Recycling fee, new prices and new products: what awaits Russian motorists in May
The coming May will please Russians with new products on the car market and at the same time disappoint with the continued rise in prices for both new and used cars. As Motor writes, citing dealers and auto expert Sergei Tselikov, cars are “slowly but surely” going up in price by 1-2 percent per month.
Price growth for Representatives of large dealerships, in turn, state that the Russian automobile market continues to follow the trend of “slow price increases,” and since the beginning of 2026, car prices have already increased by 2-3 percent. Overall, it has reached an “equilibrium”: it can no longer be called a “buyer’s market,” where good bargaining can help lower prices, nor a “seller’s market,” where there is always a high risk of encountering unjustified price increases.
Meanwhile, as Auto News of the Day discovered through its own monitoring, 10 brands changed their prices for new cars in Russia in April, seven of which raised them and three lowered them. Among the first were, among others, Moskvich, Tenet, Haval, Tank and others.
Increase in recycling fees in Belarus
It’s a completely different story with parallel imports. As is known, the introduction of a single formula for calculating the recycling fee for cars imported from the EAEU countries has been postponed for now, but buying them through Belarus has now become less profitable.
The reason is that new recycling fee rates came into force in the republic on April 24, 2026 – for example, for individuals importing one car for personal use, they increased by 7 percent. The most significant increase in the form of a multiple increase in rates will be felt by legal entities engaged in the commercial import of cars for the purpose of their resale, including those delivering them to Russia.
But there is also good news: the indexation of recycling fee rates did not affect cars manufactured in the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). Therefore, nothing changes for buyers of foreign cars assembled in Kazakhstan or cars made in Belarus.
New products in May
