Leasing

Going over your lease miles

Go and look at the odometer first. Everything on this page runs on one reading and one date, and the earlier in the lease you take them, the more the answer is worth.

Budget Pilot · September 28, 2026 · 4 min read

Lease mileage projector

Miles driven since the lease began Months elapsed Lease term (months) Total miles allowed for the whole lease Charge per excess mile ($)

Your pace: 1,167 mi/mo
Projected at turn-in: 42,000 mi
Projected overage: 6,000 mi
Projected charge: $1,500

Projected miles as a share of the allowance: 117%

To finish on the allowance you would need to average 833 miles a month for the remaining 18 months, about 333 fewer than now. Setting the projected charge aside instead means about $83 a month.

The figures shown are for the illustrative example pre-filled above: 21,000 miles after 18 months of a 36-month, 36,000-mile lease, at $0.25 a mile. With JavaScript on, they update as you type. Nothing you enter leaves this page or is saved. The per-mile charge in your own contract is the one that counts; $0.25 is a placeholder, not a typical rate.

The projector does one thing: it assumes you keep driving at the average pace you have driven so far, and extends that line to the last month. Real driving is lumpier than that. A summer road trip, a new commute or a job that goes remote will bend the line. Treat the projection as a weather forecast, not a bill, and rerun it every few months.

Two inputs trip people up. "Total miles allowed" means for the whole term: a 12,000-a-year allowance on a 36-month lease is 36,000. And "miles driven since the lease began" is your current odometer minus the reading on your lease paperwork at delivery, which was rarely zero. Your contract states both the allowance and the per-mile rate; they are usually in the same section.

What to do with the number

The answer falls into one of three bands, and each calls for something different.

The charge reads $0: you are under

Good, but check what that means for you. Many lease contracts do not pay you back for unused miles, so a low-mileage lease can mean you paid for miles you never drove. Where a contract does offer a credit, it will say so; do not assume one.

Well-under mileage can also leave the car worth more than its buyout price at the end, since low miles help resale. If that is your situation, when your leased car is worth more than the payoff walks through how to tell, and whether the value can be captured.

If you have plenty of room, there may be no reason to ration driving in the final months. Leave a little cushion for the unexpected trip.

A modest overage: a few hundred to a couple of thousand miles

Slow down a little. The projector's last line tells you how many fewer miles a month would land you on the allowance. If that is a hundred or two, it may be one skipped weekend drive a month, or shifting some trips to another household car.

Price the alternatives. Some lessors let you buy additional miles during the lease, sometimes at a different rate from the end-of-lease charge. Whether yours does, and at what price, is a question for the leasing company, not something to assume either way.

Set it aside. If you would rather drive than ration, divide the projected charge by the months remaining and move that amount into savings each month. At turn-in, the bill is already paid. The projector does that division for you.

A large overage: many thousands of miles

This is where the choice of exit starts to matter more than driving habits.

Consider buying the car. Excess-mileage charges are generally assessed when you return the vehicle. If you buy it at the end instead, the purchase price is set by the contract, not by the odometer, though a high-mileage car will be worth less to you or to the next buyer. Run the numbers in should you buy out your lease? before deciding.

Look at the other exits. A transfer, a trade or an early termination each treat mileage differently, and the costs can dwarf the overage or come in under it. Get the early-exit figures from the leasing company in writing and set them beside the projected charge; the cheapest route is not always the obvious one.

Do not wait for turn-in day. The later you discover a big overage, the fewer choices remain. A projection taken at month eighteen gives you eighteen months of options; one taken at month thirty-five gives you a bill.

Keep your own record

A projection is only as good as the reading behind it, so start a small log. Photograph the odometer on the day you take delivery, next to the delivery paperwork, then again every few months, ideally on the same date. Those photos make the projector quicker to rerun, and they give you something to compare against if the turn-in odometer statement ever looks wrong. If the instrument cluster is replaced under warranty during the lease, keep the repair order that records the mileage at the swap; a new cluster can start from a different number, and the paperwork is how the true total is reconstructed.

Next time, sizing the allowance

If you are well over, the lesson carries into your next car. Before signing, take your actual miles over the past couple of years, not the ones you hope to drive, and compare the cost of a higher allowance with the likely overage at your contract's rate. The trade-off between the two, at a few mileage levels, is laid out in leasing when you drive a lot. Sometimes the honest answer is that a lease is simply the wrong shape for how you drive.