Does My Car Qualify?

How it works

This page is the whole method: the rules we apply, the sources we read, how the model pages are built, and the limits of what a VIN can tell you. If you only want an answer, use the VIN checker.

Last reviewed: Sources cited: 9 Model pages built from primary NHTSA data: 108

The rules, in full

The deduction is in IRC §163(h)(4), added by §70203 of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (Pub. L. 119-21), and worked out in the final regulations at 26 CFR §1.163-16 (T.D. 10054, published September 8, 2026, effective November 9, 2026). Here is the whole test.

1. The loan

  • After December 31, 2024. Indebtedness must be incurred after December 31, 2024. A 2024 loan never qualifies, even for interest paid in 2025.
  • To buy the vehicle. The loan must be incurred to purchase the vehicle, and be secured by a first lien on it.
  • Refinancing. A refinance that simply replaces a qualifying loan stands in its place - but only up to the outstanding balance and the remaining term of the loan being refinanced, and the vehicle must still be the same one.
  • Leases never qualify. Lease payments are not interest, and a lease buyout fails the "new" test because original use began with the lessor.

2. The vehicle

  • New. Original use must begin with you: you are the first person to take delivery after it is sold, registered or titled. A demonstrator or a used car fails this test.
  • Final assembly in the United States. This is the plant where the vehicle was finally assembled, not where parts came from, and Canada or Mexico does not count.
  • GVWR under 14,000 lb. The gross vehicle weight rating is on the door-jamb label. Any GVWR under 14,000 lb works, which is why this is not limited to light trucks.
  • Vehicle type. A car, minivan, van, SUV, pickup truck or motorcycle, manufactured primarily for use on public streets, roads and highways.

3. You

  • Personal use more than 50%. At the time of the loan you must expect personal use by you, your spouse or certain relatives to be more than half of the expected use.
  • Report the VIN. The deduction is not allowed unless the VIN is shown on Schedule 1-A (Form 1040), Part IV.
  • You do not have to itemise. The deduction is below-the-line but sits with the other "additional deductions" on Schedule 1-A, so it is available whether you itemise or take the standard deduction. It does not reduce your adjusted gross income.

3a. What is not a qualifying loan

  • Fleet sales, lease financing, and commercial vehicles you do not use personally.
  • Salvage-title vehicles, and vehicles bought for scrap or parts.
  • Loans from related parties.
  • Cash-out amounts on a refinance, and interest on amounts financed for things that are not the vehicle - a trailer or a boat added to the same loan is the classic example. Ordinary vehicle-purchase items such as taxes, fees and service contracts can be part of the financed amount.
  • Negative equity rolled in from a previous loan is dealt with in the regulations; we flag it but do not calculate it, because it depends on your own contract.

4. The cap and the phase-out

  • $10,000 a year. The deduction is capped at $10,000 of interest per tax year, per return - not per loan.
  • $200 per $1,000 over the threshold. Reduce the deduction by $200 for each $1,000, or part of $1,000, by which MAGI exceeds $100,000 - or $200,000 on a joint return. At $150,000 single ($250,000 joint) the deduction is fully phased out.
  • Tax years 2025-2028. Interest paid in those four calendar years is deductible. Interest outside that window is not.

How a VIN is turned into an answer

  1. Format and check digit. We confirm 17 characters with no I, O or Q, then recalculate the check character at position 9 under 49 CFR part 565. A mismatch gets a warning - usually a typo - but we still look the VIN up.
  2. Decode. Your browser calls NHTSA's DecodeVinValuesExtended endpoint directly. We read plant country, city, state and plant name, the GVWR class, the vehicle type and the body class. You can see the same plant data yourself, without us, at NHTSA's public VIN decoder.
  3. Vehicle tests. Plant country decides final assembly; GVWR class 1, 2 or 3 (up to 14,000 lb) passes the weight test; vehicle type and body class decide the type test. A single failure produces "likely doesn't qualify".
  4. Personal tests. Six checklist items - new, loan date, first lien, personal use, not a lease, VIN on Schedule 1-A - which you tick yourself.
  5. Money. The calculator amortises the loan month by month, attributes each month's interest to the calendar year of that payment, applies the $10,000 cap and the phase-out, and shows the Schedule 1-A lines.

How the model pages are built

Every one of the 108 model pages cites NHTSA's own Part 583 filings - the American Automobile Labeling Act reports, in which each manufacturer states the final assembly point for each carline. A page cites the report for its own model year and nothing else: a 2026 page uses the MY2026 report (published January 29, 2026), a 2025 page uses the MY2025 report (published April 7, 2025). Values are read from the PDF's table cells rather than from the order of words on the page, so an empty "Additional Final Assembly Countries" cell can never be filled in by the column beside it. We take the "Final Assembly Countries" cell; we do not infer a country from a brand's reputation.

Three rules keep us honest:

  • More than one country means "depends on your VIN". 16 of our pages list more than one final-assembly country, so no page will tell you "yes" - they tell you to check the individual VIN. They include the Genesis GV70, Honda Civic Hatchback, Honda CR-V, Hyundai Ioniq 5, Hyundai Tucson, Kia Sportage, Nissan Rogue and Ram 1500.
  • A carline this year's report omits does not get last year's answer. The MY2026 filing does not list Honda Accord, Nissan Altima, Nissan Pathfinder, Kia Telluride, Audi Q5, Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, so those models are published as 2025 pages built from the MY2025 filing, rather than labelled 2026 with borrowed data. 16 of our 108 pages are model-year 2025 - those six, plus nine high-volume nameplates where we publish both years side by side.
  • When the reports disagree, we say so. The Subaru Outback is the clearest example: our MY2025 page reports United States final assembly, our MY2026 page reports Japan, and each page states what its own report says instead of picking one.

