GAP Refund Estimator
GAP is priced for the whole loan. Pay the loan off early, refinance it, or trade the car in, and the months you did not use were never earned. This tool puts a number on them two ways, tells you whether your state makes the lender send the refund on its own or only when you ask, names who to ask, and writes the request. In 13 states the refund is automatic. Everywhere else, the letter is the refund.
35 state statutes verified · 13 automatic Refund Estimator
Your GAP and your loan
The state on the retail installment contract. A bank or credit union GAP product may follow federal rules instead.
$
The single charge on the buyer's order or the GAP addendum, not what it cost with interest.
GAP normally runs the full loan term. If the addendum names a shorter term, use that.
The month of payoff, refinance, trade-in or repossession sale, counted from the first payment.
Unearned GAP charge
Pick a state
Refund is
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Who to ask
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Unearned premium, two methods
Straight pro rata
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unused months over term
Rule of 78s
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front-loaded, pays less
Select your state
The unearned charge is the share of the GAP price for the months the loan did not run. Straight pro rata is the fair figure. The Rule of 78s front-loads the earned share and is the floor some statutes allow. Which one you get depends on the state row and the addendum.
Both figures are computed on whole months and on the GAP price alone; the addendum may name a different term than the loan, and a cancellation fee comes off where the state or the contract allows one. The tool does not know whether a GAP claim was paid, which ends the refund in every state that addresses it. If the loan was still open when you asked, the refund is usually applied to the balance, not sent to you. Treat the figure as what to ask for and what to check the lender's arithmetic against, never as a quote. This is general information, not legal advice.
Frequently Asked Questions
Straight pro rata treats every month of the term as worth the same slice of the price, so the unearned share is simply the unused months over the total. The Rule of 78s weights the early months more heavily, on the theory that the risk of a gap between loan balance and car value is greatest early on, so the earned share is front-loaded and the refund is smaller. On a 72-month term paid off at month 24, pro rata leaves two thirds unearned and the Rule of 78s leaves a little under half. Where a statute names pro rata, or "at least as favorable as pro rata," the lender cannot use the smaller figure.
Automatic means the statute puts the duty on the creditor to refund without a request from you, usually within a set number of days after the loan ends. It does not mean the lender always does it. Colorado's attorney general has recovered more than $23 million from credit unions that did not, and the CFPB's 2023 order against Toyota Motor Credit was partly about GAP refunds that never went out. So send the letter anyway, with the statute cited, and if the deadline in the row passes, the complaint page is the next step.
Because we looked for a GAP waiver or debt cancellation refund statute and did not find one, or found only a line saying GAP is not insurance. In those states the addendum is the rule: most GAP waivers written to the industry model form promise a refund of the unearned charge on early termination, on request within 90 days. Read yours for the cancellation paragraph, and treat the figures above as the arithmetic to hold the lender to. The by-state table says what was read for each state.
Usually the creditor that holds the loan, which may direct the GAP administrator or the dealer to send it. Statutes that say "the creditor shall provide, or cause to be provided" are putting the duty on the lender even if someone else cuts the check. If the loan was still open, the refund is applied to the balance. If it was paid off, it should come to you. Our page on who actually owes the refund walks through the names on the paperwork.
Yes. A refinance pays the original loan in full, and the GAP waiver attached to that loan terminates with it, which is the trigger in every statute that sets one. The new loan has no GAP unless you buy it again. The same is true of a trade-in, where the dealer's payoff ends the loan, and of a repossession sale. Our page on when a GAP refund is owed covers each trigger and the total-loss case, which is the one where nothing is owed.