This Map Shows The Most Expensive States To Own A Car

Most adults know owning a car is an expense that balloons far beyond the purchase price. Monthly car payments, insurance costs, gasoline, and other upkeep can make a vital form of transportation for many Americans incredibly expensive. And this year, the cost of owning and operating a car skyrocketed between inflation rates, gas prices, and supply chain shortages making new cars harder to find and more expensive to buy. But cars aren’t the same cost to own and maintain in every state — and now there’s a map highlighting the most expensive states to be a car owner.

Insurify wanted to find out which states were the most expensive for car ownership and which were the least. To rank the states, the crew examined the average yearly costs of car insurance, gasoline, vehicle property tax, and maintenance and repair expenses in each state.

“These combined expenses represent the vast majority of what the typical American spends on their car every year,” Insurify explains. Their data excludes “auto lease or loan payments, which are highly individualized to each vehicle and do not vary geographically the way the other factors in this study do.”

The collected data came from a variety of sources, including insurance applications, AAA’s gas prices data, and driving cost estimates. All data estimates were calculated based on the 2022 Honda Accord manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) of $26,520.

With the data, Insurify put the states in order from most expensive to least expensive to own a car in and popped the info into an easy-to-read map. And there were some interesting takeaways.

“Across the U.S., the average driver [will spend] $4,960 to operate their vehicle in 2022,” Insurify said. Plenty contributes to this whopping cost — $1,705 alone goes to the average cost of car insurance this year.

The report noted that one of the more consistent reasons for costs that make some states much more expensive than others is an “above-average vehicle tax and driving rates.” Not all states have a vehicle property tax, which drives the cost up in the states that do. And people in states with lower population densities tend to have to drive further, which adds to the cost of gasoline.

“In the top 10 most expensive states for car ownership, residents drive an average of 19% more miles per year than a typical American motorist,” Insurify writes, “amounting to hundreds of additional dollars spent on fuel and vehicle maintenance every year.”

The top 10 most expensive states to own a car:

1. Wyoming ($6,327, 28% more than the national average)
2. Nevada ($6,315, 27% more than the national average)
3. Mississippi ($6,287, 27% more than the national average)
4. Missouri ($5,895, 19% more than the national average)
5. Michigan ($5,691, 15% more than the national average)
6. Georgia ($5,661, 14% more than the national average)
7. Kentucky ($5,493, 11% more than the national average)
8. South Carolina ($5,447, 10% more than the national average)
9. Louisiana ($5,385, 9% more than the national average)
10. Virginia ($5,359, 8% more than the national average)

The top 10 least expensive states to own a car:

1. District of Columbia ($3,619, 27% less than the national average)
2. Alaska ($3,663, 26% less than the national average)
3. Pennsylvania ($3,785, 24% less than the national average)
4. Hawaii ($3,812, 23% less than the national average)
5. New Hampshire ($3,914, 21% less than the national average)
6. Illinois ($3,972, 20% less than the national average)
7. Ohio ($3,985, 20% less than the national average)
8. Washington ($4,038, 19% less than the national average)
9. Oregon ($4,164, 16% less than the national average)
10. South Dakota ($4,187, 16% less than the national average)

To read more details, including the average cost in your state, check out Insurify’s full report.