Auto loan originations through the first half of 2026 were down less than 2% year over year, but loan balances grew 3.5%, according to Equifax’ Automotive Insights Report.
Driving the news: The total for auto loan originations through June hit 12.8 million, which was down 1.9% from the first six months of 2025.
But with the higher prices of vehicles, the total amount loaned grew to $401.1 billion.
The total outstanding auto debt reached $1.7 trillion by August, which represented a 3.3% year-over-year increase.
“Our industry is very resilient. The auto industry always seems to find a way to deal with whatever difficult circumstances they're under,” Will Holleman, vice president of Verification Services, Auto at Equifax, told CDG News. “So whether that be the pandemic, whether that be the crisis in ‘08, the industry kind of adjusts to what is needed… We've seen a lot of negative headlines, but in the end we're only seeing negative growth or flat growth of about one, one and a half percent.”
View by lenders: Among lenders, only credit unions saw originations tick up from 1.6% year over year to 3.4 million.
Captives led originations with 3.8 million, but that was down 5.5% versus the first half of 2025.
Banks were down 3.1% at 3.7 million originations, but still hold the most auto loan debt at $570 billion.
Look at tiers: Equifax noted that super-prime borrowers hold 51% of total accounts and also had the same percent of originations this year.
That is triple the 17% of prime borrowers.
Subprime borrowers saw a 5.4% decline in debt, though originations increased slightly to start this year to 17.6%.
Barrett Teague, vice president of Auto Lending Sales for Equifax, said they’ve noted some changes in the “K-shaped” economy, and “the top end of the K has taken a little bit of shrinking hit recently” and scaled back on purchases.
Reaction by lenders: Teague noted lenders are reacting to market conditions, with superprime margins remaining “very compressed” and subprime “a little less predictable.”
“I think you're going to continue to see that with a lot of our major lenders that are out there of saying, how do I avoid the few basis points worth of margin on the top end of the scale, and how do I predict precisely where I can go into a little bit of a better margin area?” Teague noted.
Holleman added that lenders are getting creative and extending terms to 84 and 96 months to make payments work for consumers.
“I think lenders are trying to find a way, more creative ways to get people in cars and put car deals together and make those work, make those numbers work,” Holleman said.
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Delinquencies remain steady: Overall 60-day delinquencies through August were at 1.7%, which was down almost 11% year over year.
In the subprime category, those delinquencies at 60 days were at 6.4%.
“Nothing that would really alarm people, and nothing that I don't believe that most of our lending friends have built into their loss models, but you certainly are going to continue to see as contraction of extra spending cash comes in and as all the rest of the pieces of the economy start to tighten or continue to tighten,” Teague said.
Bottom line: Equifax Senior Vice President and General Manager of Auto, Jay Nieman, suggested dealers work on building relationships with lenders.
“Understanding a little bit more about how that lender is buying that paper so that the dealer can continue to be profitable, not only in selling the car, but profitable on the F&I side too, so that they have the opportunity to get some reserve and then be able to sell F&I products as well,” Nieman said.
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