Clutch Used Car Pricing Report

National Overview

The average used vehicle in Canada sold for $33,752 in August, 0.1% below July's $33,786 and 0.5% below a year earlier. That's the first time the average has sat below its year-ago level since March 2025. Sixteen months of annual gains came before it, and the largest of them, 7.9%, came in August 2025. This August is measured against that peak.

A half-point decline understates what changed. Used car inflation peaked last August. Since then, depreciation has been outrunning the shift to newer and larger vehicles, and in August it finally pulled the average below a year ago. To see it, stop comparing averages and compare vehicles.

Take the same model at the same age, a two-year-old CR-V against a two-year-old CR-V, and ask what happened to its price. In August 2025 that same-age vehicle was 4.2% more expensive than in August 2024, the top of a climb that crossed zero in April 2025 and ran straight through the summer. That premium, the extra the same vehicle cost over the year before, has since come out of the market one month at a time: the annual change shrank for twelve straight months, crossed zero in March, and in August 2026 the same vehicle is 2.2% cheaper than it was in August 2025. Between the two Augusts, the annual change swung six points.

So why did the headline take until August to cross zero? Because Canadians kept buying newer and larger vehicles every month of 2026, and in every month of 2026 that shift alone lifted the average by $450 to $1,030 in the comparison with a year earlier. It hid a falling market behind a flat number for five months. In August the falling market won.

The middle of the market shows it plainly. The median sale, the vehicle halfway down the list of every purchase in the country, went for $28,999, about $900 less than the $29,888 of a year ago. That's a 3.0% drop on the year against the average's 0.5%. The gap between the two is the shape of the market: the affordable half fell and the expensive half didn't.

For anyone shopping this fall, the practical version is this: the discount is real, it's concentrated at the affordable end, and it doesn't show in the headline.

Where did the decline come from? Mainstream brands account for $665 of the $742 that the same vehicle at the same age lost on the year, the like-for-like decline, and Nissan, Ford, Ram and Jeep are the largest contributors. Every age band shared in it: on the same basis, vehicles one to three years old fell 2.7%, four to six years old 2.8%, and seven to eleven years old 1.3%.

The economy around this was heading the other way. July's inflation reading jumped to 3.0% on a 26% year-over-year surge in gasoline prices, and on September 2 the Bank of Canada held its rate at 2.25% while warning that the risks now point up. Used vehicles cost less than they did a year ago, and compared at the same model and age, prices are below last August in every region.

The size of the decline, though, depends a great deal on which province.

Province by Province

Seven of ten provinces sit below their year-ago level, and the map shows where. Alberta's average fell to $36,621, down 3.5% on the year, tied with Newfoundland and Labrador for the weakest reading in the country. Manitoba was 2.9% lower. Newfoundland and Labrador was the cheapest province at $28,702, and British Columbia the most expensive at $37,430, now about $800 ahead of Alberta.

But the map understates how lopsided the year was. Weigh each region's price change by its share of the market and the national decline has one address.

Alberta alone took $193 off the national average on the year, more than the entire $158 decline. British Columbia took off another $54, Manitoba $34, Ontario $22, Saskatchewan $21. Quebec pushed the other way, adding $117 to the national average on the year, and Atlantic Canada another $14. Had Quebec merely stayed flat, the national average would be down about 0.8% instead of 0.5%.

Quebec's market is no firmer than the rest. Quebec's sticker, the average price actually paid, rose 1.9% on the year to $30,097 because Quebecers bought newer and pricier vehicles; compare the same model at the same age and Quebec fell 1.7% on the year, in line with everyone else. The same trick runs in Ontario, where a like-for-like decline of 1.8% on the year produced a sticker that barely moved, at $33,783. Ontario is 38% of the country's used sales and was the quiet middle of the month.

The table under the chart makes a second point. A year ago every region was posting like-for-like gains, from 1.8% in British Columbia to 5.1% in Quebec. This August every region is posting like-for-like declines, from 1.3% in Manitoba to 3.1% in Alberta. The premium built and unwound everywhere. It built least in British Columbia and unwound most in Alberta.

What set Alberta apart was time. Vehicles in Alberta took noticeably longer to sell than a year ago, the biggest slowdown of any region, and Manitoba was close behind. Quebec, the province whose prices held best, slowed the least of the large markets. The two regions that slowed most, Alberta and Manitoba, are the two where the average fell most. An Alberta buyer walking up to a vehicle that has sat on the market for weeks is negotiating with a seller who already knows it.

That link between selling time and price is the month's mechanism, and it's just as visible nationally.

Monthly Price Trend: The Fastest Market on Record, Then a Normal One

Start with the average itself, month by month.

On the sticker, the national average has spent twelve months inside the same narrow band, and August sits near the bottom of it. The level held steady while the comparison turned, because last year's average stayed high through September and October.

