In the first half of 2026, China exported 325,000 used cars, a year-on-year increase of 61%; the export value was US$7.6 billion, a year-on-year increase of 54%. The export of used cars in 2026 is switching from competing for prices and exploiting loopholes to competing for rules and services.

1. Total volume: 325,000 vehicles, with the growth rate shifting

Exports in the first quarter were 128,000 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 103%; in the second quarter, 197,000 vehicles, and the growth rate dropped back to 42%. Has the growth rate halved in the second quarter? No-it had nearly 70,000 more vehicles than in the first quarter. The decline was due to the fact that the base was too high by 0-kilometer cars in the same period last year. Looking at it in a long way: in 2020, the country's second-hand car exports will only be 4,300, in 2024, 436,000, and in 2025, 746,000 (including a large number of quasi-new cars). After squeezing out water this year, 600,000 to 700,000 vehicles are expected for the whole year.

2. The 180-day red line: Please remove the 0-kilometer car

The biggest variable this year is the "Notice on Further Strengthening the Management of Used Car Export" that came into effect on January 1 (jointly issued by the Ministry of Commerce and other four departments). Core one: Vehicles that are exported less than 180 days away from registration must submit the vehicle company's "After-Sales Maintenance Service Confirmation Form", otherwise no license will be issued. This red line cuts off the most profitable and chaotic business in the past few years-customs declaration of new cars that have just been rolled off the production line but have not yet been on the road to sea as second-hand cars, bypassing the overseas authorization of the main engine factory for low-cost dumping. The effect is written in the structure: the proportion of quasi-new cars registered for less than 180 days has dropped to less than 9%; real used cars 3 to 5 years old account for 64%; and 5 to 8 years old account for 27%. In the industry, it is not an exaggeration to call 2026 the first year of real used car exports. Concentration is also increasing: there were more than 2800 registered export enterprises across the country, with 426 new ones in the first half of the year, but the top ten export value has already accounted for 50% of the trade volume.

3. New energy: +196%, a real new engine

In the first half of the year, new energy used vehicles exported accounted for 31% of the total, a year-on-year increase of 196%(nearly three times last year); the average FOB price of a bicycle was about 30% higher than that of a fuel vehicle, and the gross profit could reach 1.5 times that of a fuel vehicle. The structure is divided into three layers: micro pure electricity (Hongguang MINIEV, BYD Dolphin) accounts for more than half, mainly sold in Central Asia and Southeast Asia; hybrid (Qin PLUS, Song PLUS) accounts for 33%, booming in the Middle East and Kazakhstan; high-end pure electricity (Ideal, Tesla) accounts for 15%, flowing to United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan. Two pivots: first, product power-the three-year-old BYD Yuan PLUS sells for 80,000 yuan in Africa and has a battery life of more than 400 kilometers. Japanese used cars at the same price may not even have a reversing image; second, the vehicle source pool-According to the Ministry of Public Security, as of the end of June 2026, the number of new energy vehicles in the country (including 33.675 million pure electricity), while the replacement cycle for young people is only 2 to 3 years.

4. Export map: Four major sectors and three key points

The top ten markets account for 78% of the total, with the top three being Russia with 61,000 vehicles (18.8%), Nigeria with 43,000 vehicles (13.2%), and Kyrgyzstan with 30,000 vehicles (9.2%). The three key logics are different: Russia is the largest single market, importing 75,000 used passenger cars from China from January to August, almost doubling; Nigeria is the first target market, with annual demand for imported used cars of about 1 million, and second-hand heavy trucks Youwang has exported more than 3600 units in the first four months of 2026; the United Arab Emirates is both a terminal market and a transit hub for the Middle East and East Africa. West Africa is the most active growth pole-Ghana had 14,000 vehicles in the first half of the year, a growth rate of over 290%. There is another change worth noting: exports have shifted from betting on a single market to blooming at multiple points-the top ten markets are distributed in four major sectors, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, and policy fluctuations in any market are no longer fatal.

Conclusion: From walking out to walking in

The annual global trade volume of used cars is about 6 million to 7 million units, Japan alone exports about 1.7 million units a year, and the European Union 1.5 million to 2 million units. After China squeezed out water this year, its share was less than one-tenth of the global market. There is obvious room for growth. But turning space into profit does not rely on copying low prices again, but on making testing standards, preparation quality, and overseas after-sales sales solid. In 2019, there were only 4300 vehicles in the whole year at the time of the pilot, and 325,000 vehicles in the second half of seven years. The real watershed is not scale, but who can turn a one-time transaction into a long-term service relationship. Three judgments for practitioners: there is a high probability that the total growth rate will remain above 40%; the proportion of new energy is expected to continue to rise from 31%; and whether you can make money depends on you.

Source: Xiong Yu, digital automobile export

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