Research study
Cars got bigger. Garages did not.
The garage side is worse than the headline: since 2015, new American garages have been getting smaller.
Written by HyreGarage Research Desk Primary-source research and data analysis
Audited by HyreGarage Research Desk Computation, unit discipline and retrieval-date audit
The finding
New vehicles got bigger while new garages lost bays. From EPA’s model year 2024 footprint file, the average track width across 14,802,875 vehicles is 64.5 inches, and 65.7% are light trucks. Census Survey of Construction data shows three-or-more-car garages peaked at 24% of new single-family homes in 2015 and fell to 15% by 2025.
What we found
We worked out both halves of this from federal data files instead of repeating what everyone says.
Vehicles. EPA’s model year 2024 footprint file covers 14,802,875 vehicles. Weighted by how many of each were built, the average maximum track width is 64.5 inches. Light trucks are 65.7 percent of production, at 65.4 inches average track and 53.9 square feet average footprint. Passenger vehicles are 34.3 percent, at 62.8 inches.
Garages. Census Survey of Construction parking data shows three-or-more-car garages peaking at 24 percent of new single-family homes in 2015. They fell to 15 percent in 2025. One-car garages went from 6 percent up to 10. Since 2015, new American garages have been getting smaller.
Track width is not vehicle width, and we never call it width. Track is the distance between the centers of the wheels. Every vehicle is wider than its track.
No federal dataset records garage dimensions. The Survey of Construction counts garages in cars, not feet. Together, the two datasets support one statement: the fleet has moved toward bigger, wider light trucks while new garages have moved back toward fewer bays.
What do these numbers measure?
Two of these are definitions of units, and they matter more than anything else on the page.
It is the distance between the wheel centers on one axle. The body hangs out past the wheels, and the mirrors hang out past the body. Do not use 64.5 inches to plan a garage opening. We publish track because EPA publishes it and measures it the same way every time.
EPA defines it as the area inside the four tires: track times wheelbase. It is a rule-making measure used to set fuel economy targets. It is useful for spotting trends, not for fitting a vehicle into a space.
The Census records one-car, two-car, three-or-more-car, carport or none. It records no measurement. A “two-car garage” in the data is the builder’s label, and builders’ labels are not standardized.
We looked: not the Survey of Construction, not the American Housing Survey, not the ACS. Any “standard garage size” you find is a habit, not a measurement, and we do not reprint one.
The Survey of Construction covers newly finished single-family homes. It shows what is being built now, not what most people have. Most existing garages are much older.
Our vehicle averages count each version by how many were built. A simple average across 2,085 model entries would give a niche sports car the same weight as a best-selling pickup.
How much bigger are vehicles? We did the math
Everyone knows cars got bigger. Few say so with a number tied to a file you can download, so we did that part.
EPA publishes a footprint data file for each model year as part of its Automotive Trends program. The model year 2024 file has 2,085 rows, one per maker, division, model line and version. Each row gives front and rear track width in inches, wheelbase, footprint area and the number actually built.
We took every row with both a track figure and a production count and weighted it by production: 14,802,875 vehicles, average maximum track width 64.5 inches.
Split by EPA’s categories, the story is less about cars getting wider and more about what Americans buy. Light trucks, which in EPA’s system include almost every SUV and crossover, total 9,725,908 units, 65.7 percent of production. They average 65.4 inches of track and 53.9 square feet of footprint.
Passenger vehicles total 5,076,967 units at 62.8 inches and 47.1 square feet.
Our figure matches EPA’s own summary closely, which is a good check. EPA puts trucks at 66 percent of new vehicles and cars at 34 percent for model year 2024. It notes that “[t]ruck SUVs alone now account for half of all new vehicle production”.
On direction, EPA is clear. Vehicle size, “measured as the ‘footprint’ or area enclosed by the four tires, has also been generally increasing since the EPA began tracking it in 2008.”
EPA also notes that from model year 2023 to 2024, average weight, horsepower and footprint “all fell slightly (less than 5%)”. That is a one-year dip in a long rise. We report it because we would want it reported to us.
HyreGarage analysis: the two-and-a-half-inch gap between light trucks and passenger vehicles is small on one vehicle and large across the fleet, because the mix changed.
Garages designed for a fleet that was two-thirds cars now serve a fleet that is two-thirds light trucks. Nobody rebuilt the garages. Use our garage size planner to check your own space.
Model year 2024, by category
Our computation from the EPA footprint file. Track is the larger of front and rear track for each version, weighted by production.
| Category | Production units | Share | Mean max track | Mean footprint |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Light trucks | 9,725,908 | 65.7% | 65.4″ | 53.9 sq ft |
| Passenger vehicles | 5,076,967 | 34.3% | 62.8″ | 47.1 sq ft |
| All | 14,802,875 | 100% | 64.5″ | — |
HyreGarage computation from the EPA model year 2024 footprint data file, retrieved 2026-09-06. Rows without both a track figure and a production count are left out. Track width runs wheel center to wheel center and is narrower than the body. EPA footprint is track times wheelbase, a rule-making measure rather than a usable dimension.
Which vehicles have the widest track?
