How the payment is worked out
Four things set your payment: what you borrow, the yearly rate, how many months you pay and how the lender charges interest. On a reducing-balance loan, which is how banks quote a rate, interest each month is charged on what you still owe. The payment is:
borrowed × r ÷ (1 − (1 + r)^−n), where r is the yearly rate ÷ 12 and n is the number of months
On the example above, J$3,150,000 borrowed at 11.49% over 5 years is J$69,260.90 a month. You repay J$4,155,654.03 in all, so the loan costs J$1,005,654.03 in interest. With your J$350,000 deposit the car costs you J$4,505,654.03. Open “How we worked this out” under the calculator to see every step with your own numbers.
Car loan calculator based on your salary
Switch the calculator to “See what I can afford”, type your take-home pay and choose the share of it you want to spend on the car. The calculator works back from that payment to the loan it repays and the car price that buys. Use take-home pay, which is what reaches your account. If you only know your gross salary, the salary calculator turns it into take-home pay.
The share is yours to set. A lender’s own limit on how much of your income loan payments can take is Not publishedSource: NHT: loans, so we don’t suggest one, and nothing here tells you what a lender will approve. For example, J$50,000 a month for 5 years at the example rate repays a loan of J$2,274,010.28. If you would rather start from a payment than a share, choose “A monthly payment”.
Reducing balance or flat rate
A reducing-balance rate charges interest on what you still owe, so each payment shrinks the debt that interest is charged on. A flat rate charges interest on the full amount for the whole term, even after you have paid part of it off. Some lenders quote flat rates, and the same number costs much more that way. On the example loan, a flat 8% over 5 years has the same monthly payment as a reducing-balance rate of 14.13%. Choose “Flat rate” in the calculator and it shows the reducing-balance rate your quote is really worth.
What the lender adds on top
Lenders charge a processing fee as a share of the loan. Scotiabank’s is 3.93%Source: Scotiabank Jamaica: retail banking fee guide (effective 1 June 2026) with a minimum of J$14,973.30, and NCB’s is 3.5%Source: NCB: customer fee guide (effective 1 September 2026). If you add the fee to the loan you pay interest on it too, so the calculator lets you choose either way. Insurance, licence and registration come on top of the loan, and this calculator doesn’t include them.
Where to find a rate
Our car loan rates page lists every lender we checked, including credit unions and the lenders that publish no rate, each with the day we read it. The rates beside the rate field are the lowest published ones. What a lender offers you depends on you and on the car. Our guide on how to get a car loan in Jamaica covers the steps and the paperwork.