The Jetta is Volkswagen’s best-known model, with a history in the United States that stretches back 45 years. While some automakers have abandoned the sedan, the 2025 Jetta (like its competitors, the Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic, Kia Forte, and Hyundai Elantra) remains a cornerstone of the Volkswagen brand.
- What’s New for the 2025 Volkswagen Jetta
- Design
- Powertrain
- Interior
- Technology
- Safety
- Pricing and Release Date
- Further Research
What’s New for the 2025 Volkswagen Jetta
The 2025 Volkswagen Jetta arrives with a slight refresh and a lower starting price, at least in base trim. The new look isn’t so dramatic that the Jetta won’t be recognizable–this car has been scooting around the States since 1980, after all–and the noteworthy updates are mostly on the inside.
Design
German automotive design tends to hedge toward conservative, rather than revolutionary, and the updated 2025 Volkswagen Jetta is a fine example. The new Jetta features a lightly restyled front end and a new set of wheel designs, along with a couple of new paint colors–Monterey Blue Pearl and Monument Gray. Trim options in 2025 remain the same: S, Sport, SE, and SEL. On the top-tier SEL trim level, restyled headlights pair with a sleek lightbar that stretches across the bottom edge of the upper grille. At the rear, the new decklid looks great above Volkswagen’s full-width taillight, broken up only by the name “Jetta” spelled out at the middle.
Powertrain
The 2025 Volkswagen Jetta retains the same 1.5-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine, making 158 horsepower and 184 pound-feet of torque. The S trim’s standard six-speed manual transmission has been dropped from the 2025 Jetta lineup, leaving only the eight-speed automatic transmission. Fuel economy numbers haven’t been published, but given the carryover powertrain, we’d expect them to remain close to (if not identical to) the 2024 model’s EPA estimates of 29 mpg city, 40 highway, 33 combined in Sport, SE, and SEL trims (30/41/34 in S trim).
Interior
Every 2025 VW Jetta gets a new dashboard design featuring a standard 8-inch touchscreen display. Although still integrated into the dash, it sits a bit higher than before, giving it a floating look. Lower down the dash, Volkswagen is sticking with its polarizing Climatoronic Touch auto climate control interface. This system is backlit but exclusively uses capacitive touch-sensitive controls rather than physical buttons, dials, or switches.
A new Microcloud upholstery arrives on SE trim; the leatherette surface can be had in either Grey and Titan Black or Seawall Blue and Storm Grey color combinations. Beyond these, Volkswagen offers an impressive array of interior color combinations.
Technology
In addition to the aforementioned 8-inch touchscreen, Volkswagen has made more tech features standard on the Jetta’s SE trim level. These include SiriusXM satellite radio (subscription required), voice control, and a wireless charging pad equipped with integrated cooling to help keep phones from becoming too hot (a common problem).
Safety
The 2025 Volkswagen Jetta has not been evaluated by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) or the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). However, it sits atop the same MQB architecture as the 2024 model, which garnered 5 stars in overall rating from the NHTSA, but failed to earn either a Top Safety Pick or Top Safety Pick+ designation from the IIHS.
With the 2025 model, Volkswagen includes IQ.Drive as standard equipment. This suite of features includes many of the common inclusions like automatic emergency braking, blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, and adaptive cruise control, but it also includes Emergency Assisst, a less-common bit of tech that can provide semi-automated driving assistance in instances when the Jetta identifies a medical emergency.
Pricing and Release Date
The 2025 Volkswagen Jetta will be built at the company’s factory in Puebla, Mexico, and is expected to go on sale during late summer or early fall, 2024.
The 2025 Jetta arrives with a lower starting price than the 2024 model, with one caveat.
With an MSRP of $23,295 (including a $1,300 destination fee), the 2025 model undercuts the manual-equipped 2024 model by $65 ($23,360 including 2024’s $1,225 destination fee), but it’s more expensive than the now-eliminated manual-transmission-equipped configuration. Last year, that Jetta S with a manual cost only $22,600 (including destination).
So, while the outgoing Jetta could be cheaper, that’s only the case if it was equipped with the increasingly unpopular manual transmission. Additionally, the 2025 model gains a few features like the auto climate control and 8-inch touchscreen. Pricing has not been announced yet for the Sport, SE, or SEL trim levels, but we expect it to remain near or slightly above 2024 pricing.