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The question of how import tariffs could affect heavy equipment pricing has hung above the industry this entire summer construction season, but prices have held steady, or even dropped. While original equipment manufacturers have resisted raising their prices and have instead absorbed tariff price pressures, there hasn’t been a rush toward used equipment, if the latest figures from industry analyst EquipmentWatch are any indication. “It looks like the supply [of used machines] is pretty much the same, and the demand just isn’t really there to drive prices up,” says Brendan Gallagher, EquipmentWatch data analyst.
Prices for used equipment continued to slip in August, down 7.27% year-over-year in resale and 17.13% at auction. Prices also slipped for equipment in the lift category, reflecting a slow slide that has continued for most categories of used machines EquipmentWatch has tracked throughout this year. “These values all make sense to me. There’s nothing crazy going on [in the used equipment market] right now,” Gallagher says. “As the age of equipment comes up we expect prices to go down, and the tariff talk has mostly died down for now—it didn’t have a big impact this year.”
One development that may impact pricing is cuts to interest rates proposed by the board of the U.S. Federal Reserve. “It’s going to be interesting to see what happens with those rate cuts,” notes Gallagher. “With construction equipment, a lot of new purchases are financed, so a few rate cuts could actually drive prices up, since with better financing [the buyer] can afford to pay more.”
Although tariff talk has somewhat subsided, it may be that a long fuse was lit to go off sometime next year. OEMs have seen impact from tariffs on input costs already, but the real indicator will be if manufacturers’ suggested retail prices for 2026 equipment models increase to reflect this cost pressure, says Gallagher. He adds,“If there’s a significant jump in the 2026 MSRPs, then the used equipment values will go up.” MSRPs on new equipment in 2025 were only 1% to 3% higher than the previous year. Anything in the 5% to 10% range for 2026 would be significant, Gallagher says, expecting greater clarity when OEMs announce their 2026 model pricing this fall.
If OEMs are planning to hike prices for 2026 they aren’t saying so just yet. Irving, Texas-based equipment maker Caterpillar Inc. has said it may take steps to better absorb tariff costs but is vague on specifics. “From a profitability perspective, there is a headwind related to tariffs which will impact us for the remainder of the year,” said Andrew Bonfield, Caterpillar CFO, during an Aug. 5 presentation of the company’s second quarter results. “That is something where we have some mitigation actions in place, but over time we need to put more actions in place to mitigate that impact.”
Cat saw its operating profits in the second quarter drop 18%, from $3.482 billion to $2.86 billion, which the manufacturer directly attributed to unfavorable manufacturing costs, specifically the impact of higher tariffs.
But Cat also has reasons to be optimistic going forward, revising its year-over-year sales estimates upward from earlier this year. “Demand remains resilient, supported by infrastructure spending and growing energy needs,” said Bonfield.
