Which Luxury SUVs Depreciate Fastest? (2026 Data)

Buy a 2023 Maserati Levante for $102,895 and drive it for three years — Kelley Blue Book’s current private party data puts your resale value at $34,100. That’s $68,795 gone, a 66% loss in 36 months. The luxury SUV segment has always carried a depreciation premium, but the spread between its best and worst performers has widened significantly in the most recent market data.

The question for a $150k+ household isn’t simply whether luxury SUVs depreciate fast — they do. The question is how fast, which ones, and what the actual dollar exposure looks like at the 3-year and 5-year marks that define most ownership cycles.

Key Figures at a Glance

Sources: iSeeCars annual depreciation study, March 2026 (950,000+ transactions, March 2025–February 2026); Kelley Blue Book private party values, May–June 2026.

The Segment’s Fastest Depreciators: 5-Year Data

The iSeeCars 2026 annual study — analyzing over 950,000 five-year-old used vehicles sold between March 2025 and February 2026 — puts the Infiniti QX80 at the top of the luxury SUV depreciation table. At 62.8% five-year cumulative depreciation, it edges out the Land Rover Range Rover (61.7%) for the dubious honor of fastest-depreciating large luxury SUV in the segment. Both figures represent nearly two-thirds of the original purchase price evaporating over five years.

The previous year’s iSeeCars study (analyzing March 2024–February 2025 data across 800,000+ transactions) showed the QX80 even worse at 65.0% and the Range Rover at 62.9%. The 2026 improvement tracks with a broader market shift — overall five-year depreciation improved to 41.8% industry-wide in 2026, a 3.8 percentage-point gain over 2025, as used car demand strengthened. Luxury SUVs participated in that recovery, but remain dramatically above average.

The Maserati Levante, Cadillac Escalade, and Lincoln Navigator round out the worst performers. According to the iSeeCars 2025 study, the Levante posted 63.7% five-year cumulative depreciation — roughly $65,000 in dollar terms at typical transaction prices. The Cadillac Escalade sat at 61.0%, and the Lincoln Navigator L at 60.3%. These figures aren’t outliers: the luxury car depreciation pattern runs consistently steeper than the market average because the used-vehicle buyer pool doesn’t price brand prestige, premium materials, or technology the same way new-vehicle buyers do.

Sources: iSeeCars annual depreciation study (2026 study: 950,000+ vehicles, March 2025–February 2026; 2025 study: 800,000+ vehicles, March 2024–February 2025). 2026 figures used where available; 2025 study figures noted for models not separately reported in 2026 data.

The 3-Year Picture: Dollar Exposure by Model

Five-year data is instructive, but the 3-year mark is where most luxury SUV buyers actually transact — the typical lease cycle is 36 months, and private buyers often rotate out at the same interval. KBB’s current private party values for 2023 model year vehicles show a stark range of outcomes across the segment, reflecting the real cash cost for anyone who bought new in 2023 and is selling now.

The Maserati Levante leads on dollar destruction at the 3-year mark. KBB data puts the 2023 Levante’s current private party resale at $34,100 against an original MSRP of $102,895 — a $68,795 drop representing 66% cumulative depreciation in three years. That works out to roughly $22,900 per year in depreciation cost alone, not accounting for insurance, maintenance, or financing.

The Lincoln Navigator (base) follows at 49% cumulative 3-year depreciation — from an MSRP of approximately $84,255 down to a current KBB private party value of $42,600. The Infiniti QX80 lands at 53% — from $77,495 MSRP to $36,100. These three models cluster together as the segment’s worst 3-year performers in dollar-weighted terms.

The Land Rover Range Rover tells a more complicated story. Its 5-year rate (61.7%, iSeeCars 2026) looks terrible, but the 3-year KBB figure is more moderate: 33% cumulative depreciation from an MSRP of approximately $109,875 to a current private party value of $72,700. That’s a $37,175 loss — significant in absolute terms, but lower percentage-wise than the QX80 or Navigator at three years. The difference narrows sharply by year five, which is where the Range Rover’s historically poor reliability record begins compressing residual values. The depreciation gap between Land Rover and Volvo models illustrates this dynamic across the British brand’s broader lineup.

