📈 2026年6月の中古車輸出市場レポート｜単月15.8万台で年内最高、UAEに「戻りの兆し」
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Compiled by JapanCarrier from Japan Ministry of Finance trade statistics (export confirmed figures). Last updated: August 2026.
Japan exported 157,992 used vehicles in June 2026, up 9.7% year on year. That is a 14.7% jump from May's 137,750 units and the highest single month since at least January 2025.
The story we have been telling since March — a market held down by the closure of the UAE corridor — broke in June. Shipments to the UAE went from 283 units in May to 2,277 in June, an eightfold move, while Russia recorded 26,272 units, a level we have not seen in recent years. Those two things landing in the same month explain most of the rebound.
We would caution against reading this as the start of normalisation. The recovery almost certainly happened in the back half of the month, and by July the situation in the Gulf had reversed again.
First-half exports (January–June) came to 853,363 units, up 3.7% year on year — roughly the same pace as 2025, which was Japan's record year at 1,708,604 units.
🌟 June 2026 Destination Ranking (Top 20)
# | Destination | Jun 2026 | YoY | Jan–Jun | YoY (cum.) |
1 | Russia | 26,272 | +49.1% | 110,600 | +32.3% |
2 | Tanzania | 14,358 | +92.9% | 88,097 | +85.2% |
3 | New Zealand | 9,255 | +35.9% | 46,838 | +25.5% |
4 | Mongolia | 8,705 | +136.2% | 42,164 | +1.3% |
5 | Kenya | 7,582 | +34.8% | 37,138 | +8.7% |
6 | Chile | 6,056 | +49.0% | 45,902 | +21.4% |
7 | Sri Lanka | 6,031 | −8.2% | 38,250 | +93.0% |
8 | South Africa | 5,599 | +14.3% | 38,389 | +25.8% |
9 | Thailand | 4,486 | −20.3% | 23,358 | −20.9% |
10 | United Kingdom | 4,096 | +63.3% | 19,338 | +65.3% |
11 | Malaysia | 3,937 | +0.1% | 28,162 | +11.7% |
12 | Nigeria | 3,893 | +32.5% | 14,114 | +8.8% |
13 | Uganda | 3,715 | +19.2% | 18,985 | +1.5% |
14 | Jamaica | 3,618 | −10.1% | 12,549 | −19.6% |
15 | Cyprus | 3,366 | +29.7% | 19,301 | +15.4% |
16 | Ghana | 3,176 | +12.4% | 14,773 | +41.3% |
17 | Philippines | 2,884 | −19.4% | 18,874 | −13.9% |
18 | Ireland | 2,489 | +103.0% | 12,678 | +85.2% |
19 | Guyana | 2,386 | −7.1% | 13,931 | +25.2% |
20 | United Arab Emirates | 2,277 | −89.1% | 40,803 | −68.8% |
— | Total | 157,992 | +9.7% | 853,363 | +3.7% |
Source: JapanCarrier, compiled from Japan Customs trade statistics.
Three things worth knowing
1. The UAE is no longer at zero. Monthly shipments ran 17,755 (Jan) → 18,023 (Feb) → 1,499 (Mar) → 966 (Apr) → 283 (May) → 2,277 (Jun). May was the floor. June is still down 89% year on year, but it is the first month since February with meaningful volume.
2. Russia hit 26,272 units. That beats its strongest month of 2025 (21,434 in December). Kei cars under 1,000cc accounted for 6,715 units, or 26% of the total — a direct consequence of regulation, which we unpack below.
3. Strip out the UAE and the first half is up 17.4%. Of the 853,363 units shipped in January–June, 40,803 went to the UAE. The remaining 812,560 compare with 692,210 a year earlier — an increase of 120,350 units. The market did not shrink in 2026. One very large pipe blocked, and every other pipe widened.
🔍 Why UAE volumes came back in June
Short answer: a mid-June US–Iran ceasefire memorandum and the limited reopening of the Strait of Hormuz showed up in late-month loadings. The situation deteriorated again in July, so the recovery is unproven.
The situation moved between 14 and 19 June
Following the US–Israeli strikes on Iran on 28 February 2026, the Strait of Hormuz was effectively closed to normal commercial traffic from March onwards. The turn came in mid-June: a memorandum on ending hostilities was agreed, a tanker transited the strait on 18 June, and crude prices fell back.
