The Average Income Of A Car Salesman In The United States

According to the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) 2024 full-year report, sales of light vehicles — typically any vehicle under 10,000 pounds, including trucks — totaled 15.9 million units. Thanks to the work of car salespeople at 16,957 franchised dealerships, 2024 saw $1.2 trillion in sales in the U.S., with Nevada, California, and Florida averaging the most in total sales per dealership. If nothing else, this proves how skilled the average car salesperson is at their job, especially when you consider the average cost of owning a car in Florida and that California is one of five states where auto insurance rose the fastest in the same year. In 2024, NADA estimates there were 1,122,117 employees at car dealerships across the U.S., with new and used car salespeople making up 18% of those positions.

According to ZipRecruiter, salespeople across all categories in the U.S. earn an average of $81,617 per year, with higher earners making as much as anywhere from $142,500 to $154,500 annually. As a general average salary, this amount is impressive, but when it comes to specific categories of sales, like vehicles, that average might change. To understand how much car salespeople make, you need to look at factors such as what the job entails, as well as the benefits and challenges of selling a vehicle to customers who want the best deal for themselves at the expense of a salesperson's commission. 

In order to be good at the job, the average car salesperson needs to be a "people person" who knows how to manage customers and work with other people in the dealership. The sneaky ways car dealers trick you into spending more money can be understandable from the perspective of a salesperson earning their salary by commission. While upper mobility isn't necessarily something a salesperson can expect at a franchised dealership, there may be potential for management opportunities that can also raise their income. Salespeople need to be available when their potential customers are available, which may mean working late on weeknights or working on holidays and weekends.

That said, there may just be days where no customers come knocking, and sometimes, that can be impacted by economic forces beyond any salesperson's ability to counter. For example, President Trump's tariffs threatened to make some American cars more expensive, and as per a May 2025 story by NBC News, has led to less inventory on the sales floor of dealerships to sell to consumers. In April, the proposed tariffs led a popular car manufacturer to stop production in the U.S., which for an inventory, commission-based job, isn't good.

According to the National Automobile Dealers Association, in 2024, the average weekly earnings of employees at light-vehicle dealerships was $1,571. If you multiply that by 52 weeks, you get a total of $81,692. As with sales, this number rises or dips depending on the state, with New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Massachusetts representing the highest paid states for car salespeople earning between $1,800 to $1,841 — or around $93,600 to a high of $95,732 — per year. While the NADA data doesn't differentiate between sales people and general employees, according to Indeed estimates updated in June 2025, car salespeople earn an average $84,967 per year, which is not too far off from the 2024 estimate. On the high end for the same period, indeed estimates a potential $166,586 in annual earnings for top salespeople.

Aside from sales and people skills, you don't need more than a high school employment or GED to do this work, easily making it one of the highest paying jobs you can do without a college degree. Even so, dealerships of foreign vehicles like Porsche and Audi have seen a pause in shipments of new vehicles, which makes it questionable how practical it will be for salespeople in this industry to remain in these jobs if shipping and production doesn't pick up. However, this might be a used car salesperson's market since more American consumers are buying used vehicles to dodge Trump tariffs and save money.