How Much Do You Need to Earn to Afford a Jetour in Jamaica?

A man I know walked into a dealership in Kingston on a Saturday morning with a printout of his payslip folded in his back pocket. He had worked out, on the back of a receipt the night before, that he could handle something around JMD $50,000 a month. The salesman never asked to see the payslip. He asked what colour.

That is the whole problem with buying a car in Jamaica. The showroom is built to grab your attention, and the salesperson is there to convince you. Before going to that showroom, there's a question you need to answer. Can I actually afford this car with my salary? Nobody at the showroom is going to say, "The car payment shouldn't be eating away 60% of your salary".

So I did what this website exists to do. I took the six Jetour models being sold in Jamaica right now, took the monthly payment Jetour Jamaica publishes for each one, AND calculated how much you need to earn to reasonably afford one. Then I went into our own salary database and found a real job, at a real Jamaican employer, that earns it.

The prices and monthly payments here were read off jetourja.com on 19 October 2026. The salaries are from our database as at the same date, and every salary figure in this article is a year's pay, before tax. The car figures are in Jamaican dollars unless I say otherwise.

Note Well: The monthly payments shown on the Jetour Jamaica appear to use an interest rate of around 7.75%

What Is The 30 Percent Rule?

Here is the rule this entire article runs on: your monthly car payment should be more than 30% of your gross monthly pay. Some will say 30% is too high, while others will say it's too low and that's fine. This figure was chosen while considering mandatory deductions taken from a Jamaican salary and other possible expenses.

Thirty per cent is the ceiling, not the target. It is the line past which a car stops being transport and starts being a second job. Below it you have room for insurance, licensing, fitness, fuel, a set of tyres and the week your alternator decides it has had enough😥. Above it, you are one unexpected bill away from borrowing money to keep your car going.

Turning that into a salary is simple arithmetic. Multiply the monthly payment by twelve to get the annual figure, then divide by 0.3. A JMD $48,000 monthly payment needs JMD $1,920,000 a year. That is the whole method, and you can use it on any dealer in Jamaica, not just this one.

Note well: Jetour publishes a monthly figure but not the term or the interest rate. A monthly payment on a dealer's website is an illustration, and a longer term makes any car look affordable while quietly costing you more. The first question at the counter is not "what is the monthly", it is "over how many years, at what rate".

What Does Each Jetour Actually Cost Per Month?

Six models, cheapest first, with the salary each one demands at the 30% ceiling.

- X50, Price: JMD $3,990,000 (about USD $25,100). Monthly JMD $48,000. You need to earn JMD $1,920,000 a year (about USD $12,100).

- Dashing, Price: JMD $5,790,000 (about USD $36,500). Monthly JMD $69,000. You need to earn JMD $2,760,000 a year (about USD $17,400).

- T1, Price: JMD $6,490,000 (about USD $40,900). Monthly JMD $78,000. You need to earn JMD $3,120,000 a year (about USD $19,700).

- T2, Price: JMD $8,790,000 (about USD $55,400). Monthly JMD $106,000. You need to earn JMD $4,240,000 a year (about USD $26,700).

- F700, Price: JMD $12,490,000 (about USD $78,700). Monthly JMD $150,000. You need to earn JMD $6,000,000 a year (about USD $37,800).

- G700, Price: JMD $12,990,000 (about USD $81,800). Monthly JMD $156,000. You need to earn JMD $6,240,000 a year (about USD $39,300).

Jetour also lists a duty concession price on four of them, which is lower: the X50 at JMD $3,740,000, the Dashing at JMD $5,450,000, the T1 at JMD $6,150,000, and the T2 at JMD $8,350,000. That price is not for everybody. Concessions run through categories, for example, certain public officers. If you do not qualify for a concession, then you get the regular rate.

One more thing the salesperson will not lead with. The X50, the G700 and the F700 are listed as left-hand drive. We drive on the left in Jamaica, which means the steering wheel on three of these six is on the kerb side of the car, and your overtaking view is whatever your front passenger feels like describing. 🙃 Some people genuinely do not mind. Find out which person you are before you sign, not after(do a test drive).

Which Job Gets You Into The Cheapest One?

The X50 asks for JMD $1,920,000 a year. In our database, a Web Developer at Island Routes is reported to have earned JMD $ 2,300,000 in 2024. That amount fits our criteria of the monthly payment being no more than 30% of gross annual income.

