Household Spending Guide
The Real Cost of Transportation for American Households
Transportation is the second-largest household expense after housing, averaging over $13,000 per year. Here's exactly where that money goes.
Transportation Spending Breakdown (2024)
Transportation spending by subcategory (2024)
Annual dollars per household
| Category | Annual | Monthly |
|---|---|---|
| Vehicle purchases (net outlay) | $5,337 | $445 |
| Gasoline and other fuels | $2,645 | $220 |
| Other vehicle expenses | $4,206 | $351 |
| Public and other transportation | $1,131 | $94 |
Transportation by Income Level (2024)
| Income Group | Annual Transport |
|---|---|
| Lowest 20% | $5,105 |
| Second 20% | $8,430 |
| Middle 20% | $11,657 |
| Fourth 20% | $15,952 |
| Highest 20% | $25,378 |
Key Findings
- Vehicle purchases are the largest component of transportation spending. New and used car purchases, plus financing costs, account for roughly 40-45% of all transportation costs.
- Gas prices have a large impact. Gasoline and motor oil are highly variable year-to-year based on crude oil prices.
- Lower-income households spend nearly as much on transportation as middle-income ones. The need to own a car to access work creates high transportation costs regardless of income level, but represents a much higher share of a lower-income household's budget.
- Public transportation is a minor component nationally. Most American households rely primarily on personal vehicles.
Explore more: Full Transportation Data · By Income Level
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditure Survey 2024.
Compiled by the " research team.
Vehicle ownership cost breakdown (AAA Your Driving Costs annual report)
The American Automobile Association's annual "Your Driving Costs" study decomposes total cost of ownership into seven categories. For a typical small-SUV driver covering 15,000 miles per year, the per-mile total exceeds $0.70 once depreciation, financing, and insurance are amortized, a figure that explains why transportation is the second-largest household line item in the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey.
| Cost component | Annual share (small SUV, 15k mi) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Depreciation | ~35% | Largest single line; front-loaded in first 3 years |
| Insurance | ~15% | Highly state-dependent; +20% in FL/LA/MI |
| Finance charges | ~12% | Rate-sensitive; recent rate cycle drove this share up |
| Fuel | ~15% | Volatile; varies with regional gas prices |
| Maintenance and repairs | ~10% | Increases sharply past 75k miles |
| License, registration, taxes | ~8% | Varies widely by state |
| Tires | ~5% | 2-4 year replacement cycle for most drivers |
Composition based on AAA "Your Driving Costs" methodology (newsroom.aaa.com/auto). Exact shares vary by vehicle class, financing terms, and region.
The hidden cost of car-dependence: total transportation burden
BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey reports transportation share separately from housing, but household budget researchers increasingly bundle the two as "H+T" (housing plus transportation) when evaluating affordability of a given location. A neighborhood with cheap rent but no transit options often pushes total H+T above 50% of income because the second vehicle, longer commute, and higher insurance premium offset the rent savings. The Center for Neighborhood Technology's H+T Index uses 45% of income as the threshold for "affordable" location, a much tighter test than the 30%-of-income rule that applies to housing alone.
Limitations and Caveats
Several constraints warrant emphasis when drawing inferences from these figures. Sampling error, nonresponse bias, and imputation procedures each introduce quantifiable uncertainty that propagates through derived statistics. Confidence intervals, where published by the collecting agency, should be consulted before attributing significance to small differences between observations.
The taxonomy used to classify entities, expenditures, or incidents evolves periodically. A category redefinition between consecutive releases can produce apparent discontinuities that reflect classification changes rather than genuine behavioral shifts. longitudinal analyses must verify category stability across the studied interval.
Suppression rules applied to protect confidentiality may eliminate observations from sparsely populated strata. This differential suppression disproportionately affects rural counties, small institutions, and minority subgroups, systematically biasing the observable distribution toward larger, more urbanized populations. Researchers should note that absence of a data point may signify suppression rather than a true zero.
Where to go next
See how your own household compares to these BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey figures.
- Find your spending percentile against the national income quintiles. Budget calculator
- Explore the full breakdown by category, income, age, and region. All categories
- Save the categories you want to track to your private watchlist. Save categories
All figures are national-average BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey data; individual households vary.
