatment depends on your state.
Money factor is the lease version of an interest rate. Multiply it by 2,400 to compare it with an APR. Every fee is a choice. Capitalize it and it joins the adjusted cap cost, which raises both the depreciation and the rent charge, so the payment goes up by more than the fee divided by the term. Pay it at signing and the payment does not change, but you write a larger check on day one. A cap cost reduction works in reverse: cash down, rebates, and trade equity all lower the adjusted cap cost and cut both halves of the payment. Cash down and positive trade equity are the ones to watch, because unlike a security deposit they are gone if the car is stolen or totaled, since GAP pays the lender what is owed on the lease and not what you put in. Rebates are the manufacturer's money, so there is nothing of yours at risk. Lite runs all of this on the variables you provide: MSRP, selling price, term, mileage, taxes, and fees. The residual, money factor, and rebates matter most, and none of them are public. Pro has them in real time.
A monthly lease payment combines depreciation, a rent charge, and applicable tax. Seeing each part makes a dealer quote easier to evaluate.
The depreciation charge covers the difference between adjusted capitalized cost and residual value over the lease term. Adjusted cap cost starts with the negotiated price, adds anything rolled into the lease, and subtracts rebates, applied trade equity, and any cap-cost reduction. Residual value is the lender's estimate of the vehicle's lease-end value and is generally based on MSRP, not the negotiated price.
(Adjusted cap cost - Residual value) / TermThe money factor is the rate used to calculate the lease's financing charge. Multiply it by 2,400 to estimate a comparable APR: a 0.00175 money factor equals a 4.20% APR. Dealers may mark up the lender's base money factor, so ask for the base rate and compare it with the quote.
(Adjusted cap cost + Residual value) x Money factorTax treatment varies by state and locality. Most states tax each monthly payment. New York and New Jersey tax the total of all lease payments at signing, though you can usually capitalize that tax instead of paying it up front, which spreads it across the payments and accrues rent charge on it. Texas, Maryland, and Virginia tax the full price of the vehicle. Illinois has taxed only the payments since 2015. Use the method your registration state levies, not the dealer's.
Worked example: Base payment x Tax rateAssumptions: 36-month lease, 15,000 miles a year, 58% residual, 0.00175 money factor (4.20% APR), $3,000 off MSRP, $1,000 manufacturer rebate, and 6.625% sales tax on each payment. Every fee is capitalized, which means rolled into the lease instead of paid at signing. There is no cash down, which means no cap cost reduction.
Note: Cash down and out of pocket are not the same thing. Cash down is a cap cost reduction: money applied against the price, which lowers the payment. Out of pocket, also called the drive-off, due at signing, or inceptions, is everything you actually hand over on day one. In this example that is just the first month's payment, $623.00. A lease can have zero cash down and still cost you money at signing, and that gap is what most "zero down" advertising relies on.
| Line item | Amount |
|---|---|
| MSRP | $45,000 |
| Negotiated selling price | $42,000 |
| Plus acquisition fee (capitalized) | $925 |
| Plus doc fee (capitalized) | $499 |
| Plus title, registration, and plates (capitalized) | $370 |
| Gross capitalized cost | $43,794 |
| Less cap cost reduction (manufacturer rebate) | −$1,000 |
| Adjusted capitalized cost | $42,794 |
| Residual value (58% of MSRP) | $26,100 |
| Monthly depreciation | $463.72 |
| Monthly rent charge | $120.56 |
| Base monthly payment | $584.29 |
| Sales tax at 6.625% | $38.71 |
| Monthly payment | $623.00 |
| Due at signing (first payment only, no cash down) | $623.00 |
| Total lease cost over 36 months | $22,428.00 |
The estimated payment is $623.00 a month, including the illustrative tax. With the same assumptions, a $50,000 car lands near $700 a month. Note that none of the $623.00 due at signing is cash down: it is the first month's payment, not a cap cost reduction. The monthly payment alone does not tell you whether a lease is good. Compare the selling price, the base money factor, the residual value, the incentives you qualify for, the term, the mileage, the amount due at signing, and the total lease cost.
The example above capitalizes every fee and puts nothing down. Here is what changes if you pay those fees at signing instead, or add $3,000 in cash down.
| Fees capitalized, nothing down | Fees paid at signing | $3,000 cash down, fees capitalized | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adjusted capitalized cost | $42,794 | $41,000 | $39,794 |
| Monthly payment | $623.00 | $566.51 | $528.54 |
| Due at signing | $623.00 | $2,360.51 | $3,528.54 |
| Total lease cost | $22,428.00 | $22,188.36 | $22,027.44 |
Putting $3,000 down cuts the payment by $94.46 a month, which looks like a lot. Over the full lease it saves $400.56. You are paying $3,000 up front to save about four hundred dollars, and if the car is stolen or totaled in month three that $3,000 does not come back. Paying the fees at signing instead of capitalizing them saves $239.64 and carries no added risk, since the fees are owed either way.
The terms you will see on a lease quote, explained in plain English.
Answers about the calculator, its inputs, and the numbers on your lease quote.