Underneath that flat line, the market changed speed.

Last August and last September were the two fastest-selling months in our records, and in both of them more than a third of vehicles were gone within two weeks of listing. This August fewer than three in ten were, and selling times were back to about where they stood in August 2024, before the squeeze began.

Every price band under $70,000 slowed by a similar amount, and so did every body style. When vehicles sit longer, sellers take less, and the like-for-like decline is what taking less looks like across nearly ninety thousand sales.

What's filling the shelf is newer vehicles.

Two-year-old vehicles, the 2024 model year, made up 16.8% of August's sales, up from 13.8% for the equivalent cohort a year ago and the largest shift of any age. They're a bigger part of the mix than buyers are absorbing: a two-year-old took longer to sell than a year ago, and a two-year-old SUV averaged $38,044, down from $41,092 a year ago.

The model-level numbers are blunt, and the Market Makers section below has them. If you're shopping near-new, the 2024 model year is where the discounts run deepest.

The wholesale market hasn't turned either. Canadian Black Book's weekly wholesale readings fell in every week of August, from a 0.34% decline in the week ending August 15 to a 0.16% decline in the week ending August 29, and wholesale leads retail by a couple of months.

One corner of the market did the opposite of all this.

Fuel Type: The Exception Is Electric

Used EVs were the only fuel type whose comparable prices rose on the year, and the only one that sold faster than a year ago. On a like-for-like basis EV prices were 1.2% above last August, while comparable gasoline vehicles fell 2.4% and hybrids 1.4%. The average EV sold for $42,069.

The composition of that market keeps shifting. Tesla accounted for 22.5% of used EV sales, down from 32.2% a year ago, and the Model 3, Canada's 24th best-selling used vehicle as recently as April, slid to 61st. Fewer than half of used EVs, 46.1%, sold under $35,000, down from 48.3% a year ago. The used EV bargain window that opened in the spring keeps narrowing, and buyers keep walking through it anyway.

Hybrids weren't the story either way: 6.5% of sales, selling times little changed from a year ago, comparable prices 1.4% cheaper on the year. One caution from south of the border: Manheim reported falling EV wholesale values in mid-August after months of gains. If that spreads north, the Canadian EV floor gets its first real test.

Back in the gasoline-powered majority, the mix keeps tilting one way.

Body Style

SUVs took 65.0% of used sales in August, a new high, while cars slipped to 20.7%, the lowest share in our records, and trucks held at 14.3%. That mix shift props up the average on its own, since the average SUV sells for about $8,350 more than the average car.

Strip the mix out and the three body styles didn't diverge at all. Same model, same age, cars fell 2.1%, SUVs 2.3%, trucks 2.2%. Because SUVs are two-thirds of the market, they carry $452 of the $742 like-for-like decline. Trucks carry the largest dollar drop per vehicle: the average truck sold for $46,952, about $1,500 less than a year ago, and roughly $1,100 of that is the same truck getting cheaper. The F-150 slipped from the country's best-selling used vehicle to third.

By region, SUV prices fell in six of seven regions and rose only in Atlantic Canada. Manitoba's SUVs posted the steepest decline at 5.7%, with Alberta's close behind at 5.0%. Trucks fell hardest in British Columbia and Ontario, down 4.1% and 4.0%. Cars fell in Saskatchewan (5.3%), Alberta (2.7%), Ontario (2.2%) and British Columbia (1.9%), and rose in Quebec (1.8%), Manitoba (1.3%) and Atlantic Canada (2.7%), where the cheapest cars in the country cost a little more than they did a year ago.

SUVs, trucks and most of the country's cars all got cheaper. Which buyers actually felt it?

Affordability: The Cheaper Half Got Cheaper

Split every August sale into price tiers and the answer is one-sided.

The relief went to the bottom of the market. The cheapest tenth of used vehicles sold for 4.5% less than a year ago, the lower quarter for 2.3% less, and the median sale for 3.0% less. From the upper quarter up, nothing moved at all: the 75th percentile was flat at about $41,000 and the top tenth was 1.1% higher. The eleven months of premium described at the top of this report came out of the affordable half of the market. Above the median the same vehicle got cheaper too, but what buyers paid held, which is consistent with buyers at that end moving to newer examples. The entry-level shopper this report kept telling to wait finally has something to show for it.

The traditional budget tiers show the same thing more gently. 22.4% of cars sold under $15,000, 21.2% of SUVs under $20,000 and 18.2% of trucks under $30,000, all within a point of July. Quebec remains the most affordable region on every measure, with 27% of its cars and SUVs and 23% of its trucks clearing those bars; British Columbia and Saskatchewan remain the hardest places to buy cheaply. Alberta's slowdown reached its trucks first: 15.0% sold under $30,000, up from 14.0% in July.

