How to Read a New Car Window Sticker

Two labels on one window

The sticker on the side window of a new car in a US showroom is usually two labels printed together.

The price label, often called the Monroney label. The Automobile Information Disclosure Act of 1958 requires it. It lists what the car is, where it was built and shipped, and what it costs as delivered.
The Fuel Economy and Environment label, set out by EPA rules in 40 CFR part 600. It shows mpg, fuel cost, and greenhouse gas and smog ratings. The rule allows it to be physically combined with the price label, which is why both often share one sheet.

Read the price half first to know what you would pay, and the fuel half to know what the car will cost to run. The sections below take them in that order.

The price label: what the law makes the maker print

Under 15 U.S.C. 1232, every manufacturer must fix a label to the windshield or a side window of each new automobile before it is delivered to the dealer. The law says the term automobile includes any passenger car or station wagon. The label must show:

Item on the label	What it tells you
Make, model, serial or identification number	Match the identification number with the one on the car and on any paperwork.
Final assembly point	Where the car was finally assembled.
Receiving dealer and delivery city	The dealer the car was shipped to and the town it was delivered in.
Transport method	Whether it was driven or towed from the factory, if it was.
Manufacturer's suggested retail price	The base price of this model as the maker suggests it.
Each accessory and option	The suggested retail delivered price of every attached option not included in the base price.
Transportation charge	Any amount charged to the dealer for transporting the car, the line usually called destination.
Total	Base price plus options plus transportation.
Crash test star ratings	The federal New Car Assessment Program ratings, if assigned, or a statement that the car was not tested or rated in a category.

Three things follow from this list.

The total is not what you pay out the door. The law's price items stop at base price, options and transportation. Sales tax, title and registration are not among the items the law requires, so add them yourself before you compare offers.
Only the maker's items are on it. The manufacturer fixes this label before delivery. If a dealer shows a second sheet with other items and prices, that sheet is not the label the manufacturer fixed under this law. Ask what each extra line is.
The label stays on. 15 U.S.C. 1233 makes it an offense to willfully remove, alter or make the label unreadable before the car reaches the first buyer, with a fine of up to $1,000, up to a year in prison, or both, per car.

When you finance, start from the label total plus your state's taxes and fees, minus any down payment and trade-in. The car loan calculator turns that amount into a monthly payment and total interest.

The fuel economy label, box by box

EPA's explainer pages on fueleconomy.gov describe twelve parts of the gasoline label. Here is what each one shows and how to use it.

Box	What it shows	How to use it
Vehicle technology and fuel	Gasoline, diesel, flexible fuel, plug-in hybrid, electric and others, in the top corner.	A hybrid that does not plug in is labeled as a gasoline vehicle.
Fuel economy	Combined mpg in large type, city and highway beside it.	Use combined. It weights city at 55% and highway at 45%.
Fuel consumption rate	Gallons per 100 miles, combined.	The fairest way to compare two cars (see below).
Comparison to other vehicles	The mpg range of the car's class, such as small SUVs, and the best MPGe of any new vehicle.	Shows where the car sits in its own class.
You save / You spend	Fuel cost over 5 years against the average new vehicle.	Read it with the fine print, which names the average.
Annual fuel cost	One year of fuel at the label's miles and price.	Recompute it with your own numbers (below).
Fuel Economy and Greenhouse Gas Rating	1 to 10, tailpipe only, 10 is best.	Compare cars of the same model year only.
CO2 emissions	Tailpipe grams of CO2 per mile, and the lowest of any vehicle.	Does not include emissions from making the fuel.
Smog Rating	1 to 10, tailpipe only, 10 is best.	About local air pollution, not climate.
Fine print	The miles and fuel price behind the cost numbers, and the average vehicle's mpg and 5-year cost.	The key to every dollar figure on the label.
QR code	Links to vehicle tools and information.	The same information is on fueleconomy.gov.
fueleconomy.gov	The web address, with "Calculate personalized estimates and compare vehicles".	Enter local prices and your own driving there.

The 2026 Fuel Economy Guide adds one more line you may see: cars with exceptionally low fuel economy owe a federal "gas guzzler" tax under the Energy Tax Act of 1978, and the label then shows the words "Gas Guzzler" and the tax amount. The tax does not apply to light trucks.

Why the sticker mpg and your own mpg can differ is covered on the MPG calculator page, together with the full-tank method to measure yours. This guide does not repeat it.