Full detail, including the exact PDFs and how the tables were extracted, is in the site's DATA-SOURCES.md, which ships in the source download.

A worked example, start to finish

Buyer: single, MAGI $85,000, buys a new 2025 Ford F-150 in March 2025 for $40,000 financed at 7.00% over 60 months.

  1. VIN check: assembled in Dearborn, Michigan → passes the assembly test. GVWR class 2F → passes the weight test. Truck/pickup → passes the type test.
  2. Personal tests: new, loan after December 31, 2024, first lien, personal use, purchase not lease, willing to report the VIN → all six pass.
  3. Money: the payment is $792.05, and nine payments fall in 2025, paying $1,981.06 of interest. MAGI of $85,000 is under the $100,000 threshold, so nothing phases out and the 2025 deduction is $1,981.06 - about $436 of tax at a 22% bracket, and the same deduction again on the 2026 return with $2,208.55 of interest.
  4. Interest continues to be deductible in 2027 ($1,681.13) and 2028 ($1,115.56), even though the loan runs into 2029: the rule keys on when the interest is paid, and 2028 is inside the window.

When the answer is no

Most failures are not about the car at all. The three most common:

SituationResultWhy
Bought a used car, even a US-built one No deduction Original use did not begin with you - the "new" test fails.
Leased a brand-new US-built truck No deduction Lease payments are not interest on a qualifying loan; buying out the lease fails the "new" test.
Bought new, but the car was assembled in Canada or Mexico No deduction Final assembly must be in the United States, regardless of how much US content the car has.
Bought new in the US but used it mostly for business Usually no deduction Personal use must be expected to be more than 50% of the use of the vehicle.

What we deliberately do not claim

  • We are not the IRS, and we are not tax advice. Every result is an estimate.
  • We do not decide whether your use is personal, whether your car is new to you, or whether your loan documents meet the first-lien test - you do, with the checklist.
  • We do not accept the year of the vehicle as proof of anything. The rule keys on the loan date, not the model year.
  • We do not use foreign-parts content to judge assembly. A car with 90% US/Canadian content can still be assembled in Canada.
  • We do not file anything for you, and we do not collect your VIN.

Change log

  • October 7, 2026 - v1.0. Initial release: 2025-2028 rules per IRC §163(h)(4) and the final regulations T.D. 10054 (26 CFR §1.163-16), Schedule 1-A Part IV line references, 108 model pages from NHTSA Part 583 reports, live vPIC VIN checking.

Questions about the method

Do you send my VIN anywhere?

Only to NHTSA. The lookup runs in your browser and calls NHTSA's public vPIC API directly. We do not receive it, store it, or log it. If you use the "Copy result link" button, the VIN ends up in the URL in your own browser - that is how the link can show the same result again, so treat that link as public.

Why do you say "likely" instead of yes or no?

A VIN can only answer the vehicle questions: where it was assembled, how heavy it is, and what type of vehicle it is. Whether the car is new to you, whether you bought rather than leased, and how you use it are facts only you know. That is why every result ends with a six-point checklist.

What if NHTSA has no plant data for my VIN?

We say so, and tell you where to look instead: the "Final Assembly Point" on the window sticker (the Monroney label), or the certification label on the driver's door jamb. We never invent a plant.

How current is the data?

The model pages were built from NHTSA's Part 583 reports for model years 2025 and 2026 and every record carries the exact report it came from. All 108 pages were verified on October 7, 2026. VIN decoding always uses NHTSA live, so it is as current as NHTSA is.

All sources

  1. IRC §163(h)(4), added by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025, Pub. L. 119-21, §70203 (the car loan interest deduction) — accessed 2026-10-07.
  2. T.D. 10054, final regulations under 26 CFR §1.163-16 and §1.6050AA-1, 91 FR (September 8, 2026); effective November 9, 2026 — accessed 2026-10-07.
  3. Proposed regulations REG-113515-25 (91 FR 67, January 2, 2026) and IRS news release IR-2025-129 (December 31, 2025) — accessed 2026-10-07.
  4. IRS Schedule 1-A (Form 1040), Part IV "No Tax on Car Loan Interest", lines 22-30, and the IRS explainer for Schedule 1-A — accessed 2026-10-07.
  5. IRS Topic No. 505, Interest expense — accessed 2026-10-07.
  6. IRS Notice 2025-57 (2025 lender reporting transition relief) and Form 1098-VLI, Vehicle Loan Interest Statement — accessed 2026-10-07.
  7. NHTSA vPIC VIN decoder (named in the regulation preamble as a way to check the plant of manufacture) — accessed 2026-10-07.
  8. NHTSA Part 583 American Automobile Labeling Act (AALA) reports - final assembly point by carline, MY2025 and MY2026 — accessed 2026-10-07.
  9. NHTSA public VIN decoder - look up a vehicle's plant of manufacture yourself, without this site — accessed 2026-10-07.

We link to primary sources: the statute, the regulations, IRS forms and instructions, and NHTSA's own vehicle data. Where those sources do not settle a question, we say so rather than guess.