The models Canadians buy most tell the rest of the story.

The fifty best sellers are listed below, and almost all of them point the same way.

Who's number one now? The Nissan Rogue, up from third to the top of the list, ahead of the Honda CR-V and the Ford F-150, with the Toyota RAV4 and Honda Civic rounding out the five. Nearly every row shows an annual decline: CR-V down 5.4%, Civic down 4.7%, F-150 down 4.1%, Ford Escape down 8.0%.

Each row shows what buyers paid on average for that model, which is different from what the model is worth, so read the exceptions carefully. The Rogue's average rose 2.1% on the year, yet a Rogue of the same age is about $2,600 cheaper than last August, the largest genuine decline of any top-50 model. Its buyers shifted toward newer examples. The RAV4, up 6.2% to $33,016, is the rare model whose rise is real: a same-age RAV4 costs about $950 more than a year ago, for the third month running.

Eight vehicles explain the month better than fifty.

Market Makers

The Nissan Rogue is the two-year-old wave in a single model: Canada's new best seller, and a 2024 Rogue selling for 14% less than a 2023 Rogue did a year ago. The Jeep Compass and the Nissan Sentra show the wave reaching compact SUVs and budget cars, with two-year-olds down 12% and 11%. The Ford F-150 shows it reaching trucks: down about $1,000 at the same age on the year, 8% at two years old, and down from first to third in sales.

Two models resisted. A two-year-old Subaru Crosstrek sold for 4% more than a year ago, and the Toyota RAV4 held its price at two years old and gained at the same age overall, the third month in a row it has stood apart from the market.

The Dodge Grand Caravan carries the affordability thread: the steepest sticker decline in the top 50 at 11.9% on the year, and at $16,283 still the cheapest way into seven seats. And the Tesla Model 3 is the electric exception. Its average fell 9.5% on the year to $28,897, but a same-age Model 3 costs almost exactly what it did last August, and used EVs were the only fuel type to sell faster than they did a year ago.

The value tiers haven't thinned. Under $15,000, one in nine cars sold was a Hyundai Elantra, at an average of $11,626, with the Kia Forte ($11,490) and Chevrolet Cruze ($11,299) close behind. Among SUVs under $20,000, the Ford Escape led with 6.6% of the tier at $14,275, then the Hyundai Tucson at $14,499 and the Rogue at $15,014, and the Honda CR-V joined the tier this month at $17,307. Under $30,000, the Ram 1500 was the cheapest full-size truck at $21,942 and the F-150 the most popular, taking more than one in five sales in the tier at $25,258.

For the shopper at this end of the market, the percentile chart above is the one to remember: the cheapest tenth of the market is 4.5% cheaper than it was a year ago.

What to Watch

The annual decline widens without prices moving. September and October 2025 were higher still than August. If the average holds where it is, the year-over-year figure reads about minus 1% next month on arithmetic alone. The number to watch is the like-for-like decline, at 2.2%, and whether it keeps widening.

Does the two-year-old wave keep coming? The 2024 model year was 16.8% of August sales and still taking longer to sell. If that share keeps rising into the fall, near-new prices have further to fall. If it plateaus, the decline slows.

Selling times into the fall. Vehicles took about as long to sell in August as they did in August 2024. If selling times keep lengthening into the fall, the slowdown is still building; if they shorten back toward last year's pace, the market has cleared.

The EV floor versus American wholesale. Manheim reported falling EV wholesale values in mid-August. If comparable used EV prices in Canada turn negative in September, the floor story ends. If they hold while the under-$35,000 share keeps shrinking, the narrowing window becomes the fall's EV thread.

About This Data

This report is based on Clutch's internal data, collected from retail vehicle sales reported across Canada. The analysis includes vehicles that meet the following criteria:

• Model year 2016 or newer

• Less than 200,000 km at the time of sale

• Sold vehicles only

References to "cars" include both sedans and hatchbacks, while SUVs and trucks are categorized separately. This segmentation helps reflect real-world buyer preferences across different body styles.

While the dataset covers a large national sample, pricing in smaller provinces or regions with lower sales volume may be influenced by individual outliers. This can lead to greater month-over-month fluctuations in certain areas compared to larger markets like Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia.

The figures presented reflect average asking prices at the time of sale and are designed to provide an accurate snapshot of current market trends. Prior months are quoted as published in that month's report; the underlying series is revised as late sales arrive, so small differences from earlier reports are expected. Like-for-like figures compare the same model at the same vehicle age. Dollar figures weight each model and age by its August 2026 sales and are expressed against the year-ago average; percentage figures for a sub-group (a brand, body style, fuel type or age band) are the same-model, same-age change within that group. Where the report splits brands into mainstream and luxury, the luxury group is Acura, Audi, BMW, Cadillac, Genesis, Infiniti, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Tesla and Volvo.