If you’ve ever dealt with a credit organization, you may have noticed an inverse relationship between your need for a loan and the organization’s desire to approve a loan for you. In short, if you have a few million rubles in your bank account, that is, in principle, you do not need a loan, then they will be happy to provide you with a loan, and if there is a risk that you will take a long time to repay the borrowed funds plus interest or not repay the loan at all, they will most likely refuse it.
Image source: ChatGPT.
One of the most common types of loans in Russia is car loans. According to the National Credit Bureau (NBKI) report, in July this year, the average rejection rate for car loans nationwide was 67.5%. That is, in two thirds of cases credit institutions deny citizens applications for car loans. Statistics are sad but how should Judging from NBCH’s analysis, its improvement trend is more cautious. Thus, in July 2025, the rejection rate was 76.7%, meaning that more than three-quarters of loan applicants received nothing.
The outsiders in last month’s ratings were car enthusiasts from the Altai Krai and the Irkutsk, Kemerovo and Novosibirsk regions: lenders here rejected 74% to 76% of car loan applications. But taking into account the above-mentioned interest rates, the biggest offers from banks, if you can say so, are borrowers from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Vologda regions, and the Republic of Chuvash. In these regions, failure rates ranged from 58.5% to 61.6%. Of course, this number is also prohibitively high.
NBKI analysts said that the current statistics on car loan refusals in Russia are extremely high, which is due to the country’s general tightening of monetary policy and the risk-aversion policy of banks. In particular, for citizens with already high debt burdens, there is a near absolute chance that a car loan will not be approved. But whether it is reasonable to apply for a car loan in principle, given the extremely high interest rates on car loans, is a separate issue.