Against all of them, the Cadillac Escalade posts a 40% 3-year cumulative depreciation — from an MSRP of approximately $89,545 to $53,100 — and the Porsche Cayenne holds at just 29% over the same window. That 11-percentage-point gap between the Escalade and Cayenne, on vehicles starting at similar price points, translates to tens of thousands of dollars in differential retained value.

Finluxy Depreciation Efficiency Score

The Finluxy Depreciation Efficiency Score measures the percentage of original MSRP retained after exactly three years of ownership. A score above 70 indicates strong value retention; below 50 signals rapid depreciation that materially increases total ownership cost. Scores are calculated using KBB private party values for 2023 model year vehicles against original MSRP, current as of May–June 2026.

Sources: KBB private party values for 2023 model year vehicles, May–June 2026. Original MSRP from KBB historical specs pages and implied from KBB depreciation dollar figures where stated directly. Finluxy Depreciation Efficiency Score = (3-year KBB private party value ÷ original MSRP) × 100. MSRPs represent base/entry configurations; actual scores for higher trims will vary.

Only the Porsche Cayenne clears the 70-point threshold for strong value retention — and just barely. Everything else falls into the moderate-to-severe depreciation range. The Maserati Levante’s score of 33.1 is among the worst in any vehicle segment: it retains barely one-third of its original price after three years, a figure that approaches the depreciation profile of high-volume economy vehicles, not a six-figure Italian sports luxury SUV. The Lincoln Navigator and Infiniti QX80 both fall below 50, meaning both have destroyed more than half their original value within a standard lease cycle. For the full context on how the Porsche family’s depreciation advantage extends beyond the Cayenne, the data behind Porsche’s residual value performance covers the broader pattern.

What the Data Shows That Most Coverage Overlooks

Standard depreciation coverage focuses on percentage rates and tends to treat them as fixed properties of a brand. The more revealing analysis is how the luxury SUV depreciation curve accelerates — and for several models in this segment, years two and three are dramatically steeper than year one.

The KBB annual depreciation data for the 2023 Maserati Levante illustrates this clearly: the vehicle dropped $29,494 in year one (to $73,401), then fell another $33,185 in year two (to $40,216). Year three added only $6,116 more. Most of the structural damage happened in years one and two, not a steady bleed. This acceleration pattern means buyers who purchase a one-year-old used Levante still absorb a large depreciation hit — the “discount” on a year-old example doesn’t fully compensate for the second-year cliff.

The Infiniti QX80 follows a similar pattern, and its trajectory is compounded by the 2025 product generation gap. The 2023 QX80 was based on architecture introduced in 2011 — a 12-year-old platform — which substantially weakened its residual value as the redesigned 2025 model arrived. Buyers of the outgoing generation absorbed not just normal depreciation but a generation-change discount. This dynamic also applies to the Lincoln Navigator, whose first-year depreciation hit is amplified when a competitor launches a notable update.

The broader finding from the iSeeCars 2026 study is that luxury SUVs as a group improved their depreciation position relative to 2025 — the overall industry five-year rate improved 3.8 percentage points — but luxury SUVs still represent 18 of the 25 worst-depreciating vehicles in the entire market. The segment’s structural problem is demand-side: used-vehicle buyers don’t pay proportionally more for premium badges, stitched leather, or massaging seats the way new-vehicle buyers do. That premium gets written off on exit. The German vs. Japanese luxury depreciation comparison shows how this plays out across the two dominant market segments.

The Audi Q7 and Land Rover Discovery: Mid-Tier Rapid Depreciators

Two models that often escape the worst-performers conversation deserve specific attention: the Audi Q7 and Land Rover Discovery. The iSeeCars 2025 study placed the Q7 at 61.6% five-year cumulative depreciation — $37,256 in dollar terms — and the Discovery at 60.9%. Both sit in the $55,000–$75,000 MSRP range, making their depreciation comparable in percentage terms to the six-figure Escalade, and comparable in dollar terms to models costing $30,000 more.

For buyers who view the Q7 as a more “attainable” entry into German luxury, the residual value profile is a significant offset to that apparent savings. A Q7 purchased at $60,500 MSRP and sold after five years has, by the iSeeCars data, lost approximately $37,256 — a figure that narrows the effective cost gap between it and a better-depreciating alternative substantially. The 5-year depreciation analysis on $100k luxury cars puts this in direct dollar-comparison context.

