The monthly payment is not the cost of a car. The cost is fuel, insurance, servicing and the money that evaporates from its value every year. This calculator shows all four at once.
The class sets the defaults. You can override every number below.
Age drives the depreciation rate — a new car loses value fastest.
Defaults to the national average from 2026-09-15.
Mandatory in Poland. National average annual premium.
Optional. The premium depends mostly on the car's value.
Services, oils, tyres and the roadworthiness test — per year.
The result is an estimate based on market averages from 2026-09-15. Real cost depends on the model, claims history, driving style and condition — which is why every line can be overridden with your own figure.
Numbers are in. Now see what the market has.
The most common mistake when buying a car is comparing monthly payments or sticker prices. Two cars at the same price can differ by hundreds of zlotys a month in running cost — because one burns 5 litres and the other 10, and because one loses 7 per cent of its value a year and the other 20. The calculator adds up all four components at once so the comparison means something.
Depreciation never appears on a bill, so it disappears from the household budget. Yet on a new car it is usually the largest single cost: the first year takes roughly a fifth of the price, the second and third about a tenth each. A five-year-old car loses only a few per cent a year — which is why it can be cheaper to own than a new one despite higher servicing bills.
At 10,000 km a year, the difference between 6 and 9 litres per 100 km is about 2,400 PLN. At 30,000 km it is over 7,000. The more you drive, the more a diesel or an EV pays off and the less the purchase price matters. At low mileage the opposite is true.
Charging at home costs around one zloty per kilowatt-hour, so 100 kilometres costs a dozen zlotys instead of several dozen. A public DC charger can be two to three times more expensive, and on long-distance driving the advantage shrinks. EVs also carry higher comprehensive premiums and faster depreciation — so it is worth calculating rather than assuming.
The average liability premium in Poland is a few hundred zlotys a year, but the spread is enormous: driver age, location and claims history can multiply it several times over. Comprehensive cover depends mostly on the car's value — marginal on a 30,000 PLN car, close to mandatory on a 150,000 PLN one. Both figures can be replaced with your own quote.
An older car does cost more at the garage. But the increase in servicing rarely matches what a new car loses in value over its first years. In most scenarios the cheapest car to own is a three- to five-year-old example, bought after the worst part of the depreciation curve.
The monthly figure is the sum of all four lines divided by the number of months. Cost per kilometre helps when deciding whether to take the car at all — and when claiming mileage from an employer. Depreciation is already inside the total, as the gap between today's value and the value at the end, so do not subtract it again; the residual value next to it only tells you how much of that money comes back when you sell.