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This was my exact dilemma two and a half years ago.
Our old car wasn’t cutting it anymore (it probably didn’t help that I had recently reversed it into a neighbour’s car).
My wife and I were also planning to start a family and needed something bigger (with a reversing camera!).
She was eligible for a novated lease through her work. Our other option was a car loan, which is how we’d financed our previous car.
In this guide:
Novated leases and car loans both allow you to finance a new or used car that can be used 100% for personal use. You have a fixed finance term with regular repayments covering the vehicle cost plus interest and fees.
But these options work very differently in other ways. Not least due to the fringe benefits tax exemption on electric vehicle novated leases, introduced in 2022. This has considerably boosted the appeal of novated leasing eligible vehicles.
Here's a summary of the main novated lease vs car loan considerations, and below I've broken the differences down in more detail, including a detailed cost comparison.
Tesla Model 3 RWD | Car loan | Novated lease |
---|---|---|
Vehicle driveaway price | $64,201 | $64,201 |
Up-front GST Saving | $0 | -$5,736 |
Weekly cost (incl running costs) | $369.93 | $209.23 |
Novated lease residual | n/a | $18,090.71 |
Total cost over 5 years | $96,182 | $72,491 |
Difference | n/a | -$23,691 (-24.6%) |
Toyota Corolla ZR Hatch | Car loan | Novated lease |
---|---|---|
Vehicle driveaway price | $39,523 | $39,523 |
Up-front GST Saving | $0 | -$3,397 |
Weekly cost (incl running costs) | $282.62 | $222.33 |
Novated lease residual | n/a | $11,178.46 |
Total cost over 5 years | $73,481 | $68,984 |
Difference | n/a | -$4,497 (-6.1%) |
The way a novated lease is treated for tax purposes is how it differs most from a car loan. It’s also the reason novated leases work out cheaper than a car loan in a lot of cases.
Interest rates work in much the same way on novated leases and car loans. With both options your interest rate will be tailored to you based on your application (e.g. your credit score is a big factor).
However, with a novated lease the company facilitating the lease may work with a limited panel of lenders, meaning you may not have access to the lowest rates. With a car loan you can shop around for interest rates with any lender.
There generally isn’t much to choose from between novated lease and car loan fees.
The main difference is likely to be in your ability to shop around a wider range of car loan lenders to potentially find lower fees.
With either a car loan or novated lease, it will be up to you whether you trade in your old vehicle.
The difference is in what you can do with the trade in amount.
With a novated lease, you can’t use the trade-in value of your old car to reduce your finance amount. You’ll need to take the trade-in amount as a cash payment.
With a car loan, you can put the trade-in value of your old car towards the purchase price of the new car so you don’t need to borrow as much. Or you can take the trade-in amount as cash if you’d prefer.
The residual payment (the big, one-off payment at the end of the lease or loan term) also works differently depending on whether you choose a novated lease or car loan.
All novated leases have a residual value. The residual payment is generally not negotiable as the minimums are set by the ATO.
At the end of the novated lease term you can either pay the residual to own the car outright or renew the lease for a new term.
A car loan balloon payment is optional (some people choose it to keep their ongoing repayments low) and the amount is negotiable.
At the end of the car loan term you can pay the residual, or refinance it into a new car loan to pay off gradually.
This is another aspect of the finance where a car loan will usually offer a bit more flexibility compared to a novated lease.
This is an area where overall a novated lease had the edge over a car loan for me.
When it came down to it for us, the novated lease vs car loan calculation and the savings involved meant it made sense to go with a novated lease.
And here we are awkwardly posing beside our new car.
Obviously this outcome was specific to our situation.
Given how these products work, everyone's costs will be different. If you want to do the sums for yourself, consider getting personalised quotes for a novated lease and car loan.
Two and a half years on, I’m still happy with our decision. But there’s been good and bad.
I hope this has helped you get an idea of how the car loan vs novated lease question can play out in real life.
All the best with your decision, whatever option you go with.
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GET STARTEDGET STARTED*Information about comparison rates Comparison rates are designed to allow borrowers to understand the true cost of a loan by taking into account fees and charges, the loan amount and the term of the loan. The comparison rate is based on an unsecured fixed rate personal loan of $30,000 over 5 years. WARNING: Comparison rates are true only for the examples provided and may not include all fees and charges. Different terms, fees or loan amounts might result in a different comparison rate.