Truck Depreciation and Resale: The Number Behind Your Loan
The truck you sign for is the number everybody studies. The truck you sell is the number that decides whether the deal worked. This is about the tractor itself, the Class 8 unit you buy, run, and eventually hand to somebody else, not equipment installed at a building. In September 2025, monthly depreciation on late-model sleeper tractors averaged 2.1% (J.D. Power Commercial Truck Guidelines, October 2025).
That rate works on your balance sheet every month, quietly, whether or not you are looking at it. What follows is the shape of the semi truck depreciation curve in real dollars, what it does to your trade cycle, and how to set a loan against it so the two run out near the same place.
> Key Takeaways
> - Monthly depreciation on late-model Class 8 sleepers averaged 2.1% in September 2025 (J.D. Power, October 2025).
> - The curve is steepest early. A model-year 2023 sleeper averaged $63,516 at auction that month and a 2020 averaged $29,571, a 53% gap across three model years.
> - The average US Class 8 tractor is 6.3 years old, the highest in more than a decade (ACT Research via FleetOwner, January 2026).
> - Your loan balance falls on a schedule. Your truck's value falls on a curve. The gap between the two is the whole subject.
> - Over-the-road tractor units carry a 3-year GDS recovery period and trailers 5 years, so the tax schedule is a third curve matching neither (IRS Publication 946).
> - Eos Loan is a direct lender with flexible terms and no dealer fee, subject to approval and eligibility.
Ask about flexible terms on a truck purchase
How fast does a semi truck actually depreciate?
In September 2025, J.D. Power put monthly depreciation on late-model Class 8 sleepers at an average 2.1% in the auction channel (J.D. Power Commercial Truck Guidelines, October 2025). ACT Research, describing the broader used market in its 2026 outlook, put Class 8 depreciation at just over 1% per month (ACT Research, reported by Trucks Parts Service). Both numbers are correct.
They differ because they measure different things. One tracks auction sales of recent model years, the other tracks a wider pool of ages and channels over a different stretch of months. Neither is a constant. Depreciation is a market condition, and it reprices.
That matters more than it sounds. If you plan around "trucks lose 15% a year," you have adopted a rule of thumb nobody publishes a source for.
For the market level itself: ACT Research reported an average used Class 8 retail price of $60,986 in July 2026, down 4.0% during the month and 2% below year-ago levels, even as same-dealer retail sales ran 45% above July 2025 (ACT Research, July 2026 data). Heavy volume and softer pricing in the same month. Trucks were moving. They were not appreciating.
What does the semi truck depreciation curve look like by age?
In September 2025, average sleeper tractor pricing at auction ran $63,516 for a model-year 2023, $50,183 for a 2022, $37,466 for a 2021, and $29,571 for a 2020 (J.D. Power, October 2025). Three model years took 53% of the value. That is the curve, in dollars, in a single month.
Read the shape rather than the percentages. The newest unit gives up about $13,300 to reach the next model year down. The oldest step in this series gives up about $7,900. The percentage stays in a similar band while the dollars shrink, because each year is a percentage of a smaller number.
That has a consequence almost nobody states plainly. A long term on a brand new tractor and a long term on a five-year-old tractor are not the same exposure. On the older unit, the steep part of the curve already happened to somebody else.
One caveat on the series above. These are auction figures, and a retail buyer pays more than an auction lane clears. If you want the channel-by-channel picture and what your current truck is worth as a trade, that is a separate conversation with its own numbers.
Why does your loan balance fall on a schedule while the truck's value falls on a curve?
Value falls fastest in the months when the loan has paid down the least. Across the September 2025 J.D. Power series, the step between consecutive model years works out to -21.0%, then -25.3%, then -21.1%. Principal does not move that way. It grinds down at a pace set by the paperwork, not by the market.
So the two lines separate early and converge later. Early in the hold, the truck can be worth less than the balance. That is not a mistake, it is arithmetic. Later, the curve flattens while principal keeps retiring, and the value line passes back above the balance.
That crossing is the date worth knowing. Before it, selling means writing a check to close the loan. After it, the truck becomes a card you can play: trade it, sell it, or keep running a paid-down asset. Every decision you make about the equipment gets easier on the far side of that month.