The Porsche Cayenne Exception — and Its Limits

Among luxury SUVs, the Porsche Cayenne is the consistent best performer on residual value, and the 2026 data confirms the pattern. At a Finluxy Depreciation Efficiency Score of 70.2 and 29% three-year cumulative depreciation per KBB data, it is the only mainstream luxury SUV in this analysis that approaches — though does not reach — the 70-point strong-retention threshold.

The mechanism is the same one that drives the Porsche 911’s category-leading residual values. Porsche buyers tend to hold vehicles longer, the dealer network maintains strong certified pre-owned infrastructure, and the brand’s performance credentials translate more directly into used-market demand than status-oriented luxury features do. The iSeeCars 2026 study noted that the Porsche 911 (19.5% five-year depreciation) and 718 Cayman (21.8%) rank first and second among all vehicles for value retention — the brand’s residual value halo extends partially to the Cayenne, though not as powerfully.

The caveat: the Cayenne’s MSRP advantage in this analysis is partly structural. The base 2023 Cayenne started at approximately $73,650 — materially below the Escalade, Navigator, or Range Rover. A higher-spec Cayenne Turbo GT carries an MSRP north of $200,000, and its residual value profile diverges from the base model’s. Buyers comparing total ownership cost across the segment should model the specific configuration, not segment averages. The 3-year depreciation sweet spot analysis covers why buying used at exactly this point in the cycle can recover much of the first-owner’s loss.

Plug-In Hybrid Configurations: A Separate Depreciation Track

Several of the models covered here offer plug-in hybrid variants — the Range Rover PHEV, Cayenne E-Hybrid, and others — and their depreciation profiles diverge from their gasoline counterparts in ways that are only beginning to show up in five-year data. The iSeeCars 2026 study found that hybrids (non-plug-in) posted some of the market’s best five-year retention, losing just 35.4% on average. Plug-in hybrids sit in a more complicated position, as the rapid evolution of EV technology and battery degradation concerns from buyers create uncertainty that compresses used values. The dedicated analysis of PHEV luxury car depreciation tracks this separately with current transaction data.

What This Means for $150k+ Households

For a household at the $150k+ income level, the relevant calculation is not whether you can afford the monthly payment — it’s whether the total cost structure of the vehicle choice is rational against alternatives. A 2023 Infiniti QX80 purchased new at $77,495 and sold three years later at $36,100 generated $41,395 in depreciation cost (KBB data). That same $77,495 allocated to a 2023 Porsche Cayenne — sold three years later at $51,700 — produces $21,950 in depreciation cost. The differential, nearly $19,500 over three years, is a meaningful after-tax figure at any income level.

Buyers who genuinely prefer the Escalade, Navigator, or Range Rover and plan to own for five-plus years are insulated from the worst of this math — depreciation is only a realized cost at sale. But anyone planning to rotate vehicles at the 3-year mark, or leasing (where residual value directly determines monthly payment), is taking on a structural disadvantage with the fastest depreciators in this segment. Lease residual factors on high-depreciation models either reflect that reality in above-market monthly payments or are set aggressively by manufacturers absorbing the residual risk — a subsidy that rarely persists across model generations.

The other angle is the purchase side. Buyers willing to target the 3-year depreciation sweet spot on the worst-performing models in this list can acquire a $90,000 luxury SUV for $36,000–$53,000 — letting the first owner absorb the steepest part of the depreciation curve. A 2020 Escalade ESV or 2021 QX80 at current market prices represents very different cost-per-year math than the new-car equivalent. The mileage effect on luxury car depreciation is the next variable to model when evaluating used purchases at these price points.

One decision variable that rarely gets quantified: color and options selection affect resale values in ways that compound across a fast-depreciating base. A QX80 in an unusual color configuration on a model already losing 53% in three years starts from a structurally weak position; the data on color and options’ impact on resale value shows how much that can compound at the margin. For anyone eyeing the used side of this equation, the same principle applies in reverse — optioned vehicles on high-depreciation platforms sometimes offer the best dollar-per-feature value in the market.