LexusLexus bucks the trend when it comes to depreciation. Luxury cars generally tend to depreciate steeply over their first few years on sale — in fact, virtually all of the worst depreciating cars on the market are made by luxury brands. Meanwhile, many Lexus vehicles depreciate at a rate that's more typical of an economy car. In KBB's 2026 Best Resale Value Awards, Lexus took the title for the best luxury brand. Perhaps even more impressively, its UX, RX, and NX SUVs all ranked among the very best SUVs on the market for resale value, beating every SUV from every non-luxury brand aside from Honda and Toyota.With the brand's SUVs being so exceptionally good at retaining their value, you might expect that its sedans, like the LS, are just as much of a safe bet. Unfortunately, the answer isn't quite so clear-cut, with estimates varying considerably. Some are very positive: According to iSeeCars data, the LS depreciates close to the rate of the average sedan. After five years, the research platform reports that the LS loses just over 40 percent of its value.Not everyone agrees, however. CarEdge reports a notably bigger drop in value over the same time period, but it still puts the LS ahead of the likes of the BMW 7-Series. The outlet says that the Lexus loses an average of 53 percent of its value after five years on the road. Meanwhile, KBB forecasts that a 2025 LS can be expected to lose a disappointing 67 percent of its original value over its first half decade.Why do depreciation estimates for the LS vary so much?LexusThere's no foolproof way to predict depreciation, and different outlets using slightly different methodologies can sometimes lead to wildly different results. Part of the issue with forecasting rates for the LS is that there is only a very small number of nearly-new examples on the used market to begin with.Sales for the LS in America have dropped pretty consistently since the latest generation was introduced in 2018, with Lexus only selling around 1,000 examples of the car in 2025, according to data from CarFigures. Many of the more recently purchased examples of the car are likely to still be with their first owners, which makes getting an accurate picture of their resale value more tricky than evaluating a best-selling car with plenty of used market supply.At the time of writing, searching the car resale platform AutoTrader for a 2021 Lexus LS 500 brings up only a few dozen results nationwide. Available cars range in price from around $36,000 for a high-mileage example to around $65,000 for a low-mileage, dealer-approved model. With such limited data available, a data set that features only a few more listings of higher-priced examples or a few more lower-priced examples could result in a significantly different average depreciation rate.Is it worth buying an LS in 2026?LexusLexus is discontinuing the LS after the 2026 model year, and for buyers looking to snap up one of the last remaining examples, these varied depreciation estimates mean that the car is a riskier bet than one of the brand's SUV models. Values for Lexus cars on average remain stronger than rival luxury brands, but SUVs are more popular with buyers than sedans by a significant margin, and there is very little to suggest that popularity will wane in the immediate future. In turn, the lower demand for sedans has the potential to weaken buyer appetite for the LS on the used market going forwards, which could push resale rates closer to the more negative estimates.For buyers looking for a used LS, the low sales of recent model years are potentially both a good and bad thing. Depending on where you live, it might be trickier to find an attractively-priced example of the car in your area, but if you can find one, you can potentially negotiate a good deal on it. Just be sure to avoid making any of the common used car buying mistakes, especially since LS values can vary so much, and so a car in more messy condition could be worth significantly less when it's time to sell it on.
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