Where the annual fuel cost comes from

The label's dollar figures are not measured. They are calculated from the combined mpg and two assumptions that EPA sets. 40 CFR 600.311-12 gives the formula:

Annual fuel cost on the label

fuel price ÷ combined mpg × annual miles, rounded to the nearest $50

The two assumptions:

Miles per year. The fueleconomy.gov label pages say the label assumes 15,000 miles a year.
Fuel price. The label uses a projection from the US Energy Information Administration for the model year, updated each year. The sample labels on fueleconomy.gov and epa.gov use $3.70 a gallon and 12 cents per kWh, and say these are for illustration only. The real price on a given car is printed in its fine print, in the form "Cost estimates are based on … miles per year at $… per gallon".

For model year 2026, the Fuel Economy Guide from EPA and DOE bases its annual fuel cost estimates on 15,000 miles a year, 55% city and 45% highway, and $4.28 a gallon for regular, $5.31 for premium and $0.15 per kWh for electricity. Use the price in your car's own fine print when you check its label, because that is the number its dollar figures were built from.

Take a car rated 30 mpg combined that runs on regular. At the guide's 2026 assumptions:

30 mpg, 15,000 miles, $4.28 a gallon

$4.28 ÷ 30 × 15,000 = $2,140 → rounded to $2,150

The Fuel Economy Guide prices cars whose maker recommends or requires premium at the premium rate, so the same 30 mpg would show $2,650 at the guide's premium price. Two cars with the same mpg can carry different fuel costs for that reason alone.

Redo the fuel cost for how you drive

Swap in your own miles and your local price and the label's number changes, often a lot. Here is the same formula, without rounding, for four combined ratings and three example drivers. The first column is the label basis above, the other two are made-up drivers to show the spread.

Combined mpg	Label basis 15,000 mi at $4.28	Short commute 8,000 mi at $3.60	Long commute 22,000 mi at $4.60
25 mpg	$2,568	$1,152	$4,048
30 mpg	$2,140	$960	$3,373
40 mpg	$1,605	$720	$2,530
50 mpg	$1,284	$576	$2,024

The short-commute driver spends $960 a year on the 30 mpg car, well under the label. The long-commute driver spends $3,373. The gap between two cars grows with your miles too: moving from 30 to 40 mpg saves the short-commute driver $240 a year and the long-commute driver $843.

To get your own number, find your yearly miles from two odometer readings or service records, and your price from recent fill-ups. Then divide the price by the combined mpg and multiply by the miles. The cost per mile calculator takes the same fuel inputs and adds insurance, depreciation and the other costs of owning the car, which the window sticker does not cover. If you compare a car rated in L/100 km, the fuel economy converter turns it into US mpg first.

The "You save" or "You spend" line

This is the biggest dollar number on the label, and the one most often misread. It is not what you save against the car you drive now. 40 CFR 600.311-12 computes it like this:

Five-year line

average new vehicle's 5-year fuel cost − 5 × this car's annual fuel cost, rounded to the nearest $50

If the result is positive the label says "You save"; if negative, "You spend … more". The average is a gasoline vehicle at the mean fuel economy for the model year, and the fine print names it: "The average new vehicle gets … MPG and costs $… to fuel over 5 years."

The regulation's own reference example, for model year 2012, gives $12,600 for a 22 mpg vehicle at 15,000 miles and $3.70 a gallon. The formula reproduces it: $3.70 ÷ 22 × 15,000 × 5 = $12,614, rounded to $12,600. A 30 mpg car on those same assumptions costs $9,250 over five years, so its label would have said "You save $3,350".

To make the line your own, take the average mpg from your sticker's fine print and run both cars through the table method above with your miles and price. The difference in annual cost, times five, is your five-year figure. If you would keep the car longer or drive less, scale it.

Gallons per 100 miles: the box that compares fairly

fueleconomy.gov calls it the "MPG illusion": mpg is a poor scale for comparing savings because fuel use falls off a curve, not a line. Its example: going from 10 to 15 mpg saves about 33 gallons per 1,000 miles, while 30 to 35 mpg saves only about 5. The arithmetic: 1,000 ÷ 10 − 1,000 ÷ 15 = 33.3 gallons, and 1,000 ÷ 30 − 1,000 ÷ 35 = 4.8 gallons.

That is why the label also prints gallons per 100 miles. For the cars in the table above: 25 mpg is 4.0 gallons per 100 miles, 30 mpg is 3.3, 40 mpg is 2.5 and 50 mpg is 2.0. Subtract two of these and you see the fuel you save every 100 miles directly. The MPG calculator explains the same idea for liters per 100 km.

