Wheelchair Van Lease vs Buy Calculator (2027): Total Cost Over the Years You Keep It

What the lease vs buy calculator does

New wheelchair vans cost around $70,000 on Florida’s state contract and on federal GSA orders in 2025 and 2026, and a lease quote and a loan quote are hard to compare side by side. A lease usually asks for less cash up front, caps your miles, and leaves you nothing to sell at the end. A loan asks for a down payment and interest, and leaves you a van you can sell.

This calculator puts both on the same footing. It adds up everything you pay over the years you keep the van, then subtracts what the bought van sells for. The headline shows how much buying saves you. If leasing costs less, the number drops below zero and the calculator says so in plain words.

Use it for a ramp minivan, a full-size lift van, or a stretcher van, with a real lease quote and a real loan offer on the same vehicle. For what vans cost, see how much a wheelchair van costs. For the wider trade-offs, including lease terms and credentialing, see lease or buy a NEMT vehicle.

How to use the calculator

1. Enter how many years you plan to keep the van and how many miles it will drive each year.
2. From the lease quote, enter the monthly payment, the cash due at signing plus any turn-in fee, the yearly mileage cap, and the charge for each mile over it.
3. From the dealer and the lender, enter the van price, your down payment, the loan interest rate, and the loan length in months.
4. Enter what you expect the van to sell for when you are done with it.
5. Read the headline. A number above zero is what buying saves you. A number below zero is what leasing saves you.

The results change as you type. Reset to example puts the example numbers back, and Show the formula lists every step of the math. If the down payment is more than the van price, the buying results wait until you fix one of the two.

What each number means

Box	What to enter	Where to find it
Years you keep the van	How long this van works for you before you replace it	Your fleet plan, and your broker’s age and mileage limits
Miles you drive a year	Every mile, empty miles included	Odometer readings, or a month of miles × 12
Lease payment a month	The monthly payment, tax included	The lease quote
Lease down payment and fees	Cash due at signing, plus any fee due at turn-in	The itemized cash due and end-of-lease section of the quote
Lease miles allowed a year	The yearly mileage cap	The lease quote
Lease charge per extra mile	What each mile over the cap costs	The lease quote
Van price	The full price with the conversion, tax, and fees	The dealer’s itemized quote
Down payment	Cash up front, a trade-in included	Your plan, and the trade-in value on the quote
Loan interest rate	The yearly rate	The lender’s written offer
Loan length	The number of monthly payments	The lender’s written offer
Van’s value when you sell it	What the van will sell for at the end	The residual value on the lease quote, or used van prices for the same model and miles

Years you keep the van and miles a year

These two boxes drive the whole comparison. Florida’s transit program plans for a converted minivan to serve 5 years or 200,000 miles, and an unconverted van 4 years or 100,000 miles (useful life table, 2026 row). At that pace a converted van runs about 40,000 miles a year.

Count every mile the van drives, loaded and empty, since the odometer at turn-in counts them all. If you keep the van for less time than the loan runs, the calculator adds what you still owe when you sell.

The four lease boxes

Take all four from the same written quote. In the fees box, add the cash due at signing and any fee due when you turn the van in. Leave out the first monthly payment if the quote lists it in the cash due at signing, because the calculator already counts every monthly payment. Leave out a security deposit you will get back.

A lease signed by your company has fewer federal protections than a personal car lease. Regulation M, the federal consumer leasing rule, covers only leases to an individual primarily for personal, family, or household use (12 CFR 1013.2). In a business lease, the mileage charge and turn-in fees are whatever the contract says, so read those sections before you sign.

Van price, down payment, rate, and loan length

These four boxes are the same as in the wheelchair van loan calculator, with the same example, so the loan payment matches: $996.40 a month. Use the price you would finance, with the base van, the conversion, the ramp or lift, the tie-downs, taxes, and delivery.

For a price check, Florida’s state transit contract lists a ramp minivan at $69,476, or $70,771 with its required seat and seat fabric (order form effective February 20, 2025). A federal order through GSA for a full-size van with two wheelchair positions and a rear lift came to $69,745 on September 18, 2026.

For the rate, use the lender’s written offer. SBA caps the variable rate on a 7(a) loan at the base rate plus 6.5 points for $50,000 or less, and plus 6.0 points for $50,001 to $250,000. With the prime rate at 7.00% (Federal Reserve, September 22 to 28, 2026), those caps come to 13.5% and 13.0%. A 7(a) loan runs 10 years or less, unless it finances real estate or equipment with a useful life longer than 10 years.