Export statistics are customs clearances tied to bills of lading. When ships move, the numbers appear. The 2,277 units recorded in June were almost certainly loaded in the second half of the month, not the first.
"Passable" is not the same as "schedulable"
By the end of June the strait had still not returned to its normal traffic separation scheme. Transits were being managed through southern corridors along the Omani coast. Mine clearance, GNSS jamming, legal exposure over transit fees, and war-risk premiums were all still live — and any one of them will stop a carrier from entering.
In July, renewed tanker attacks and a new blockade declaration on the Red Sea side pushed things backwards again. There is no guarantee that July UAE volumes will exceed June's.
The trade has already rerouted
This matters more than the monthly print. Over three months of closure, re-export demand serving East Africa and the CIS found ways to move without transiting Dubai — direct shipment to Tanzania being the clearest example.
Traders and buyers do not unwind a rebuilt route because Dubai reopened. Letters of credit, yard contracts, customs broker relationships — all of it has to be rebuilt again. Even if the UAE recovers volume, returning to its 2025 annual level of 252,637 units will take considerable time.
🔍 Inside Russia's 26,272 units: regulation changes the mix, not the count
Short answer: sanctions on the Japanese side and recycling-fee changes on the Russian side have pushed high-output and large-displacement cars out of the trade. Demand has concentrated in cheaper small cars and kei cars — so unit counts rise even as value per unit falls.
June shipments to Russia break down as follows.
Category | Units | Share |
Petrol passenger cars (mostly ≤1,900cc) | 19,557 | 74.4% |
Kei cars (under 1,000cc) | 6,715 | 25.6% |
Hybrid | 0 | 0% |
Electric | 0 | 0% |
Hybrids and EVs are exactly zero. Japan's export controls, in force since August 2023, prohibit petrol and diesel vehicles above 1,900cc, all hybrids, PHVs and EVs, and any vehicle valued above ¥6 million. The statistics reflect that rule precisely.
From December 2025, Russia raised recycling fees on vehicles above 160 horsepower (80hp for electrified vehicles). Cars that used to anchor Russian-market bidding — the 1.8-litre turbo Subaru Forester at 177hp is the obvious example — fell into the higher bracket, and Japanese auction prices for those grades have visibly reset lower.
The point for exporters: regulation has not reduced Russia's unit count. It has reduced the value of each unit. The same buying budget moves more cars. If you read this as a growing market without adjusting your margin assumptions, you will misprice it. Anyone with Russian exposure should be tracking gross margin per unit rather than volume.
Background: METI export control FAQ (Japanese) · JETRO Russia market report
🔍 Africa overtook Asia
June's regional split contains the most structural change of 2026 so far.
Region | Jun 2026 | YoY | Share | Jan–Jun | YoY (cum.) |
Africa | 49,175 | +37.6% | 31.1% | 268,455 | +30.5% |
Asia | 37,862 | −30.5% | 24.0% | 237,470 | −28.6% |
Europe | 37,172 | +50.4% | 23.5% | 166,373 | +35.0% |
Oceania | 13,554 | +31.3% | 8.6% | 70,622 | +24.4% |
North America | 10,451 | −3.5% | 6.6% | 42,149 | −13.8% |
South America | 9,778 | +22.6% | 6.2% | 68,294 | +22.3% |
Asia's 30.5% decline is almost entirely the UAE (−89,788 units cumulative) and Pakistan (−16,530). Africa, by contrast, is broadly higher — Tanzania (+40,538), Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Zambia and the DRC all up.
Tanzania reached 88,097 units in the first half, up 85.2%. That exceeds its full-year 2025 total of 76,410 in six months. Dar es Salaam is functioning as the inland gateway for Zambia (+33.9%) and the DRC (+43.4%), so this is best read as growth across the entire East African corridor rather than a single port.
Europe's 50.4% deserves attention too. Russia flatters the number, but the United Kingdom (+65.3% cumulative), Ireland (+85.2%) and Cyprus (+15.4%) are all rising — right-hand-drive developed and near-developed markets moving together.
🔍 Powertrain mix: hybrids and EVs are now a quarter of the trade
Rankings by unit count hide this. Broken out by category, June looks like this.
