Car loan rates decreased in Russia in the first quarter

In the first quarter of 2026, the average loan rate for new cars decreased to 10.7% compared to the fourth quarter of last year, and the amount of car loans increased by 2%. Experts from the eCredit platform (part of <url>) told Izvestia about this on April 20. In the segment of used cars, the share of approved applications reached 63%, while the average rate decreased by almost 1.5 percentage points (pp).

In the period from January to March, the approval rate for applications dropped to 74%, which is 2 percentage points lower than in the previous quarter. The average amount of a car loan increased by 2%, to 1.86 million rubles, while the average cost of a car purchase remained virtually unchanged (2.76 million rubles). The average rate decreased from 11.3% to 10.7%. More than half of the cost of the car was immediately paid by 41% of buyers, and the minimum contributions (up to a tenth of the cost of the car) were made by 6% of borrowers.

In the used car market, on the contrary, the approval rate of applications increased slightly, from 62% to 63%. The average loan amount increased by 5.4%, to 1.55 million rubles, and the average cost of a car increased by 4.6%, to 1.91 million rubles. At the same time, the average loan rate decreased significantly (from 22.97% to 21.54%).

"The downward trend in the used car segment is generally proportional to the change in the key rate, and the approval level, which increased by 1 percentage point, indicates that the changes related to the confirmation of borrowers' income have not yet had a negative effect on this indicator, as previously assumed," explained eCredit's sales manager Nikita Margolin.

In the used car segment, more than a third of borrowers made an initial payment of 20-30% of the loan amount. 15% of buyers paid more than half of the cost of the car, and 17% of customers had an initial payment of less than 10% of the total transaction amount.

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Earlier, on April 16, it was reported that according to the results of the first quarter of this year, 206.7 thousand loans for new and used cars were issued in Russia. Compared to January-February of last year, the indicator decreased by 1.1%.