Van’s value when you sell it

This is the hardest number on the buying side to know, and every dollar of it comes off the cost to buy. If the lease quote lists a residual value, start there. Regulation M defines residual value as the lessor’s estimate of the vehicle’s value at the end of the lease, used to figure the payment (12 CFR 1013.2).

Check that estimate against asking prices for used wheelchair vans with the same conversion, age, and mileage. Used wheelchair van covers what buyers look at. Enter a lower number if you plan to run the van to the end of its working life.

A worked example

The calculator opens with example numbers. They show how the math works. They are not lease offers, loan rates, or van prices on the market, so replace each one with your own quote.

Step	Math	Result
Months you keep the van	5 years × 12	60
Extra miles	(36,000 minus 30,000) × 5 years	30,000
Charges for extra miles on the lease	30,000 × $0.20	$6,000
Total cost to lease	$2,000 + $950 × 60 + $6,000	$65,000
Amount borrowed	$60,000 minus $12,000	$48,000
Monthly loan payment	$48,000 at 9% for 60 months	$996.40
Loan payments made	$996.40 × 60	$59,784
Loan left to pay off when you sell	All 60 payments are made	$0.00
Total cost to buy, after you sell it	$12,000 + $59,784 + $0 minus $18,000	$53,784
Buying saves you	$65,000 minus $53,784	$11,216

The lease payment is $46.40 a month lower than the loan payment, and the lease’s $2,000 of fees is $10,000 less than the $12,000 down payment. Buying still wins by $11,216, for two reasons: the lease bills $6,000 for extra miles, and the bought van is worth $18,000 at the end.

What changes the answer

These boxes move the result the most. Each one below changes one box, or two for selling early, and keeps the rest of the example.

Miles a year

Miles you drive a year	Extra miles over 5 years	Charges for extra miles	Total cost to lease	Buying saves you
24,000	0	$0	$59,000	$5,216
30,000	0	$0	$59,000	$5,216
36,000	30,000	$6,000	$65,000	$11,216
40,000	50,000	$10,000	$69,000	$15,216
50,000	100,000	$20,000	$79,000	$25,216

At or under the cap, the miles cost nothing extra, and buying still saves $5,216. Above it, every 1,000 extra miles a year adds $1,000 over five years at 20 cents a mile. If your vans run 40,000 miles a year or more, ask for a higher cap before you sign.

The van’s value when you sell it

Value when you sell it	Total cost to buy	Result
$0	$71,784	Leasing saves $6,784
$6,784	$65,000	A tie
$10,000	$61,784	Buying saves $3,216
$18,000	$53,784	Buying saves $11,216
$25,000	$46,784	Buying saves $18,216

Every dollar the van sells for comes straight off the cost to buy. In the example, leasing costs less only if the van sells for under $6,784 after five years.

The lease payment

Leasing wins in the example only when the payment is below $763.07 a month. That is the $53,784 cost to buy, minus the lease’s $2,000 of fees and $6,000 of mileage charges, ÷ 60 months. Work out the same number from your own quotes and use it when you negotiate: any lease payment below it beats buying.

The loan rate

Loan interest rate	Monthly loan payment	Total cost to buy	Buying saves you
7%	$950.46	$51,028	$13,972
9%	$996.40	$53,784	$11,216
11%	$1,043.64	$56,618	$8,382
13.5%	$1,104.47	$60,268	$4,732

The 13.5% row is the SBA cap for a variable 7(a) loan of $50,000 or less with prime at 7.00% in late September 2026. Even at that cap, buying costs less at the example’s other numbers.

Selling early

When you sell early, the cost to buy comes down to what the van lost in value plus the interest paid so far, while the lease has run fewer months. In the 3-year row, the van loses $30,000 of value and the loan charges $9,681 of interest. The resale values here are example guesses, and the lease payment stays at $950, so a real shorter lease with its own payment will move these numbers.

Years you keep the van	Value when you sell it	Total cost to lease	Total cost to buy	Buying saves you
3	$30,000	$39,800	$39,681 (with $21,810 still owed)	$119.19
4	$24,000	$52,400	$47,221 (with $11,394 still owed)	$5,179
5	$18,000	$65,000	$53,784 (loan paid off)	$11,216

What the calculator leaves out

It compares the cash you pay for the van itself. A few things sit outside the math, and each can tip a close result.

