Depreciation is the value your Turo car loses while you own it. No bill arrives, but you pay it when you sell. Here's how to estimate it per month and per booked day.
Depreciation on a Turo car is the value it loses between the day you buy it and the day you sell it. You never get a bill for it, so it doesn't show up in your payouts or your bank account. You pay it all at once, when the sale price comes in lower than what you paid.
For most Turo cars it's one of the biggest costs on the list, and rental miles make it bigger. The simple way to handle it: (what you paid all-in − what you expect to sell it for) ÷ months you'll own it. Put that number next to insurance and cleaning as a monthly cost. For the example car below, it's $236.11 a month, which cuts what looks like $434.40 a month of profit to $198.29.
Why do hosts forget it?
Because every other cost on a Turo car moves money: insurance, cleaning, the payout itself. Depreciation doesn't until the end. So a car can look fine every month and still turn out to be a bad deal when you sell it.
How do you estimate depreciation before you buy?
You need three numbers:
- All-in cost: purchase price plus sales tax, title, first registration and setup. You don't get the fees back when you sell, so they belong in here.
- Expected sale price: what the same model sells for at the age and mileage it'll have when you're done with it.
- How long you'll keep it.
To guess the sale price, look up asking prices for the same make, model and trim that are as old as yours will be, with the mileage yours will have. Not today's mileage. Then knock a bit off, since you'll likely sell below asking and rental history can make it a harder sell.
We'll reuse the example car from how to calculate ROI on a Turo car before you buy it. These are made-up round numbers to show the math, not averages or market data.
| Example car | Amount |
|---|---|
| All-in cost (price $18,000 plus $1,500 in fees) | $19,500 |
| Expected sale price after 3 years | $11,000 |
| Lost value | $8,500 |
| Per year | $2,833.33 |
| Per month | $236.11 |
The car's cash profit before depreciation, at $55 a day, 18 booked days a month and the 80% Balanced plan, is $434.40 a month. Take off $236.11 and the real profit is $198.29 a month. More than half of what looked like profit was the car slowly being used up.
What does depreciation cost per booked day?
Depreciation runs whether the car is booked or not, so every trip has to carry a share of it. The fewer days the car books, the bigger each day's share.
| Booked days a month | Depreciation per booked day |
|---|---|
| 12 | $19.68 |
| 15 | $15.74 |
| 18 | $13.12 |
| 21 | $11.24 |
At 18 booked days, $13.12 of every $44 you keep per day (that's $55 × 80%) is going to depreciation. At 12 booked days, it's $19.68. That's a big part of why the same car can make money at 18 days and lose money at 12, as we showed in how many days a Turo car needs to be booked to break even.
How do guest miles change depreciation?
Used car prices drop with mileage, so the miles guests drive come straight out of your sale price. Here's the same example car under two assumptions about how far guests drive. It's bought at 40,000 miles and kept 3 years at 216 booked days a year. Both sale prices are made-up examples; look up your own.
| Example | 40 miles a booked day | 80 miles a booked day |
|---|---|---|
| Guest miles over 3 years | 25,920 | 51,840 |
| Odometer at sale (guest miles only) | 65,920 | 91,840 |
| Example sale price | $11,000 | $9,000 |
| Lost value per year | $2,833.33 | $3,500.00 |
| Wear (tires, brakes, oil) at $0.08 a mile, per year | $691.20 | $1,382.40 |
| Profit per year | $2,379.47 | $1,021.60 |
Same car, same rate, same booked days. Guests driving twice as far cuts this car's yearly profit by more than half.
In this example, the extra $2,000 in lost value works out to $2,000 ÷ 25,920 extra miles = about 7.7 cents a mile. Add 8 cents of wear and each extra mile costs you roughly 15.7 cents, or $6.29 per booked day for 40 extra miles a day.
Do Turo's distance limits protect you?
Partly. Turo lets you offer unlimited distance or set a daily limit, and you can also set weekly and monthly limits. But your daily limit can't go below Turo's minimum for the car's class and location. Per Turo's help center, for US standard cars that minimum is 200 miles a day (100 for Deluxe, 75 for Super Deluxe), with lower per-day minimums for discounted weekly and monthly trips.
If a guest goes over, you can charge for the extra distance. Turo sets that rate when the trip is booked by dividing the daily price by the daily distance. For the example car, $55 ÷ 200 miles = 27.5 cents a mile before any trip discounts, and you get a share of that fee based on your earnings plan. Compared with the 15.7 cents a mile in the example above, that fee covers the cost when a guest goes over.
The catch is that the fee only applies above the limit. A guest who drives 150 miles a day on a 200-mile limit pays nothing extra. So most of your mileage cost has to be covered by your daily rate. If you offer unlimited distance, there's no fee at all, and you're betting the daily rate covers whatever the guest drives.
When does depreciation force your hand?
Turo's US vehicle eligibility rules say a car can't be more than 12 years old (classic and specialty cars aside) and must have under 130,000 miles to be listed. A car that passes 130,000 miles after it's listed can stay if it's in excellent condition and meets legal, safety and mechanical standards.
A car near either limit has fewer years of Turo income left, and the next buyer can't list it either. If you plan to run a car to the limits, plan for a low sale price.
Is tax depreciation the same thing?
No. Tax depreciation is how the IRS lets you deduct the cost of the car over time. It follows IRS rules and schedules, not what the car is actually worth. A car can be worth far more or less than its tax value.
Even if you use the standard mileage rate, depreciation is built in. IRS Notice 2026-10 sets the 2026 business rate at 72.5 cents a mile and says 35 cents of each business mile counts as depreciation, which lowers the car's tax basis. That basis affects your gain or loss when you sell. If you use actual expenses instead, depreciation is figured separately. Our post on Turo taxes, deductions and records covers the two methods; ask your tax pro which fits your cars.
For deciding whether a car is worth keeping, use real lost value, not the tax number.
How do you keep track of it?
- Write down the all-in cost the day you buy the car, fees included.
- Check its value once or twice a year at its current mileage, the same way you estimated the sale price.
- Count depreciation as a monthly cost when you judge whether a car is profitable.
- Watch guest miles. If guests drive much more than you planned, your sale price is dropping faster too.
FleetEarnings shows each car's income, expenses, net profit and ROI from your Turo earnings CSV, and tracks expenses and maintenance history per car. To test a car's numbers with depreciation in them, start with the Turo profit calculator.
The bottom line
- Depreciation is the value the car loses while you own it. No bill comes, but you pay it when you sell.
- Depreciation per month = (all-in cost − expected sale price) ÷ months owned.
- Estimate the sale price at the mileage you'll sell at, not today's.
- Guest miles cost you twice: wear now, and a lower sale price later. Price your daily rate to cover both.
Sources: Turo help center pages on setting distance limits and US vehicle eligibility; IRS Notice 2026-10 on 2026 standard mileage rates. Checked October 20, 2026. FleetEarnings is not affiliated with Turo, Inc.