Australia · 2026-27 · checked 18 October 2026
On a $35,000 electric car, a five-year novated lease costs $48,411 once the family payments are counted, against $63,627 on a loan and $56,816 in cash. Every line adds up, and you can change any figure to match your quote.
Put in your pay, the car, the lease terms and your household. You get what the lease takes from your pay before and after tax, what it does to your take-home pay, and what the lease, a loan and cash each cost over the years.
What you enter stays in your browser. These are estimates, not a quote: your lease provider's quote has the real lease figures.
Tax is only part of it: family payments and child support move too. See what my family keeps ↓
A novated lease is an agreement between you, your employer and a lease provider. Your employer pays the lease and the car's running costs out of your pay, mostly before tax, and you owe a residual at the end if you want to keep the car.
Most of what the lease saves is tax. The catch is in what it changes: your take-home pay, your super, your family payments and the residual you owe at the end. The calculator puts them in one table.
An employee on a taxable income of $100,000, with a partner who has no income and two children born on 10 March 2020 and 2 May 2023. An electric car, $35,000 drive-away, 15,000 km a year, charged 80% at home. The lease is five years at 8.5% with the minimum residual of 28.13%. The loan is 10.48% over five years. Prices rise 2.5% a year and savings earn 4.35%. We ran the calculator on 18 October 2026 with those inputs.
| Over the 5 years | Novated lease | Buy on a loan | Buy with cash |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home charging: your power bill | $2,838 | $2,838 | $2,838 |
| Public charging and fuel | $1,290* | $1,419 | $1,419 |
| Servicing, tyres and repairs | $3,345* | $3,680 | $3,679 |
| Rego | $4,152 | $4,153 | $4,153 |
| Insurance | $6,690* | $7,359 | $7,359 |
| Repayments (loan, or lease payments) | $32,087 | $45,116 | – |
| Paid at the start (car, deposit, charger) | – | – | $35,000 |
| Tax back (income tax and Medicare levy) | −$16,270 | – | – |
| Family Tax Benefit change | $2,487 | – | – |
| Residual at the end, with GST | $9,887 | – | – |
| Paid over 5 years | $46,506 | $64,565 | $54,448 |
| Interest your savings give up | $4,181 | $7,368 | $10,674 |
| Less the car's value at the end | −$8,306 | −$8,306 | −$8,306 |
| Plus super not paid on the packaged part | $6,030 | – | – |
| The 5-year cost | $48,411 | $63,627 | $56,816 |
| In today's dollars | $42,788 | $56,237 | $50,217 |
* Without GST: in a lease the employer claims the GST back on these, so they cost about one-eleventh less. Each figure is rounded to the dollar and each column adds down. A minus sign is money back or a reduction.
Counting tax alone, and leaving the family out, the lease's five-year cost on this car is $45,631. The family's payments add $2,780. The family payments line is $2,487, and the rest is the interest those dollars would have earned.
In the first year the package your employer takes from your pay before tax is $10,018. It pays for three things:
| The lease payments (the finance) | $6,417 |
| Running costs, without the GST your employer claims | $2,945 |
| Home charging paid back to you, at the ATO's rate of 5.47 cents a km | $656 |
| The package, taken from pay before tax | $10,018 |
| Less the tax and payments the lease saves: $3,206 of tax less $528 of Family Tax Benefit | −$2,678 |
| Your take-home pay falls by, in the first year | $7,340 |
That is $282 a fortnight. The package stops you paying the lease, fuel, servicing, insurance and rego yourself, which is why the take-home figure is smaller than the package.
The ATO's electric cars exemption (updated 1 April 2026) means no fringe benefits tax on an eligible electric car, so the whole package comes from pay before tax. The car has to be a battery electric or hydrogen fuel cell car, first held and used on or after 1 July 2022, and luxury car tax can never have been payable on it. A plug-in hybrid stopped qualifying on 1 April 2025, with some transitional cases. The government will review the exemption by mid-2027.
A petrol, diesel or ordinary hybrid car avoids fringe benefits tax a different way: the employee pays 20% of the car's value, $6,642 a year here, from after-tax pay. Only the rest comes out before tax. On the same pay and a similar car that saved $1,448 of tax in the first year instead of $3,206.
It depends on your pay, the car, the quote, your household and your job. The figures above are from one example. In that example the lease cost less than a loan or cash over five years, and it also cost $528 of Family Tax Benefit in the first year, $6,030 of super over the lease, and left $9,887 to pay at the end. A different family, car or quote will give different figures. The calculator is a way to put your own numbers next to each other.
Each of our calculators answers one question. The Net Income Modeller works out tax, Family Tax Benefit, child care subsidy, child support, Rent Assistance and Parenting Payment together, so you can see what an extra day's work, a pay rise or a salary package leaves your family.
It depends on things only you know: your pay, the car, the lease provider's quote, your household and whether you stay in the job. In the example on this page, a five-year lease on a $35,000 electric car costs $48,411, against $63,627 on a loan and $56,816 in cash, after counting the tax saved, the family payments, the GST, the residual and the super not paid. A real quote will differ. The calculator shows the figures and doesn't pick an option.
The tax saved is the amount taken from pay before tax times your tax rate with the Medicare levy. For an employee on $100,000, an electric lease taking $10,018 a year before tax saved $3,206 in tax, and $2,678 after the effect on Family Tax Benefit. A petrol lease on the same pay saved less in tax, $1,448, because $6,642 a year is paid from after-tax pay to avoid fringe benefits tax.
The balloon owed at the end if you keep the car. The ATO sets a minimum for the lease's length: 28.13% of the amount financed for a five-year lease. In the example it is $8,988, plus $899 of GST, so $9,887 is owed at the end. It is paid from after-tax money or a new loan.
The lease is tied to your employment. What happens depends on your lease agreement: it may move to a new employer, or you may need to pay it out or pay the car's costs yourself. The calculator doesn't count the cost of ending a lease early or changing jobs. Check the agreement before you sign.
It can. The law requires super only on pay after the lease is taken out, so packaging $10,018 a year before tax means $1,202 a year less super in the first year in the example, and $6,030 over the five-year lease. Some employers agree to pay super on your pay before packaging if you ask. The calculator has an option to show that.
Yes. The car is a reportable fringe benefit even when it is exempt from fringe benefits tax, and Services Australia adds it to your income. In the example an electric lease lowered Family Tax Benefit by $528 a year. A petrol lease raised it by $905. The page on novated leases and family payments has the working.
In the example, over five years the loan costs $15,216 more than the lease and cash costs about $8,400 more, everything counted. The lease is paid from pay before tax and a loan from after-tax pay. With a loan or cash you own the car from the start. With a lease you owe the residual at the end to keep it. The side-by-side table on this page adds each way up line by line.
ATO and Services Australia pages read on 18 October 2026, with the date each page says it was last updated.
For brokers: Put the novated lease calculator on your own website, in your colours, with your contact details beside the result. See how brokers use these calculators →
General information about novated leases for 2026-27 as at 18 October 2026, not personal advice, tax advice or a quote. The figures are examples until you put in your own. Your lease provider's quote has the real figures, and your accountant can tell you how it fits your tax.