Car Depreciation Calculator

Car Depreciation Calculator for new and used cars. It projects resale value from the price you paid, car age, class and yearly miles, and shows how much less a used car would lose.

Estimate Resale With the Car Depreciation Calculator

The Car Depreciation Calculator projects what your car will be worth when you sell it. It starts from the price you paid, the car’s age and its vehicle class, then adjusts for how far you drive each year. It shows the value lost in total, per year and per mile.

New-car buyers use it to see what the first owner’s drop really costs. Used-car shoppers use it to find the age where a car stops losing value so fast. Owners use it to check what their car should be worth before trading it in.

A Curve Built From Real Resale Data

Each class starts from its five-year loss in the iSeeCars 2026 study. That study covered more than 950,000 five-year-old cars sold from March 2025 to February 2026. The average across all vehicles was 41.8%.

A new car loses the most in its first 12 months, so the tool applies a separate first-year drop, 20% by default. It then finds the steady yearly rate that lands exactly on the class’s five-year loss.

$$r = 1 – \left(\frac{1 – L_5}{1 – D_1}\right)^{1/4}$$

In this formula, L₅ is the five-year loss and D₁ is the first-year drop, both as decimals. With 41.8% and 20%, the rate after year one works out to 7.6% a year.

$$V = (1 – D_1)(1 – r)^{\,\text{age} – 1}$$

V is the share of the new price left at any age past one year. A $40,000 car keeps 80% after year one, then loses 7.6% of its remaining value each year. At the average mileage it would be worth $23,280 at age five.

The first-year drop must be smaller than the five-year loss, or the math would need the car to gain value in later years. The tool rejects that combination, along with a five-year loss outside 1% to 90%.

Why the First-Year Setting Changes Timing, Not the Total

Sources disagree on the first-year drop. Kelley Blue Book puts it at 16%, and many guides quote 20%. Because the curve is pinned to the iSeeCars five-year figure, changing this input does not change the five-year value.

On the default car, a 16% first-year drop means $6,592 lost in year one. At 23.5% the year-one loss grows to $9,682. The value after five years stays $22,778 either way, and only the timing of the loss shifts.

That matters most when you sell early. Someone trading in after one or two years should set the first-year drop carefully, because nearly all of their loss sits in that window.

How Mileage Shifts the Loss

Every year’s loss is scaled by how far you drive compared with 13,500 miles, the U.S. average used by the Department of Transportation. The default adds 2% to the loss for each 1,000 miles above that mark and takes 2% off for each 1,000 below.

$$m = 1 + \frac{k}{100} \times \frac{M – 13{,}500}{1{,}000}$$

In this formula, k is the percent per 1,000 miles and M is your yearly mileage. The 2% default is on the low end of AAA’s 2025 figures. Those showed 5,000 extra miles a year raising yearly depreciation by 1.9% to 3.1% per 1,000 miles, depending on the class.

At 15,000 miles a year, the default car loses an extra $502 over five years. Drop to 7,500 miles and it keeps about $2,006 more. At 25,000 miles it loses about $3,846 more and sells for roughly $19,434.

Mileage is accepted from 0 to 100,000 a year. At extreme totals the added loss can use up the whole value, and the tool shows $0 with a warning, since real cars rarely resell for nothing. Driving 60,000 miles a year for ten years reaches that point on the default car.

Models That Hold Value Best and Worst

Class averages hide wide gaps between models. The iSeeCars 2026 study measured these five-year losses. Enter a model’s figure as a custom “Class Five-Year Value Loss” to run the tool for that car.

A percentage tells only part of the story. iSeeCars found the Range Rover’s 61.7% loss equals about $69,856, while the Nissan LEAF’s steeper 63.1% is about $17,743. That is why the tool always shows the dollar loss next to the share.

Buying Used to Skip the Steepest Drop

The fourth card prices the same model bought three years older and kept for the same time. At the defaults, that car would cost about $27,294 and lose $9,224 over five years. The new car loses $17,222, so buying three years old saves about $7,997 in lost value.

When “Car Age When Bought” is above zero, the tool skips the first-year drop and starts at the matching point on the curve. The price you enter should be what you paid for that used car, not its original sticker price. The tool works backward from your price to estimate the new price.

An older car also has less warranty left and may need more repairs. The Car Total Cost Of Ownership Calculator weighs those running costs against the smaller loss in value.

Inputs That Distort the Estimate

Entering an out-the-door price that includes sales tax and fees inflates the loss. Resale value never includes the tax you paid. Use the vehicle price alone, which the Out the Door Price Calculator separates from tax and fees.

Comparing the result with a dealer’s trade-in offer is another trap. iSeeCars measures used-car asking prices, which run higher than trade-in offers. AAA’s 2026 figures imply a 56% five-year loss on trade-in, so enter that if you plan to trade the car in.

Leaving the age at zero for a demo or program car also overstates the loss. These cars often have a year of use and several thousand miles already. Setting the age to 1 skips the new-car drop the first owner already took.

What Drives a Car’s Resale Value

How much does a car depreciate each year?

Kelley Blue Book’s average curve shows a new car losing 16% in year one, 12% in year two, 11% in year three, 9% in year four and 7% in year five. That leaves about 45% of the original value.

The iSeeCars 2026 data is gentler, with the average car keeping 58.2% after five years. Used-car demand pushed values up across every segment that year. The tool uses the iSeeCars figures because they come from recent sales.

Is it cheaper to buy a car that is a few years old?

In lost value, usually yes. On a $40,000 new car kept five years, the default curve loses $17,222. The same model bought three years old and kept five years loses about $9,224, because the first owner took the steep early drop.

The savings shrink as you go older. A car bought seven years old loses about $6,711 over five years, only $2,513 less than one bought at three. Older cars also bring more repairs and less warranty.

Do electric cars really lose value faster?

On average, yes. iSeeCars found EVs lost 57.2% in five years, against 41.8% for all vehicles and 35.4% for hybrids. Its 2026 study noted that EV depreciation barely improved, while every other segment held more value than in 2025.

On a $40,000 EV, the tool’s EV preset gives a five-year value of about $16,434. That is roughly $6,300 less than an average car at the same price.

What happens to depreciation if my car is totaled?

An insurer pays what the car was worth just before the crash, not what you paid. On a financed car, the depreciated value can fall below the loan balance, especially in the first two years.

The Total Loss Calculator estimates that payout. The GAP Coverage Calculator shows whether it would cover what you still owe. The Auto Loan Calculator shows how fast your balance falls, so you can compare it with the value curve here.