Alaska Auto Loan Calculator (with Local Sales Tax & Fees)

Alaska is the only state on this site where the state government takes nothing at all from a car purchase. There is no statewide sales tax and no statewide use tax. Alaska has never enacted one. Whatever tax appears on an Alaska buyer's order comes from a city or a borough, levied under the municipal taxing power in AS 29.45.650 and the sections that follow it.

That produces a split most rate tables handle badly. Anchorage, which holds roughly forty percent of the state's population and most of its new car sales, has no general sales tax, so a car bought and registered there is untaxed. Juneau, a unified city and borough, charges a single 5% sales tax that does reach vehicle sales. A "state average local rate" for Alaska is therefore misleading in both directions: it overstates the tax for most buyers and understates it for some.

This calculator treats the municipal rate as the whole rate, because it is. Leave it at zero for Anchorage or Fairbanks. Enter 5 for Juneau. If you live somewhere else, get the number from your own city or borough clerk rather than from a national rate lookup, and read the caution on transaction caps below before you trust a straight percentage.

The APR columns below are national averages, not Alaska figures. No primary source publishes average auto loan APR by state: Experian's report has no geographic cut, the CFPB publishes state origination volume but no rates, and the New York Fed publishes state delinquency only. The payment column is the part that is specific to Alaska, because it runs this calculator's own Alaska tax and fee rules at each tier's rate.

Payment assumptions: $35,000 vehicle price, $0 trade-in, $5,000 cash down, $0 dealer documentation fee, 60-month term, new-vehicle APR applied to the Alaska delivered price including tax and statutory fees. At the 6.39% overall new-car average the same purchase costs $587.68 a month.

The score bands are VantageScore 4.0, not FICO. The same borrower can land in a different tier under each model, so a FICO score pulled from a card issuer will not always match the band here. Source: Experian, State of the Automotive Finance Market, Q1 2026, slide 45.

Each row changes one input and leaves the rest at the baseline below. The dollar effects are this calculator's own output for Alaska, not a rule of thumb.

Baseline: $35,000 vehicle price, $0 trade-in, $5,000 cash down, $0 documentation fee, 60 months at 7.25% APR, giving a $599.87 payment and $5,877.27 of total interest.

Alaska has no state sales tax of any kind, so the only percentage in this calculation is whatever your city or borough charges at registration. Four steps.

1. Net taxable base. The vehicle price less any trade-in allowance. The dealer documentation fee is kept outside the base here, because no statewide rule makes it taxable and no municipality's treatment of it was verified.

2. Municipal sales tax. The state rate is zero, so the combined rate is whatever your city or borough charges.

3. Title and registration. A fixed $115.00, being the $15 title fee and the $100 base passenger registration. Read the next section carefully: that $100 is not an annual figure.

4. Amount financed and amortization. The trade-in and the cash down payment both reduce the balance borrowed, and the result amortizes as a fixed-rate installment loan:

where $P$ is the financed amount, $i$ is the monthly rate (APR divided by 12), and $n$ is the term in months. Each period's interest is the outstanding balance times $i$, the remainder reduces principal, and the schedule reconciles to zero at maturity.

Only three of the state's larger markets could be confirmed to a level worth publishing. The rest of Alaska's roughly one hundred taxing municipalities are left out rather than guessed at.

Two warnings attach to that table. The first is the Mat-Su and Kenai problem: Matanuska-Susitna Borough itself levies no general sales tax but the cities of Wasilla and Palmer do, and Kenai Peninsula Borough levies its own on top of city rates. Neither set of rates was confirmed, so neither appears above.

The second warning matters more. Many Alaska municipalities apply a maximum taxable amount per single transaction, a per-sale cap that stops the tax rising past a fixed dollar figure. On a purchase as large as a car, a cap of that kind turns the tax into a small flat charge rather than a percentage of the price. Kenai Peninsula Borough is known to impose one. Whether Juneau applies one to vehicle sales was not confirmed. If your municipality caps the taxable amount, the figure this calculator produces for a percentage rate is too high, possibly by a wide margin. Ask the clerk before you rely on it.

Alaska is the only state with neither a sales tax nor an income tax, so the entire tax line on a car depends on the municipality that registers it. Anchorage charges nothing, which is where the baseline sits.