That tells you something uncomfortable, so let me say it plainly. A Police Constable in the Jamaica Constabulary Force earned JMD $1,716,000 a year(in 2024). That is JMD $204,000 short of the cheapest Jetour on the lot. Thirty percent of a constable's monthly pay is about JMD $42,900, against a JMD $48,000 payment. The gap is small. It is also the difference between a car that fits and a car you are quietly subsidising out of lunch money every month for five years.

Go one step down, and the floor drops away. A Registered Nurse at NERHA is reported at JMD $1,116,000(2024)** and a Teacher at St Hilda's Diocesan High School at JMD $1,308,000(2024). Thirty percent of that teacher's monthly pay is about JMD $32,700. The cheapest car in this showroom costs JMD $48,000 a month. There is no model on this page for them, and pretending otherwise with a seven-year loan is how people end up handing a car back.

**Note Well: Some of these government salaries were reported before the salary restructuring. If you are curious about the restructuring exercise, you can check out our Goj Public Sector Salary Vs Inflation Report.

Note well: every one of those is a single report of one job at one employer, not the national rate for the title. A Registered Nurse at the University Hospital of the West Indies is reported at JMD $2,748,000(2024), which is more than double the NERHA figure for the same job title. Where you work is a bigger variable than what you do.

Who Can Afford The Dashing And The T1?

The Dashing needs JMD $2,760,000. That is, to the dollar, what a Client Service Officer at the Jamaica Customs Agency(2024) earns. Again, exactly on the line, which happens more often than you would think once you start running this maths.

And it produces the cruellest near miss in the whole dataset. That Registered Nurse at the University Hospital of the West Indies, on JMD $2,748,000, is JMD $12,000 a year short of the Dashing. One thousand dollars a month. She clears the X50 with real room to spare, and she misses the next car up by a slim margin.

The T1 needs JMD $3,120,000, and a Pharmacist in the Ministry of Health is reported at exactly JMD $3,120,000(2024). A pharmacist, a customs officer, and a web developer walk into a showroom and walk out with three different cars, each one sitting precisely or near the ceiling. If you want a single sentence for what a Jamaican professional salary buys in 2026, that is it.

What About The T2?

The T2 requires JMD $4,240,000. For the government, this is roughly where the senior technical and managerial grades of the Jamaican statutory bodies sit.

A Manager of Customer Care at Jamaica Post(2026) is reported at JMD $4,266,270 (about USD $26,900). This allows them to buy the T2 with JMD $26,270 to spare. Also, a Senior Human Resource Officer at the National Fisheries Authority(2026) and a Compliance and Enforcement Officer at the National Environment and Planning Agency(2026) are all earning the same JMD $4,266,270. This is because they are all on the same government scale point.

That is the T2's real buyer in Jamaica. Not an executive. A section head in an agency.

Who Is Driving The G700 And The F700?

Now the flagships, and they are genuinely absurd machines. Both the G700 and the F700 are plug-in hybrids quoting 904 horsepower, 900 mm of wading depth, and a Tank Turn🤯. The G700 carries a 35.4-inch digital cockpit, which is wider than some of the televisions I grew up watching😂.

The F700 needs JMD $6,000,000 a year. The nearest figure in our data is a Front End Developer at TFOB/Lynk(2023) at exactly JMD $6,000,000. Just above it is a Vice President of Security and Safety at the Port Authority of Jamaica on JMD $6,036,771.

The G700 needs JMD $6,240,000. A Minister of State in the Government of Jamaica is reported at JMD $6,283,262, which clears the G700 by JMD $43,262 a year. A junior minister of government can just about put a G700 on the road at 30 percent of gross. A Cabinet Minister at JMD $7,208,668 can do it comfortably.

So can a school principal. A Principal at Bridgeport High School is reported at JMD $9,172,508, which clears the flagship by a wide margin. Some teachers cannot reach the cheapest car on the page. Same building, same ministry, same students, two completely different showrooms.

The people at the top are not in the 'showroom at all'. Antony Anderson, now Chief Executive Officer of the National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority, earns JMD $40,000,000. A government statement confirmed that he gets an assigned motor vehicle. Christopher Zacca at Sagicor Group Jamaica earns a base salary of USD $650,291, which is around JMD $103,000,000. At that level, nobody runs the 30 percent calculation, because the car is a part of the compensation package rather than a loan on a payslip.

Is A New Car Even Worth It?

I have spent this whole article telling you what you cannot afford, so let me be fair about what you are buying.

Jetour quotes 8 years or 300,000 km of warranty and three years or 42,500 km of free servicing on every model here. That matters more in Jamaica than the brochure makes it sound. On a used import, you are the warranty, and a gearbox on a used car is a 5 or 6 figure surprise. 8 years of cover turns the biggest unknown in car ownership into a known monthly number, and a known number is the thing you can actually plan around.

