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Cost Per Mile to Own Calculator

See what every mile behind the wheel really costs.

How it is calculated

The tool takes two numbers and divides them: cost per mile = annual cost ÷ annual miles. Annual cost is everything you spend on the car in one year, in dollars (depreciation, insurance, fuel, maintenance, registration, finance interest). Annual miles is the distance driven in the same twelve months. The result is also shown per kilometre as cost per mile ÷ 1.609, so you can compare it with metric figures. Results are rounded to cents. An annual cost of zero is accepted and gives $0.00, but miles must be greater than zero and cost cannot be negative; otherwise no result is shown. The tool does not know what is inside your annual cost, so the answer is only as complete as the total you enter.

Worked example

Suppose a car costs $9500 a year to own and is driven 12000 miles in that year. Divide: 9500 ÷ 12000 = 0.7917, which is shown as $0.79 per mile. For the kilometre figure, divide 0.7917 by 1.609 to get 0.492, shown as $0.49 per km. So each mile behind the wheel costs about 79 cents, and driving 1000 miles more would cost roughly $790 if the same per-mile cost applied.

Try this example →

Common mistakes

  • Entering only fuel and leaving out depreciation, insurance and repairs, which makes the per-mile cost look far lower than it is.
  • Typing kilometres into the miles field. The tool assumes miles, so the per-mile result will be too high and the per-km figure wrong.
  • Using this year's total cost with a different year's mileage, for example a half-year of driving against a full year of costs.
  • Treating the figure as a marginal cost. Insurance and registration are fixed, so an extra trip costs less than the average per-mile number.

About this calculator

The cost per mile to own a vehicle divides its total annual ownership cost — depreciation, insurance, fuel, maintenance, repairs, registration, and financing — by the miles driven that year, producing a single figure that captures the true economics of car ownership far more completely than fuel cost alone. A car that looks cheap to fuel can still carry a high cost per mile once depreciation and insurance are folded in, while a higher-mileage driver spreads fixed costs like insurance and registration across more miles, lowering the per-mile figure even if total spending is similar.

This is the same underlying logic behind the IRS standard mileage rate used for business tax deductions and mileage reimbursement, and rideshare and delivery drivers rely on it to understand their real per-mile profit margin after accounting for depreciation and wear, not just the fuel and time they notice day to day. Car shoppers also use it to compare total ownership cost across two different vehicles rather than comparing sticker prices or fuel economy ratings in isolation.

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