• Vehicle price: $35,000
• Trade-in allowance: $0
• Cash down: $5,000
• Dealer doc fee: $0
• Municipal rate: 0% (Anchorage)
• Term: 60 months at 7.25% APR

Step 1 -- The taxable base. No doc fee is entered and there is no trade-in, so the base is the price: $35,000.00

Step 2 -- The municipal sales tax. $35,000.00 x 0% = $0.00

Step 3 -- Title and registration. $15.00 title + $100.00 two-year registration = $115.00

Step 4 -- Total delivered price. $35,000 + $0.00 tax + $115.00 = $35,115.00

Step 5 -- Amount financed. $35,115.00 - $0 trade-in - $5,000 cash down = $30,115.00

Step 6 -- The monthly payment. $30,115.00 at 7.25% over 60 months = $599.87

Step 7 -- Month 1. $30,115.00 x (7.25% / 12) = $181.94 of interest, $417.93 of principal, balance $29,697.07

Step 8 -- Month 2. $29,697.07 x (7.25% / 12) = $179.42 of interest, $420.45 of principal, balance $29,276.62. Cumulative interest after two payments: $361.36

Step 9 -- The running total. Interest paid through month 12 is $2,013.28, with $24,929.84 still owed. Across all 60 months the finance charge is $5,877.27

Now register the same car in Juneau at 5%. Tax of $1,750.00 is added, the delivered price rises to $36,865.00, the financed balance becomes $31,865.00, and the payment rises to $634.73. Total interest over the term goes from $5,877.27 to $6,218.81. The 5% rate costs $1,750 up front and another $341.54 in interest on the tax you financed.

Add a $10,000 trade-in to the Juneau case and, assuming the borough follows the common rule of taxing the net difference, the base drops to $25,000, tax falls to $1,250.00, and the payment falls to $425.58. The trade-in is worth $500 in tax on that assumption. In Anchorage the same trade-in saves nothing in tax, because there is no tax to save, though it still cuts the payment to $400.68.

• Per-transaction taxable maximums. Described above. This is the largest source of error in any Alaska vehicle tax estimate, including this one, and it cannot be modeled without per-municipality rules that were not verified.
• Trade-in treatment under municipal codes. There is no state sales tax for a trade-in to reduce, so the question is entirely local. The calculator assumes the trade-in reduces the municipal base, which is the usual rule elsewhere, but that was not verified for Juneau or for any other Alaska municipality.
• The biennial registration period. The $100 registration charge covers two years, not one. Any comparison against another state's annual registration figure is off by a factor of two in Alaska's favor.
• The $15 lien recording fee, which applies when the vehicle is financed and is not included in the $115.
• Municipal Motor Vehicle Registration Tax. Participating municipalities, including Anchorage, collect an MVRT at registration in lieu of personal property tax on the vehicle. It is age-based rather than value-based, running roughly $19 to $150 for a passenger vehicle depending on model year. Fairbanks North Star and Kenai Peninsula boroughs reportedly do not levy it. It is a recurring registration cost, not part of the purchase, so it is not financed.
• Dealer documentation fees. No Alaska statutory cap was located and no defensible market average was found, so the input starts at $0. Enter the number from your own buyer's order.
• GAP insurance, extended warranties, and aftermarket add-ons, unless you fold them into the vehicle price yourself.

• Assuming "no sales tax in Alaska" means no tax anywhere in Alaska. It is true of the state and true of Anchorage. It is not true in Juneau, and it is not true in dozens of smaller cities that levy their own rates.
• Applying a straight percentage in a capped municipality. A 5% rate on a $35,000 car is $1,750. If the borough caps the taxable amount per sale, the real figure could be a fraction of that. The error runs in only one direction: too high.
• Treating the $100 registration as annual. It buys two years. A budget that repeats it every twelve months doubles the real cost.
• Assuming the dealer's city rate applies. Municipal sales taxes generally reach the sale where it occurs, and registration is separate again. A buyer crossing municipal lines should confirm which jurisdiction's rate the dealer will collect.
• Rolling negative equity forward. If you owe more than the trade is worth, the shortfall is added to the new loan. It raises the principal and the total interest.
• Judging a loan by the monthly payment alone. Stretching this $30,115.00 Anchorage balance from 60 to 72 months lowers the payment to $517.05 and raises total finance charges from $5,877.27 to $7,112.89.

• Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Truth in Lending Act (Regulation Z, 12 CFR 1026.22) disclosure requirements for installment credit. ecfr.gov/current/title-12/chapter-X/part-1026
• Alaska Department of Revenue, the official state tax authority for Alaska rates, rules and forms. tax.alaska.gov

Also consulted: Alaska Division of Motor Vehicles, vehicle services fee schedule (title fee, biennial registration, lien recording fee, Motor Vehicle Registration Tax); AS 29.45.650 et seq. (municipal sales and use tax authority); City and Borough of Juneau sales tax rate; Municipality of Anchorage, absence of a general sales tax; Fairbanks North Star Borough, absence of a general borough sales tax; Experian, State of the Automotive Finance Market, Q1 2026, slide 45 (average new and used auto loan APR by VantageScore 4.0 credit tier; national, no state level cut published).