The Russian Federation has almost stopped importing used cars with a capacity of over 160 hp.

After December 1 last year, the structure of used car imports changed towards lower capacity. Cars with engines up to 160 hp accounted for almost 95% of imports in January-February, Sergey Tselikov, director of the Autostat agency, said in his Telegram channel on March 6.

At the same time, the import of used cars in January-February of this year increased by 31% compared to the same period in 2025 and amounted to 49.7 thousand cars.

More than half of the used cars during this period arrived in Russia from Japan (56.5%). 28.1 thousand cars were imported from this country (+39%). The growth of imports from China became even higher and reached 164% (13 thousand cars).

At the same time, imports from South Korea decreased by 46%, to 3.8 thousand units. The top five countries in terms of imports also included Belarus and Germany (volumes did not exceed 1,400 units).

In the brand structure, Toyota remains the import leader (10.7 thousand units), which is being overtaken by Honda (10.1 thousand units). Volkswagen (5.3 thousand units), Suzuki (2.5 thousand units) and BMW (2.3 thousand units) also entered the top 5 brands. All of the above brands except BMW showed growth, the decrease in BMW imports is due to the introduction of a preferential recycling rate of up to 160 hp, the expert explained.

"Samurai" took off: why Russians rushed to buy Japanese cars

In February, Tenet replaced Chery, and Mazda and Toyota showed impressive growth in popularity.

Yesterday it became known that in the first two months of 2026, more than half of the new passenger cars imported into Russia (53%) fell on alternative supply channels. At the same time, the share of alternative imports was 46% over the past year, and less than 20% in 2024.

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