• Running costs. Fuel, tires, and repairs cost the same whichever way you pay for the van, so they are left out. If one offer includes maintenance or a warranty the other lacks, price that coverage and add it to the other side. Florida’s contract lists a 5-year, 100,000-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty for its ramp minivan at $3,338 (order form effective February 20, 2025). Ask your insurance agent to quote the van both ways, since a lessor can set its own coverage terms.
• Cash in the bank. SBA notes that a lease needs less cash or credit up front. The calculator adds dollars as they are paid and puts no value on cash you keep. If a down payment would leave too little for payroll while claims are pending, the cash reserve calculator shows how much to hold.
• Leaving a lease early. SBA warns that leaving a lease early can bring steep early-termination penalties. Broker work can end sooner than a lease. MTM Health’s standard provider agreement, in the January 1, 2023 version Pennsylvania posts, runs three years, lets either side end it on 30 days’ written notice, and guarantees no minimum number of trips. A bought van can be sold, and the calculator shows the payoff.
• Open-end and TRAC leases. The calculator treats the lease as closed-end: you return the van and pay only the listed charges. In an open-end or TRAC lease, the final payment moves with what the van sells for. Add the shortfall you expect to the fees box.
• Taxes. Leasing and buying are deducted on different timetables, covered in the next section.

How taxes change the comparison

The calculator shows the cash you pay before taxes. Leasing and buying are deducted differently, from IRS Publications 463 and 946 (2025 editions, updated April 30, 2026):

	Leasing	Buying with a loan
Main deduction	The business part of each lease payment. A sole owner enters it on Schedule C line 20a.	Depreciation on the full price, including the part you borrowed. You own the van even while it is subject to a debt.
Timing	As you pay, with any advance payment spread over the whole lease	Often all in the first year: 100 percent special depreciation applies to qualified property acquired and placed in service after January 19, 2025
Interest	Part of the lease payment	The business part of the loan interest
A conversion you pay for	Depreciable as a capital improvement to leased property	Part of the van’s cost
IRS standard mileage rate	Allowed only if you use it for the whole lease	Allowed only if chosen in the van’s first year, and never after Section 179 or special depreciation on it
When you are done	You return the van	Gain on the sale, up to the depreciation you took, is taxed as ordinary income (Publication 544)

A few rules matter most for NEMT vans:

• No car depreciation caps. Publication 946 says a vehicle used directly in the business of carrying people for pay is not a passenger automobile for the yearly limits on car depreciation. Publication 946 still counts it as listed property, so special depreciation needs more than 50 percent business use. Keep mileage records to show it.
• Payments that buy the van. Publication 463 says you cannot deduct payments made to buy a car, truck, or van, even if the contract calls them lease payments.
• The mileage rate. For 2026 it is 72.5 cents a mile through June 30 and 76 cents from July 1. You cannot use it for any vehicle when you run five or more at the same time.

Which way saves more after taxes depends on your income and your state, so plan it with your tax preparer. See NEMT business taxes and the mileage deduction calculator.

How to use the answer

• Negotiate with the break-even payment. Work out the highest monthly payment at which the lease still beats buying, as in the lease payment section above. Bring it to the lessor, along with the mileage cap you need.
• Size the mileage cap to your routes. Enter your real yearly miles, then raise the lease miles allowed until the extra-mile charges reach zero. Ask what a higher cap adds to the payment, and run that quote too.
• Test a low resale value. Run the calculator again with half your resale estimate. If buying still wins, the answer does not hang on a guess.
• Check your broker and state before you sign a lease. New York’s Medicaid manual (effective August 25, 2023) lets ambulette and taxi providers lease from a vehicle manufacturer or licensed dealership, in the enrolled company’s name, with the van registered, insured, and maintained by that company. Louisiana’s manual (July 14, 2025) says a provider must own or lease its vehicles, and a leased van must meet the state’s insurance rules for leased vehicles. See NEMT vehicle requirements.
• Match the term to the van’s working life. Keep the loan or lease no longer than the van will run. Florida plans for 5 years or 200,000 miles on a converted minivan.
• See the trips the van needs. Add the lease or loan payment to your monthly fixed costs in the break-even calculator to see how many trips the van needs each month.