Category | Jun 2026 | Share | Jan–Jun | Share |
Petrol passenger cars | 82,538 | 52.2% | 462,326 | 54.2% |
Hybrid | 33,434 | 21.2% | 170,388 | 20.0% |
Electric | 3,914 | 2.5% | 19,093 | 2.2% |
Kei cars (under 1,000cc) | 19,051 | 12.1% | 97,450 | 11.4% |
Trucks | 18,505 | 11.7% | 101,363 | 11.9% |
Buses | 550 | 0.3% | 2,743 | 0.3% |
Hybrids plus EVs come to 23.7% — roughly one in four exported vehicles is electrified. That share is not evenly distributed. It is concentrated to an extreme degree.
June mix by destination:
Mongolia — hybrids 7,174 units (82.4%). Preferential taxation aimed at Ulaanbaatar's air quality, plus proven cold-start reliability at −30°C. This is a Prius market.
Ireland — hybrids 1,996 (80.2%)
United Kingdom — hybrids 2,686 (65.6%)
New Zealand — hybrids 5,190 (56.1%), EVs 915 (9.9%)
Cyprus — hybrids 1,620 (48.1%), EVs 340 (10.1%)
Sri Lanka — kei cars 3,757 (62.3%), EVs 874, hybrids 855
Nigeria — trucks 3,202 (82.3%)
Chile — petrol passenger cars 4,591 (75.8%), trucks 892
Russia — petrol 74.4% plus kei 25.6%, zero electrified
Mongolia, Nigeria and Russia are all "used car exports from Japan," and they have almost nothing in common: different auction halls, different sourcing, different inspection requirements, different vessel types. Choosing a destination is, in practice, choosing which segment of the auction market you buy in.
Sri Lanka's 62.3% kei share is worth flagging. Two years into the reopening of imports (February 2025), the market has settled on the cheapest end of the range. First-half volume of 38,250 units, up 93.0%, means it is now fully established rather than merely recovering.
⚠️ The markets that are falling
Pakistan — 4,563 units in the first half, down 78.4% Monthly: 296 (Jan) → 207 (Feb) → 17 (Mar) → 607 (Apr) → 1,570 (May) → 1,866 (Jun). Seventeen units is a stop, not a slowdown. The timing lines up with the Gulf crisis, but Pakistan's numbers have historically swung on its own import rules and FX controls, and the statistics alone cannot establish the cause. The recovery from April is clear enough that the market is worth revisiting — after checking the current import regulations directly.
Thailand (−20.9% cumulative), Philippines (−13.9%), Jamaica (−19.6%) All three have now been below prior year for six straight months. This is a trend rather than monthly noise, and each needs to be checked individually against tariffs, regulation and local inventory.
Sri Lanka posted its first year-on-year decline in June (−8.2%) Cumulative growth is still 93.0%, but June's 6,031 units came in below the 6,569 of June 2025. Comparisons get harder from here as the post-reopening base rises. Plan for the boost to fade.
Mongolia's +136.2% is a base effect Cumulative growth is 1.3% — essentially flat. Monthly year-on-year figures are misleading here because 2025 collapsed from May onwards.
💱 A correction on our currency call
We will be direct about this. In the May report we cited year-end USD/JPY forecasts of ¥146–152.5 and described a narrowing of the weak-yen tailwind as the base case. That was wrong.
The yen weakened further, touching roughly ¥163.99 on 23 July — the weakest level since November 1986. Japan intervened unilaterally on 30 July, followed by coordinated US–Japan intervention on 31 July, and the pair has since traded around ¥158–160.
For exporters the first half was, in the end, a tailwind. The risk from here is not direction but amplitude: the pair moved more than six yen within days at the end of July. If your cycle from purchase to loading to payment runs two to three months, price on the assumption that the rate can move several yen — possibly ten — inside that window.
Higher crude prices have also widened Japan's trade deficit since July, which gives Middle East developments a second transmission channel straight into the yen. Gulf risk is no longer only a question of whether ships can transit.
Background: Gaitame.com monthly outlook (Japanese)
🔮 What to watch in the second half
1. Don't treat the UAE as binary. Track it monthly and take back what returns. Rebuilding inventory and vessel space around a UAE assumption is premature — July was worse than June.
