- Lenders approved more loans, accepted lower down payments, and extended longer loan terms in December than in November.
Americans had an easier time qualifying for car loans in December than in any month since October 2022. Americans needed to borrow – the price of the average car reached a record high.
Lenders approved more loans, accepted lower down payments, and extended longer terms than in November.
The Dealertrack Credit Availability Index measures the difficulty of qualifying for all types of car loans. It reached its highest point for auto credit access in 2025 in the last month of the year.
Kelley Blue Book parent company Cox Automotive publishes the index.
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Lenders approved 73.7% of applications, up from 73.6% the month before. They accepted an average down payment of 13.3% of loan value, down from 13.4%.
They were more likely to extend loans to 72 months or longer — a move that can bring down monthly payments but keeps borrowers in debt longer and costs them more over time.
The percentage of subprime loans — those given to borrowers with credit scores of 620 or under — shrank from 14.3% to 14.1%. The subprime segment has been in retreat since a pair of bankruptcies among subprime lenders in the fall exposed risk in that market.
Banks, credit unions, and the captive finance companies run by automakers all loosened their loan standards in December, but for most consumers, the best odds of approval remained with captive lenders.
