The volume of car loans issued in Russia has halved

The volume of car loans issued for new and used cars has almost halved in the middle of spring 2025. If in April last year this figure was 197.4 billion rubles, then by April this year it had decreased to 100.6 billion rubles. This was announced on May 23 by the National Bureau of Credit Histories (NBKI).

However, compared to the previous month, the amount of car loans issued in April increased by 5.5%. The number of car loans also increased over the month — by 2.7%, to 79.7 thousand units. Compared to the same period last year, this figure decreased by 43.9% (or 1.8 times).

The largest volume of car loans in the country's regions in April was issued in Moscow, the Moscow Region, St. Petersburg, the Krasnodar Territory and the Republic of Tatarstan. The most serious dynamics of the reduction in issuance was recorded in the Krasnoyarsk Territory (-58.4%), Tula (-56.0%), Rostov (-54.2%), Omsk (-53.9%) and Novosibirsk (-53.7%) regions. In Moscow and St. Petersburg, the indicator decreased by 51.7% and 49.1%, respectively.

As explained by Alexey Volkov, NBKI's marketing director, car loans fell sharply in the second half of 2024 (for a number of reasons, including rising market rates and recycling), but the situation stabilized somewhat in 2025. The growth over the past two months is due to a slight reduction in the cost of car loans due to a change in the market structure in favor of more budget cars, as well as subsidized rates from automakers, he said.

Spring freeze: used car market freezes at last year's level

Sales of used cars in April exceeded half a million units

On May 15, it was reported that in the first four months of 2025, 119 thousand collateral loans for used passenger cars were issued in Russia, which is 61% less than in the same period last year (307 thousand). The main reasons for the decline are the high interest rate on loans and the low percentage of borrower approvals.

At the same time, it became known that in April 2025, the weighted average interest rate on loans for new cars dropped to 17% per annum, which turned out to be the lowest since October 2023. The rate reduction is taking place for the fifth month in a row.