2. The absorbing markets are the East African corridor and RHD developed markets. Tanzania (+85.2%) anchoring the Zambia/DRC inland network, and the UK (+65.3%), Ireland (+85.2%) and Cyprus (+15.4%) on the hybrid, higher-value side. Those two blocs carried the first half and we expect them to carry the second.
3. Read Russia on margin, not volume. It will likely stay at number one, but the product mix has shifted downmarket by regulation. Chinese brands taking share in Russia's new car market is the medium-term risk.
4. Watch list. Renewed Hormuz disruption; further Russian regulation and Chinese competition; the Sri Lankan reopening boost fading; continued declines in Thailand and the Philippines; currency volatility.
❓ Frequently asked questions
Q1. How many used cars did Japan export in June 2026? Japan exported 157,992 used vehicles in June 2026, up 9.7% from 144,072 in June 2025 and up 14.7% from 137,750 in May 2026. It was the largest single month in the 18 months since January 2025. (Source: JapanCarrier, compiled from Japan Ministry of Finance trade statistics.)
Q2. Which country imported the most used cars from Japan in June 2026? Russia, with 26,272 units, up 49.1% year on year. It was Russia's fourth consecutive month in first place and exceeded its strongest month of 2025 (21,434 units in December). Tanzania was second with 14,358 units (+92.9%) and New Zealand third with 9,255 (+35.9%).
Q3. Have used car exports to the UAE recovered? Partially. Shipments rose from 283 units in May 2026 to 2,277 in June, roughly an eightfold increase, but that is still 89% below June 2025 and far from the 252,637 units the UAE took in full-year 2025. The improvement followed a mid-June US–Iran ceasefire memorandum and the limited reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Conditions worsened again in July, so the recovery is not confirmed.
Q4. What was Japan's total used car export volume in the first half of 2026? 853,363 units for January–June 2026, up 3.7% year on year — approximately the same pace as 2025, which was the record year at 1,708,604 units. Excluding the UAE, first-half exports totalled 812,560 units, up 17.4%.
Q5. What share of Japan's used car exports are hybrids? In June 2026, hybrids accounted for 21.2% (33,434 units) and EVs 2.5% (3,914 units), making 23.7% electrified in total. For January–June the figures were 20.0% and 2.2%. Concentration is extreme by destination: 82.4% of shipments to Mongolia, 80.2% to Ireland and 65.6% to the United Kingdom were hybrids, while shipments to Russia contained none because of export controls.
Q6. Why are exports to Russia rising despite sanctions? Japan's export controls, in force since August 2023, cover petrol and diesel vehicles above 1,900cc, all hybrids, PHVs and EVs, and vehicles valued above ¥6 million. Demand has therefore concentrated in petrol cars of 1,900cc and below and in kei cars, which fall outside the restrictions. Russia's own recycling-fee increase from December 2025 on vehicles above 160hp pushed the mix further downmarket. Because unit prices are lower, the same budget buys more cars.
Q7. Why are exports to Africa growing so quickly? Re-export demand for East Africa and the CIS that previously moved through the UAE has shifted to direct shipment, principally to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. Africa took 49,175 units in June 2026, or 31.1% of the total, overtaking Asia at 24.0%. Tanzania's first-half total of 88,097 units (+85.2%) already exceeds its full-year 2025 figure.
Q8. When is Japan's used car export data published? The primary source is Japan Ministry of Finance trade statistics, published by Japan Customs. Preliminary monthly figures appear in the middle to latter part of the following month, with confirmed export figures around the end of that month. The Japan Customs release calendar lists exact dates.
📌 Sources and notes
Volume data: JapanCarrier, compiled from Japan Ministry of Finance trade statistics (confirmed export figures). Category splits (petrol passenger car / hybrid / electric / under 1,000cc / bus / truck) follow the commodity classifications in that source.
Strait of Hormuz: global-scm.com, Jiji trade tracker
Russia export controls: Japan METI FAQ
Russian market: JETRO regional report
Currency: Gaitame.com
This article is provided for information only, based on publicly available sources. It is not investment, legal, customs, insurance or sanctions-compliance advice. Import regulations, age restrictions and tariff regimes change frequently — always verify current primary sources before trading.
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