Two levers move the crossing earlier. How much you put down at signing starts the balance line lower. A shorter term steepens the payoff. Both cost cash flow now to buy flexibility later, and that trade is yours to price. If you would rather hand the residual question to somebody else entirely, who carries the residual under a lease is the other structure.
See what financing a fleet expansion could look like
How does the curve set your trade cycle?
The average US Class 8 tractor is now 6.3 years old, the highest in more than a decade, according to ACT Research analyst Tim Denoyer (ACT Research via FleetOwner, January 2026). That figure is the market's own answer to how long a tractor gets held, and it has been drifting older.
!A used Class 8 tractor parked on a dealer lot in bright daylight.
Call the trade cycle what it is: the interval between replacing a unit, picked against the curve instead of against a feeling about the truck. Two forces pull on that interval in opposite directions.
The flattening curve rewards holding. Once you are past the steep years, each additional year costs less in value than the year before. The truck stops being an asset that bleeds and starts being one that drips.
Rising upkeep punishes holding. ATRI reported repair and maintenance costs up 8.6% in 2025, among the largest line-item increases in its cost survey (ATRI, July 2026). Older equipment consumes more of that line, and it consumes it unpredictably.
Your trade cycle sits where those two forces cross for your operation, not for the industry average. A high-mile regional unit and a light local unit will not land in the same place. Timing also has a market component: when the freight cycle favors buying is a separate signal worth reading before you commit. And if the answer is another unit rather than a replacement, adding a second truck changes the math again.
What moves the curve besides age?
Miles, spec, and the regulatory calendar move a truck's position on the curve as much as the model year does. Two identical model-year 2022 sleepers can sit far apart in the same auction lane on the same day, and the calendar explains none of that gap.
Miles are the obvious one. Used Class 8 units routinely change hands well into the four hundred thousands, so a low-mile unit in an older model year can outprice a high-mile unit a year newer. The odometer is a second axis running underneath the age axis.
Spec is the quieter one. A common engine, transmission, and axle configuration has a deep buyer pool. A rare build has a thin one, and thin pools price badly under time pressure. That interacts directly with how age and mileage change your financing terms.
!An operator reviewing operating paperwork and financing documents at a desk in daylight.
Then there is regulation. ACT Research names EPA 2027 as a live planning variable, noting that some manufacturers and buyers may pay nonconformance penalties rather than adopt fully compliant equipment right away, while others accelerate replacement before costs rise (ACT Research, 2026). Treat that as uncertainty in the residual, not as a forecast you can bank. Anyone quoting you a precise 2027 price effect is guessing.
How do you structure the loan so it ends near the same point as the curve?
The goal is easy to state and easy to skip: the balance should be gone before the truck's remaining value is. When a term outruns the curve, you end up owing on a unit whose earning life is behind it. When the term lands short of your hold period, you run the tail of the asset with no payment at all, and that tail is where operators make money.
> What I keep seeing: operators arrive knowing the payment they want to the dollar and almost never with a view on what the truck will be worth in the month they plan to sell it. Across the $4B+ Eos Loan has originated and 30k+ proposals processed, that is the most common gap in a structuring conversation. It is a pattern, not an approval rule.
Three levers, and only three. How long you plan to hold the unit is the anchor, so decide it first, because everything else is measured against it. How much goes down at signing sets where the balance line starts. How long the term runs sets how fast that line falls. Move any one of them and the crossing date moves with it.
Now the third curve, the one that never shows up on the same page as the other two. Under MACRS, over-the-road tractor units carry a 3-year GDS recovery period and trailers carry 5 years, and a 100% special depreciation allowance applies to qualified property acquired and placed in service after January 19, 2025, with an election available to take 40% instead (IRS Publication 946). So the tax basis can be written off while the truck still holds years of market value and you still carry a balance. That is not a problem. It is a timing fact to plan around, and it is why the tax answer and the resale answer never agree. This is general information, not tax advice. Talk to your CPA before you act on it.
