Report: Best and Worst Car Colors for Resale Value

The color of your car has a lot to do with how much money you’ll get for it, according to an automotive report.

Findings from vehicle research site iSeeCars.com indicate that a vehicle’s color can help or hurt its resale value.

In its analysis, iSeeCars determined the average depreciation rate by color over three years by comparing the prices of more than 650,000 recently sold three-year-old used vehicles. The vehicles included in the analysis were used 2019 models sold between August 2021 and May 2022.

Which Colors Help and Hurt Your Car?

Here are the key findings from the report:

• Overall, vehicles lose 15% of their value in the first three years you own them.
• Popular colors, such as white, black, and silver, make little difference, “meaning they won’t hurt resale value but they also won’t help a vehicle maintain its value.”
• With only a 4.5% drop in value over three years, yellow cars depreciated the least. 
• With a 17.8% decrease in value, brown cars depreciated the most.

 “A vehicle’s color is among the primary considerations after shoppers have decided on a make and model,” iSeeCars Executive Analyst Karl Brauer says in a news release. “With depreciation being the largest cost of vehicle ownership, consumers should carefully consider their color choice–especially if they plan on selling their vehicle.”

Ready to see which car colors are the most “valuable”?

Here Are the Best and Worst Car Colors for Resale Value

Rank/Color	3-year % Depreciation	Dollar Difference from MSRP	Compared to Overall Average
1. Yellow	4.5%	$3,155	0.3x
2. Orange	10.7%	$3,825	0.7x
3. Purple	13.9%	$5,461	0.9x
4. Red	14.0%	$5,399	0.9x
5. Green	14.0%	$5,596	0.9x
6. Blue	14.3%	$5,582	1x
7. Gray	14.3%	$5,635	1x
8. Beige	14.4%	$5,960	1x
9. Silver	14.8%	$5,499	1x
10. White	15.5%	$6,490	1x
11. Black	16.1%	$6,993	1.1x
12. Gold	16.7%	$6,719	1.1x
13. Brown	17.8%	$7,642	1.2x

Read the complete report at iSeeCars.com.

Money expert Clark Howard says, when you’re thinking about selling your vehicle, you should go through the selling process with both CarMax and Carvana to get a good sense of what it’s worth.

“The reality is that those two players have changed the game so much that what I recommend is that you start by getting a price from both of them,” Clark says. “Once you have that, then you know how much additional money you would want to make selling it yourself [to determine whether] it’s worth the pain points of doing that.”

Want more money-saving tips? Read Clark’s Car Selling Guide.