The top of the track-width range, with production counts so you can see the scale. These are not concept vehicles. Tens of thousands were built.
| Model | Max track | MY2024 units |
|---|---|---|
| Ford F-150 Raptor 4WD | 74.6″ | 18,209 |
| Ram 1500 TRX 4x4 | 74.4″ | 5,122 |
| Ford F-150 Raptor R 4WD | 74.3″ | 5,064 |
| Ford Bronco Raptor 4WD | 73.6″ | 12,306 |
| GMC Hummer EV SUV | 73.6″ | 6,241 |
HyreGarage computation from the EPA MY2024 footprint file, retrieved 2026-09-06. Again, this is track, not width. A vehicle with a 74.6-inch track is noticeably wider across the body, and wider still across the mirrors. We publish no vehicle widths because EPA does not publish them.
New garages went the other way
Share of new single-family homes by parking type, from the Census Survey of Construction. Read the three-or-more column down from 2015.
| Year | 1-car | 2-car | 3 or more | Carport | Neither |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | 8% | 64% | 11% | 2% | 15% |
| 2000 | 7% | 65% | 17% | 1% | 11% |
| 2005 | 7% | 64% | 20% | 1% | 8% |
| 2010 | 6% | 63% | 16% | 1% | 13% |
| 2015 | 6% | 61% | 24% | 1% | 9% |
| 2020 | 6% | 67% | 18% | 1% | 7% |
| 2023 | 8% | 66% | 17% | 2% | 8% |
| 2024 | 9% | 65% | 15% | 1% | 9% |
| 2025 | 10% | 64% | 15% | 2% | 9% |
Percent shares as published. They may not add to 100 because of rounding. Years are our selection from the full yearly series, which starts in 1971. The two-car garage barely moves: it sat between 61 and 67 percent of new homes across this whole period.
What changed in 2015?
The three-car garage stopped growing and started shrinking. It rose steadily for two decades: 11 percent of new homes in 1992, 17 by 2000, 20 by 2005, and, after a dip in the housing crash, 24 percent by 2015.
Then it turned. By 2025 it was back to 15 percent, about where it was in 2000.
The one-car garage did the opposite. It fell from 8 percent in 1992 to 6 percent by 2010 and stayed there. Since 2015 it has climbed back to 10 percent, its highest share in this series since the early 1990s.
HyreGarage analysis, offered as possible causes, not a conclusion: we did not prove why. Several reasons fit the data. New houses may be getting smaller overall, with the garage shrinking to match. Lots may be getting tighter, especially in the metro areas where most homes are built.
Builders may be building more townhouses and small-lot homes, where a three-bay garage does not fit across the front. And building cost per square foot rose sharply in the same years. A garage bay is square footage that adds no bedroom.
What we can rule out is the vehicles. Whatever pushed garages down, it was not a fleet getting narrower. The fleet did the opposite, and EPA measured it.
Be careful about what “fewer bays” means for size. A 2025 two-car garage is not necessarily narrower than a 2015 one. It might be wider. We cannot tell you, because nobody measures it.
What we can say is that a house built today is much less likely to have a third bay than one built ten years ago.
The third bay is where the wide truck, the workshop and the storage used to go. For how garages have changed in new homes overall, see garages in new American homes.
Nobody measures garages
A federal dataset of garage sizes in feet would have made this page much more precise. We checked every likely source. None has one.
The Survey of Construction
It records the parking type on every new single-family home in detail: one-car, two-car, three-or-more-car, carport or none, national and by region, every year since 1971. It records no measurement of any kind. It is the best garage dataset there is, and it cannot tell you how wide one is.
The American Housing Survey
It records that parking exists and is precise about the edge case: a garage or carport “is only counted” when attached to the house. It mentions attached garages in its disaster-preparedness questions. No measurement, no door size, no opener.
The ACS and the census
They do not ask about garages at all. They cover year built, units in the building, rooms and vehicles, but nothing about the garage.
Building codes
They cover fire separation, exits and structure for garages. They set no minimum garage size, because a garage is not living space and the code has no reason to size one.
Parking rules
Some cities set minimum parking-space sizes for required off-street parking, which can limit a garage. These are local and they vary. A growing number of cities have dropped parking minimums entirely, which drops the measurement with them.
So where does “standard garage size” come from?
HyreGarage analysis: from builders, repeated until it sounds official. The usual figures describe what is typically built. They are not rules and not measurements. They may be fine starting points for planning. They are not standards, and no dataset backs them, which is why this page publishes none.
Will your vehicle fit? Check these six things
No published figure can answer this for your case, so measure. It takes about fifteen minutes.
The clear width between the side frames (jambs) of the door opening is the real limit, and it is narrower than the inside of the garage. Measure at the narrowest point. Measure the height too. Lifted trucks and roof boxes fail on height more often than people expect.
Makers publish width with mirrors folded and with mirrors out. The second figure is the one that matters when you ease through an opening. That is why the EPA track figure on this page is not the number to use.
You need room to open a car door, and room for what is stored along the walls. A vehicle that fits on paper with four inches each side is a vehicle you will scrape someday.
