Market analysis · Used car market
A quarter more cars than the registration statistics show
Every month several thousand passenger cars enter Switzerland that were never newly registered here. They appear in none of the market figures that get quoted — and they pull the fleet in the opposite direction to what new registrations are doing.
The figure
From January to September 2026, 41’529 passenger cars previously registered abroad were recorded in Switzerland for the first time. Over the same period 173’459 new registrations were added. The import channel therefore equals 23,9 per cent of the new car market — close to a quarter on top, and it appears in none of the figures usually quoted about the Swiss car market.
37’518 of these vehicles have a combustion engine, around 50’024 vehicles extrapolated to a full year. 4’011 units were battery electric.
The channel is growing while new registrations turn electric
| Year | imported combustion cars | against previous year |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 32’252 | — |
| 2022 | 37’087 | +15,0 % |
| 2023 | 39’612 | +6,8 % |
| 2024 | 42’957 | +8,4 % |
| 2025 | 46’006 | +7,1 % |
42,6 per cent more in four years. Over the same period the stock of battery electric cars in Switzerland rose from 74’000 to 249’832 vehicles. The two movements run against each other, and only one of them gets reported.
Anyone discussing the rebuilding of the Swiss vehicle fleet while looking only at new registrations is missing a quarter of the movement.
What crosses the border: powerful, heavy, mostly German
52,4 per cent of the imported combustion cars come from Germany; four German brands — VW, BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz — account for 42,6 per cent of all imported combustion cars between them. They are markedly more powerful than what arrives from elsewhere: a median of 145 kW against 110 kW, roughly 197 against 150 hp. Among the German imports 47,2 per cent have at least 150 kW, from the rest of the world it is 20,7 per cent. They are heavier too: a median kerb weight of 1’724 kilograms against 1’550 kilograms.
On engine size the obvious assumption holds only for the top quarter. The median import from Germany has 1’984 cubic centimetres — the ordinary two litre, not a large engine. Above 2’500 cubic centimetres lie 21,9 per cent. What makes the difference is not the volume but what is drawn from it: 11,6 per cent of the German imports deliver more than 300 kW, a good 400 hp. From the rest of the world it is 4,3 per cent.
The secondary finding weighs more than engine size
14,1 per cent of all imported passenger cars are pure diesels. Among Swiss new registrations in the same period it is 5,3 per cent — two and a half times as common in imports, that is. Both figures come from the same register and the same period; the auto-schweiz statistics would be a different population and the comparison would not be one.
Imports are therefore pulling the fleet in the direction new registrations are currently leaving.
A quarter of them are not used cars at all
10’280 of the 41’529 vehicles were recorded in Switzerland within six months of their first registration abroad, so 24,8 per cent. These are effectively direct imports of factory-new cars and not used car business. For the question of what reaches the used market they should be deducted. For the question of what is missing from the registration statistics they should not: none of these vehicles appears there.
The time lag, and why it differs for electric cars
Between first registration abroad and recording in Switzerland there is a median of 15 months across all drivetrains, and 18 months for vehicles from Germany. For battery electric cars it is 4 months, for German electric cars 6 months.
That runs against the widespread expectation that German lease returns will arrive in two to three years. For combustion cars it is roughly right. For electric cars it is not: that supply has long been under way, it is merely small.
What this means for a purchase in Switzerland
The used car supply does not mirror what Switzerland registers new but what comes off lease in Germany. Anyone buying used meets a powerful German car more often than average — and a diesel considerably more often than the new car market would suggest.
With electric cars it is the other way round: supply is tighter than the German unit numbers suggest, but it builds up earlier. Whether waiting is worth it hangs on price, battery condition and driving needs — not on supply volume alone. The comparison between Germany and Switzerland works that through in detail.
What it meant for our own calculation
The scenario calculator in the «Market» tab has a slider «used combustion car imports per year». Until 26 August 2026 it stood at 20’000 — assumed, not measured. The measurement gives 50’000 vehicles, more than twice as much.
That changes a statement the model makes: at 50’000 imported combustion cars per year it would take an annual scrappage rate of 5,9 per cent through 2036 for the vehicle fleet to follow the Federal Statistical Office series. The setting is 4,1 per cent. At 20’000 the calculator did not say so.
What we do not know
- The extract only ever covers the current year, so the annual figure is extrapolated until December. Checked against the full years 2021 to 2025, this extrapolation from seven months lands between 6,5 per cent below and 0,8 per cent above the measured year; it tends to understate, because the second half of the year is the stronger one.
- How many of these vehicles are exported again and how many stay in Switzerland is not in the data set.
- How many are imported through the trade and how many privately, likewise not.
- We hold no series of de-registrations. Only the fleet stock is documented, and from that alone the outflow cannot be separated from the inflow.
We do not record these gaps in order to appear cautious, but because a figure we do not have is not replaced by an estimate either.
Sources: ASTRA, Vehicle Registration Information System (IVZ), used import data set (GEBR.txt), data as at 1 August 2026, together with the previous-year files 2021 to 2025 from the same repository. New registrations: ASTRA, IVZ, monthly new registration data set. Vehicle fleet: Federal Statistical Office.
For transparency: the analysis of the raw extract is our own. Counted are passenger cars whose first registration lies abroad; the time lag is the difference between that first registration and the recording in Switzerland. «Combustion» here means everything except purely electric — a plug-in hybrid keeps filling up. The annual figure for 2026 is extrapolated linearly from seven recorded months; the range of that extrapolation is given above. The raw extract itself is not published: it contains individual vehicles with partial chassis numbers. The 5,9 per cent scrappage rate is not a measurement but the output of our scenario calculator at the settings shown.