The rest of the case for new is unglamorous and real. You know the full service history because you wrote it. Current airbags, current brakes, current driver assistance, in a country where the road will test all three. Financing on a new car from a franchise dealer is usually cheaper than financing a used one, because the bank is lending against something it can value. And a new car does not spend its first six months revealing what the last owner was hiding.

The case against is just as real: a new car loses value fastest in its first two years, and you are the one paying for that. Both things are true. Buy new because you want the warranty and the certainty, not because it is the clever financial move.

One of the biggest barriers to entry for a new car used to be price. With the entry of Chinese brands like Jetour, new cars now cost around the same or LESS than used cars. Also, these new cars are being sold 'fully loaded' with features that you were once forced to pay more money for.

What Should You Actually Do With This?

1. Run your own 30 percent number before you walk in. Gross monthly pay times 0.3 is your ceiling. Write it in your notes app. On JMD $3,120,000 a year, like that Ministry of Health pharmacist, your ceiling is JMD $78,000, and the T1 is the top of your list, not the middle of it.

2. Budget the payment at 25 percent, not 30. Thirty is the ceiling, and ceilings don't need to be hit. The five points you leave on the table cover insurance, licensing, fitness, and the first set of tyres(once you drop in a few potholes🙁), none of which the monthly payment includes.

3. Ask for the term, and interest rate in writing. A JMD $48,000 monthly payment means nothing until you know the term. Compare the total you will have paid at the end, not the monthly. The term for most new cars is 10 years.

4. Check the concession before you count it. Four of these six have a lower duty concession price, as much as JMD $440,000 off on the T2. Ask which concession applies to you specifically, and get the answer from the dealer rather than from a 'bredrin'.

5. Make a down payment if you can. A down payment reduces your monthly payment. This can be the difference between paying 48,000 and 38,000.

6. Sit in the left-hand-drive ones before you decide. The X50, G700, and F700 are listed as left-hand drive. Drive one, overtake something on a two-lane road in daylight, and then make up your mind.

7. Look up your own job on this site first. If your title is not there, or the only figure for it is from one employer, add yours.

How I Calculated These Figures?

Prices, duty concession prices, and monthly payments were taken from Jetour Jamaica's own model pages on jetourja.com on 19 October 2026, for the X50, Dashing, T1, T2, F700 and G700. Jetour notes that prices are subject to change, and the F700 is still listed as arriving this summer, so confirm anything here with the dealer before you plan around it.

The salary required for each model is the published monthly payment multiplied by twelve, divided by 0.3. No other assumption goes into it. I have not modelled interest, deposit, term, insurance or fuel, because Jetour does not publish the first three and the last two are not a car payment.

The salaries come from the CaribSalaries database, and they are of three kinds. A published government pay scale is read off the scale itself; where the scale gives a band rather than a point, the stored figure is the midpoint of that band and the note on the page says so. An advertised range is stored at the bottom of the range, so nothing here flatters anybody. A submitted report is stored exactly as it was reported. Where a company and role have more than one report, the figure shown is the median; where there is one, the page says "1 report" and so do I. Monthly and weekly figures are annualised for display, and the stored row is never changed.

US dollar conversions use the rate cached on the site on 19 October 2026, JMD $1 to USD $0.0062989, which is about JMD $158.76 to the dollar. Nothing in this article is estimated, modelled or inferred from a comparable market. Every salary is a figure somebody published or somebody reported, and every car figure came off the manufacturer's own Jamaican website.

Note well: several of these titles rest on a single report from a single employer. That is a figure, not a national average, and the gap between the two Registered Nurse figures in this article, JMD $1,116,000 and JMD $2,748,000, is the clearest warning I can give you about treating one report as the rate for a job.

This is the first in a series. I am going to run the same arithmetic on every major dealer in Jamaica, one at a time, until you can look up any car on any lot and know within ten seconds whether it fits your payslip. Tell me in the comments which dealer you want next and I will do that one first.

Spread The Word

The reason I could name a Pharmacist at the Ministry of Health and a Client Service Officer at the Jamaica Customs Agency in this article is that the figures exist. The reason I could not name a Police Superintendent is that nobody has added one yet.

If your job is missing, or the only figure for it is somebody else's employer, [add your salary](https://caribsalaries.com/submit). It takes about three minutes, it is completely anonymous, and nothing identifying ever appears on the site.

And if this was useful to you, send it to the person you know who is about to walk into a showroom with a folded payslip and no number in their head. That is the person this was written for.