The overhead tracks, the opener rail and any low-headroom hardware cut into the height. If you are close, measure to the lowest point of the opener, not to the ceiling.
Widening a garage opening is structural work because it involves the beam above it (the header). It is a different job from replacing a door. Get it assessed before assuming a wider door fixes it.
A builder’s “two-car garage” is a label, not a measurement, and no dataset holds builders to one. Ask for the clear opening width and height on the building drawings.
What do the measurements mean?
- Track width
- The distance between the centers of the wheels on the same axle, reported by EPA for front and rear. It is the figure computed on this page. It is narrower than the vehicle: the body and mirrors are wider.
- Footprint
- EPA’s rule-making measure of vehicle size: the area inside the four tires, track times wheelbase, in square feet. It sets the fuel economy and greenhouse gas target a vehicle must meet.
- Light truck
- An EPA category that includes pickups, vans and most SUVs and crossovers. It is a regulatory label, not a shape, which is why it covers vehicles most people would call cars.
- Production-weighted mean
- An average where each version counts by how many were built. It is needed here because the EPA file lists 2,085 versions, built in numbers from a few hundred to hundreds of thousands.
- Parking facility
- The Census Survey of Construction field for what a new single-family home was finished with: a one-car, two-car or three-or-more-car garage, a carport, or none. Size in cars, never in feet.
- Clear opening
- The usable width and height of the garage door opening, between the side frames and under the lowest obstruction. No one publishes it. The only way to know it is to measure it.
What we could not find, and so did not write
Garage dimensions, from any source. This is the central gap, and it shapes every claim here. No federal dataset records how wide, deep or tall a garage is.
So we say nothing about whether a two-car garage has changed size, and we publish no “standard” figure. The page is about capacity and mix, which the data supports.
Vehicle width. EPA publishes track and wheelbase because they set footprint, which sets the fuel target. It does not publish body width or mirror width. We did not build those from maker specs. Doing it properly across a production-weighted fleet is a big job. Every vehicle figure here is track, labeled as track.
A long footprint time series. EPA says footprint has generally risen since tracking began in 2008, and we quote it. We computed only model year 2024 ourselves. Weighting every year back to 2008 would let us put a number on the rise. We have not done it.
Why the three-car garage turned down in 2015. The Census file shows that it did, and we can rule out the vehicles. The possible causes (house size, lot size, product mix, building cost) would each need their own dataset. We offer them as ideas, not findings.
Existing garages. Everything on the garage side is new building. Most American garages were built decades ago, to the habits of their time, and no survey has measured them. A page about whether your vehicle fits your garage can only end where this one does: go and measure it.
Questions
Have cars actually gotten wider?
Are new garages getting smaller?
What is the standard garage size?
How wide is the average car in 2024?
What is vehicle footprint?
Why did three-car garages become less common?
Will a full-size pickup fit in a two-car garage?
What share of new vehicles are trucks and SUVs?
Has the two-car garage changed?
Can I reproduce these figures?
Written and audited by
HyreGarage Research Desk
Primary-source research, data analysis and fact checking
We are not a garage door company. We read the agency file, the code record, the standards document or the public register ourselves, compute the figure from it, and publish it with the source and the date we retrieved it.
Where a number cannot be traced to a primary source, we publish the shorter page and say what we could not verify. Our own company records cover ten states; nothing national is ever derived from them.
- 10
- states our own company records cover — and the limit of any claim made from them
- 3,901
- garage door companies in the store
- 457
- license records verified against a state board
- 0
- national claims made from a ten-state store
How this desk works
- Primary sources only. Injury counts come from CPSC. Housing counts come from the Census file, not from a summary of it. Code history comes from the building commission that adopted the code. We do not cite an article that cites a source; we retrieve the source and do the arithmetic ourselves.
- Every figure carries its retrieval date. Registers change, datasets are revised and codes are amended. A number without the date it was read cannot be checked, so every study states one.
- Fact, calculation and analysis are labeled apart. A quote is a quote, a HyreGarage computation says so, and an interpretation says “HyreGarage analysis”. Presenting our reading of a dataset as something the agency stated would be the easiest way to lose the only thing this desk is for.
- Limitations go above the fold. If a figure is an upper bound, a bracket, or an association rather than a cause, that is said before the figure is quoted rather than in a footnote underneath it.
- No DIY instructions for spring, cable or track work. Those components hold enough stored energy to cause serious injury, and CPSC records the consequences. We describe what has failed and what a competent repair involves; we do not tell you how to do it.
Data as of EPA model year 2024 footprint data and Census Survey of Construction, retrieved 2026-09-06. Authorship on this site is organizational: the analysis belongs to the desk rather than to a named individual, and we do not publish credentials we do not hold.
Our editorial policy sets out how we source, date and correct what we publish.
Sources & retrieval dates
Door too narrow for what you park?
Measure the clear opening between the side frames, and the vehicle across its mirrors, before you ask for quotes. Widening an opening is structural work and a different job from replacing a door.
HyreGarage is not a garage door company and does not perform, supervise or warrant garage door work. The vehicle figures on this page are track widths, not vehicle widths, and must not be used to plan a garage opening.