Electric and plug-in hybrid labels

The electric car label swaps gallons for electricity. Its boxes, per fueleconomy.gov:

MPGe, miles per gallon of gasoline-equivalent: the miles the car goes on electricity with the same energy content as a gallon of gasoline. It compares energy use across fuels.
kWh per 100 miles: the electricity used to go 100 miles. This is the number that turns into money.
Driving range: the approximate combined city and highway miles on a full charge.
Charge time: how long an empty battery takes to charge on 240-volt service. A standard 120-volt outlet takes longer.

The annual cost uses the same 15,000 miles and a projected electricity price. For a car using 30 kWh per 100 miles at the 2026 guide's $0.15 per kWh, that is 30 ÷ 100 × $0.15 × 15,000 = $675 a year. A driver who covers 12,000 miles and pays 22 cents per kWh would spend $792. The EV charging cost calculator handles home and public prices and charging losses, and the guide EV vs gas car: cost per mile compares the two with real 2026 ratings and state prices.

A plug-in hybrid label shows both modes: MPGe for driving on electricity and mpg for gasoline only once the battery is used up, separate consumption rates for electricity and gasoline, the all-electric driving range and the charge time.

Greenhouse gas and smog ratings

The Fuel Economy and Greenhouse Gas Rating scores tailpipe CO2 from 1 (worst) to 10 (best). For a gasoline car, one rating covers both, since CO2 follows fuel use directly. The scale is reset for each model year against that year's fleet, so a rating is only comparable within one model year. The mpg needed for a 10 shows how far it moved:

Model year	Rating 10 needs
2018 and 2019	44 mpg or more
2020	45 mpg or more
2021	53 mpg or more
2022	58 mpg or more
2023	72 mpg or more
2024	92 mpg or more
2025	121 mpg or more

So a 7 on a 2021 label and a 7 on a 2025 label stand for different mpg. For model year 2025, fueleconomy.gov lists 22 to 27 mpg as a 5 and 28 to 33 mpg as a 6.

The CO2 box gives the tailpipe grams per mile. It leaves out the emissions from producing the fuel or the electricity, which is why an electric car shows zero. The guide car CO2 emissions per mile and per trip covers the per-gallon figure, trips and the power grid's share, so it is not repeated here.

The Smog Rating is a separate 1 to 10 slider for pollutants that cause smog and local air pollution: nitrogen oxides, non-methane organic gases, carbon monoxide, particulate matter and formaldehyde. It is based on the emission standard the car is certified to, not on its mpg, so a car can rate low on greenhouse gas and high on smog, or the other way round.

Five checks before you sign

Match the car. The identification number on the label should match the car and the purchase papers.
Add the real total. Label total plus taxes, title and registration in your state, plus anything from a separate dealer sheet you agree to. Run that through the car loan calculator if you finance.
Read the fine print first. Note the miles, fuel price and average vehicle the cost figures use.
Redo the fuel cost. Your price ÷ combined mpg × your yearly miles, for each car you compare. For electric cars, kWh per 100 miles ÷ 100 × your price per kWh × your miles.
Compare like with like. Ratings only across the same model year, fuel use in gallons per 100 miles, and premium-fuel cars at the premium price.

Frequently asked questions

Is the destination charge on the window sticker negotiable?

The window sticker shows it because federal law requires the label to list any amount charged to the dealer for transporting the car. The law only covers what the label must show. It says nothing about what a dealer may or may not negotiate, so ask the dealer.

Can a dealer remove the window sticker?

Under 15 U.S.C. 1233, willfully removing, altering or making the label illegible before the car is delivered to the first buyer is an offense, with a fine of up to $1,000, up to one year in prison, or both, for each car. The manufacturer may relabel a car that was rerouted or taken back.

Why is the annual fuel cost on the sticker different from mine?

The label assumes 15,000 miles a year and one projected fuel price for the model year, both printed in its fine print. Your miles, your local price and your driving differ. Recompute it: your price ÷ the combined mpg × your miles a year.

What do the 1 to 10 ratings on the label mean?

The Fuel Economy and Greenhouse Gas Rating compares the car with all new vehicles of the same model year, based on tailpipe emissions. The Smog Rating covers pollutants that cause smog and local air pollution, based on the emission standard the car is certified to. On both, 10 is best.

Do pickups and large SUVs have the fuel economy label?

Not always. The 2026 Fuel Economy Guide says the light-duty fuel economy rules do not apply to SUVs and passenger vans over 10,000 pounds gross vehicle weight rating, or to other vehicles of 8,500 pounds or more, so those vehicles carry no fuel economy label.

Sources

Written by Tobias. Updated October 21, 2026.