New car market bounces back as March sales beat last year's monthly record
After last year's downturn, new car sales in Estonia have picked up, with March sales surpassing both the strongest month of last year and the number of vehicles sold in March 2024.
Last year brought mostly gloomy news from car dealers. After a sales boom in 2024 driven by the anticipated introduction of a car tax, new car sales dropped sharply in 2025 and remained depressed throughout the year, with total sales down 49 percent compared with the year before.
This year's first quarter, however, has shown improvement. According to The Estonian Association of Automobile Sales and Service Companies (AMTEL), new car sales more than doubled in January, reaching 1,359 passenger cars, compared with 531 a year earlier.
In February, 1,138 new cars were sold (624 a year earlier) and in March, 1,753 (966 in the same month last year). March sales also exceeded the strongest month of last year — June — when 1,549 new passenger cars were sold. Compared with March a year earlier, this year's March result was up nearly 82 percent.
However, when compared with the first quarter of 2024 — before expectations of the car tax began to significantly distort the market and conditions were more stable — this year's quarterly sales still fell short.
In the first quarter of 2024, 4,716 passenger cars were sold, nearly 500 more than in the same period this year. In the same period of 2023, new car sales were even higher, at 5,658 units.
Graph: Sales of new cars January, February and March of 2026.
Looking at March alone, this year's results also surpassed those of 2024: 1,699 new passenger cars were sold then, compared with 1,753 in March this year.
In addition to passenger cars, sales of commercial vehicles are also on the rise, with 1,008 units sold in the first three months — 48 percent more than in the same period last year.
Among the best-selling models in the first quarter, the Toyota Corolla ranked third, the Škoda Octavia second and the Škoda Kodiaq took the top spot. More than 100 units were also sold of the Toyota Yaris, Renault Symbioz, Renault Captur, Kia Sportage and Toyota Yaris Cross.
Hybrid vehicles accounted for 68 percent of total sales in March, while electric vehicles made up 7 percent, gasoline cars 16 percent and diesel cars 9 percent.
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Editor: Marcus Turovski