Where Eos Loan sits in this: we are a direct lender. We originate, underwrite, and service the credit in house, with flexible terms sized to the hold period you actually intend and no dealer fee, subject to approval and eligibility. The full picture of how truck fleet financing works end to end covers the underwriting side, and our truck fleet financing solutions page covers what we fund.
The month the two lines cross
Three curves, three schedules, one truck:
- Market value falls on a curve, steep early and flattening later, repriced by the used market every month.
- Loan balance falls on a schedule, set by how much went down and how long the term runs.
- Tax basis falls on its own statutory clock, shorter than either of the others for an over-the-road tractor.
- J.D. Power Commercial Truck Guidelines (Chris Visser), Class 8 Market Back to Typical Depreciation, September 2025 data, published October 22, 2025, retrieved 2026-09-08. https://www.jdpowervalues.com/article/class-8-market-back-typical-depreciation
- ACT Research, U.S. Used Truck Market Trends, Classes 3 to 8, July 2026 data, retrieved 2026-09-08. https://www.actresearch.net/resources/blog/us-classes3-8-used-trucks-blog
- ACT Research 2026 commercial used truck market outlook, reported by Trucks Parts Service, retrieved 2026-09-08. https://www.truckpartsandservice.com/trucks-trailers/used-trucks/article/15771291/act-research-2026-commercial-used-truck-market-outlook-revealed
- ACT Research, 2026 Class 8 Truck Sales Forecast and Market Outlook, 2026, retrieved 2026-09-08. https://www.actresearch.net/resources/blog/class-8-truck-sales-forecast-2026
- ACT Research (Tim Denoyer), reported by FleetOwner, Class 8 orders top 10-year average; fleet risks persist, January 2026, retrieved 2026-09-08. https://www.fleetowner.com/equipment/article/55355309/class-8-orders-top-10-year-average-fleet-risks-persist
- American Transportation Research Institute, An Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking, 2026 Update, July 2026, retrieved 2026-09-08. https://truckingresearch.org/2026/07/new-atri-report-details-accelerating-costs-and-low-profitability-despite-cuts/
- Internal Revenue Service, Publication 946, How To Depreciate Property, 2025 edition, retrieved 2026-09-08. https://www.irs.gov/publications/p946
None of the three line up on their own. The one you can move is the middle one, and you move it before you sign, not after. Pick the hold period first, then structure the loan to land near it.
Talk to our team about financing your next truck
Or call +1 833-989-3737 and we will walk the curve on the specific unit you are looking at. More of the financing questions we get asked most sit on our FAQ page, and Eos Loan is a direct lender, not a marketplace.
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question: "How fast does a semi truck depreciate?",
answer: "J.D. Power put monthly depreciation on late-model Class 8 sleepers at an average 2.1% in the auction channel in September 2025. ACT Research, looking at the broader used market in its 2026 outlook, described Class 8 depreciation tracking at just over 1% per month. Rates move with the market, the channel, and the age band."
},
{
question: "How much is a five-year-old semi truck worth?",
answer: "In September 2025, a model-year 2020 sleeper tractor averaged $29,571 at auction, against $63,516 for a model-year 2023, per J.D. Power Commercial Truck Guidelines. Actual value depends on odometer, spec, condition, and the month you sell. Retail transactions price above auction lanes."
},
{
question: "How long should you keep a semi truck before trading it?",
answer: "The average US Class 8 tractor is 6.3 years old, the highest in more than a decade (ACT Research via FleetOwner, January 2026). Two forces set your own number: the value curve flattens with age, which rewards holding, while repair and maintenance costs rose 8.6% in 2025 (ATRI), which punishes it."
},
{
question: "What is the depreciation life of a semi truck for taxes?",
answer: "Over-the-road tractor units carry a 3-year GDS recovery period under MACRS, and trailers carry 5 years, per IRS Publication 946. A 100% special depreciation allowance applies to qualified property acquired and placed in service after January 19, 2025, with a 40% election available. This is general information, not tax advice; consult your CPA."
},
{
question: "Does a longer loan term hurt you when a truck depreciates?",
answer: "It changes the timing rather than the total. A longer term retires principal more slowly, so the balance stays above the truck's market value for longer, and the month those two lines cross arrives later. A larger down payment or a shorter term pulls that crossing earlier."
}
]} />