🚗Car Depreciation Calculator

About this tool

Enter the car's price, pick a typical profile or set your own first-year and later depreciation rates, and choose how many years you'll keep it and your yearly mileage. You'll get the estimated value at the end, the total and yearly loss, depreciation per mile, and a year-by-year table.

How fast cars lose value

Depreciation is usually the biggest single cost of owning a car, larger than fuel, insurance or servicing for most new cars. Values typically fall 15–25% in the first year, as the car stops being new, and then around 10–18% a year. That means many cars are worth roughly half their price after four or five years. With the average profile (20% then 15%), a £32,000 car is worth about £13,400 after five years. That's a loss of roughly £18,600, or about £3,700 a year, which works out to about 37p per mile at 10,000 miles a year. Cars that hold value well (popular, reliable models in demand) lose less, while luxury cars and some older electric models have dropped faster. Buying a one- to three-year-old car lets the first owner absorb the steepest fall. Keeping a car longer spreads the loss over more years, so the yearly cost of depreciation falls. Honest limits: actual values depend on make and model, mileage, condition, service history, colour, specification, fuel type and market demand. Check valuation guides or dealer quotes for a specific car. Works in any currency. The car loan calculator, the EV vs gas calculator and the lease vs buy calculator are related.

Frequently asked questions