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The Money Desk · Blog
Re:

A Record Share of Subprime Auto Borrowers Was at Least 60 Days Behind in October 2025

Fitch reported a record 6.65% of subprime auto borrowers at least 60 days past due in October 2025. Here’s what that measure counts—and what it doesn’t.
From TheFinanceBase Team5 min to read

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Fitch Ratings’ subprime auto-loan measure reached 6.65% in October 2025: the share of subprime borrowers at least 60 days past due, and a record in Fitch’s series dating to the early 1990s, according to Reuters’ November 12, 2025 report. That is a dated, specific measure—not a count of everyone who missed a car payment, and not an established current rate for October 2026.

How many subprime borrowers were behind on car payments?

Reuters reported that Fitch’s measure stood at 6.65% in October 2025, up from 6.50% in September 2025 and 6.23% in September 2024. Fitch’s October figure refers to subprime borrowers at least 60 days behind; Reuters described it as the highest reading in the series since the early 1990s. Reuters report republished by GV Wire.

That is a percentage of borrowers in Fitch’s subprime auto-loan measure, not a headcount of Americans who missed any payment. The available figures do not establish the latest Fitch reading as of October 5, 2026, so October 2025 should be treated as a historical record, not a claim about today’s rate.

What counts as behind on an auto loan?

In the headline Fitch figure, “behind” means at least 60 days past due. A borrower who is a few days late—or even less than 60 days late—does not meet that threshold. The statistic also concerns subprime borrowers, not every auto-loan customer.

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The Philadelphia Fed’s separate analysis uses a below-620 credit score at loan origination to define subprime borrowers in its New York Fed Consumer Credit Panel/Equifax data. That cutoff should not be assumed to define Fitch’s subprime population; the two sources report different measures. The Philadelphia Fed’s calculation also excludes accounts charged off or in repossession. Philadelphia Fed report.

How does this compare with all auto-loan delinquencies?

The Philadelphia Fed’s report, published in April 2026, analyzes quarterly New York Fed Consumer Credit Panel/Equifax auto tradelines through the fourth quarter of 2025. It puts the seasonally adjusted share of all auto loans at least 60 days past due at 1.68% in the third quarter of 2025, the highest in that series since 2008. This is not directly comparable to Fitch’s 6.65%: one is an all-borrower quarterly measure and the other is a monthly subprime measure.

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Measure Population and definition Reported value and period
Fitch, as reported by Reuters Subprime borrowers at least 60 days past due; the cutoff used to identify subprime is not stated in the Reuters report 6.65% in October 2025; series record since the early 1990s
Philadelphia Fed analysis of New York Fed Consumer Credit Panel/Equifax All auto loans at least 60 days past due; seasonally adjusted; charged-off and repossession accounts excluded 1.68% in Q3 2025; highest since 2008 in this series
Philadelphia Fed analysis of New York Fed Consumer Credit Panel/Equifax Subprime borrowers, defined as below 620 at origination Around 6% from mid-2024 through late 2025; the report does not give a single matching monthly observation

In the Philadelphia Fed data, borrowers classified as subprime held 17% of active auto accounts but accounted for nearly two-thirds of delinquent loans. Those figures illustrate the concentration of delinquencies in that group; they do not convert the Fitch rate into an all-market rate. Philadelphia Fed report.

Does a record delinquency rate mean more people are newly missing payments?

Not necessarily. A delinquency rate is a stock: it counts accounts that are behind at a point in time. That pool includes borrowers who have just become delinquent, borrowers who remain behind from earlier quarters, and borrowers who cured an earlier delinquency and later fell behind again.

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In its New York Fed/Equifax analysis, the Philadelphia Fed authors found that carryover accounts—borrowers remaining delinquent across quarters—accounted for most of the increase in the subprime rate since Q3 2022. First-time subprime delinquency inflows showed no sustained upward trend after late 2022 in their data. Redefaults, meanwhile, remained above pre-2020 levels. The findings therefore point to persistence in the delinquent pool, not simply a continuing surge in newly delinquent borrowers. Philadelphia Fed report.

Why might delinquent loans be taking longer to resolve?

The Philadelphia Fed authors identify loan extensions and changing account-management practices as possible contributors to longer resolution times, while stopping short of establishing a single cause. In asset-backed-securities loan pools, subprime extensions reached about 3.5% in the prior year—roughly 100 basis points above the level three years earlier, according to the report. An extension can change when payments are due or how a loan is worked out; the reported association does not prove extensions alone caused the rise in the delinquency stock.

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Other pressures help explain why some borrowers may be vulnerable. The report points to higher monthly payments and riskier 2022–2023 loan vintages as factors tied to later delinquency risk. It also cites research estimating that elevated vehicle prices—chiefly through higher monthly payments rather than higher interest rates—accounted for roughly 40% of the increase in the two-year delinquency rate between the end of 2019 and the end of 2022. The report says more than 62% of auto loans in default at its reporting time originated in 2021–2023; that figure describes the origin years of loans already in default, not the share of all loans from those years that defaulted. Philadelphia Fed report.

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How negative equity can make a difficult loan harder to exit

Negative equity means a vehicle owner owes more on the loan than the car is worth. That gap can make it harder to sell or trade the vehicle to escape a payment that has become unaffordable, because the remaining debt still has to be addressed. The Philadelphia Fed report says 29.3% of new-vehicle trade-ins in Q4 2025 involved negative equity, the highest share since Q1 2021. This is a trade-in statistic, not a delinquency rate. Philadelphia Fed report.

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What the headline can—and cannot—tell borrowers

A high 60-day delinquency rate signals that a meaningful share of the measured subprime pool is seriously behind. It does not, by itself, show whether more borrowers are newly falling behind, whether older delinquent loans are taking longer to resolve, or how many households are affected across the whole auto-loan market.

The Philadelphia Fed authors—Julia Cheney, Bob Hunt, Lauren Lambie-Hanson, Larry Santucci, and Justin Zhou—write: “Policymakers and analysts interpreting these data should look beyond the headline to distinguish between a market in which more borrowers are falling behind versus one in which troubled loans are taking longer to resolve, while taking into account concurrent changes in macroeconomic conditions.” Philadelphia Fed report.

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