MacBook depreciation rate: the Apple Silicon curve, year by year#

Apple Silicon Macs retain a median 88% of MSRP at six months, 78% at twelve, 58% at twenty-four, and 44% at forty-eight. The closest comparable category in consumer computing, premium ThinkPads and Dell XPS, typically hits 40% residual at 24 months rather than 60. That is the gap, and it has been widening since late 2025.

The composite curve across every Apple Silicon base configuration in the May 2026 market looks like this. The wider 2026 used Mac aftermarket guide puts the curve in context across model families.

The composite depreciation curve#

In annual-rate terms, Apple Silicon Macs depreciate at roughly 15 to 18% per year in normal conditions. Intel-era Macs depreciate at 25 to 35% annually. Windows competitors run 30 to 40%. That gap has actually widened in 2026, because residual values in dollar terms are running roughly 3 to 6% higher in May 2026 than May 2025, an inversion of the historical 8 to 12% year-over-year decline for consumer computing.

The curve is built from Swappa average-sale data, eBay sold listings, Apple Trade In published caps, and OWC/MacSales refurbished inventory across every Apple Silicon model family. It assumes good-to-excellent cosmetic condition with verified working hardware. Lower grades sell for 15 to 30% less.

Three regimes inside the curve#

The composite curve has three distinct regimes, each driven by different forces.

The first-year cliff#

Across configurations, MacBooks lose 35 to 60% of their original retail value in the first 12 to 18 months (MacFinder data). The cliff is steepest for high-CTO configurations (more on that below) and gentlest for base machines that match the typical secondary buyer's needs.

The mechanism is straightforward. A new-in-box current-generation Mac competes directly with the used machine of the same model. Once the warranty expires and Apple's normal trade-in window closes, the depreciation rate per month is much higher in year one than in years two and three combined.

The plateau#

Years two and three depreciate slowly. In some base configurations, as little as 5% across the entire second-to-third year. The mechanism: Apple Silicon's baseline utility remains entirely sufficient for the dominant secondary buyer demographic (students, general consumers, administrative users), so demand does not soften even as new generations launch.

This is also where the comparison to competing premium laptops looks most lopsided. A ThinkPad X1 Carbon or Dell XPS 13 from the same vintage will, by month 30, have lost meaningfully more than half its launch value. The 24-month residual for those machines is roughly where Apple Silicon sits at 60 months.

Terminal decline#

A steady terminal decline begins around year four. The machine sits two to three architectural generations behind, battery health drops below the 80% maximum-capacity threshold that Apple flags as the replacement trigger, and the device approaches the end of its guaranteed macOS update lifecycle (typically 6 to 7 years post-release).

Even in terminal decline, the slope is shallower than competing platforms. A five-year-old M1 MacBook Air still clears 42% of its launch MSRP in May 2026. That is a $349 to $485 average sale on a $999 MSRP, against an Apple Trade In offer of $190.

Decay flattens with each generation#

The M3 Pro curve at any given age in 2026 is noticeably shallower than M1 Pro or M2 Pro at the same age. Part of that is Apple's SKU pruning, which has anchored buyers to higher-RAM and higher-SSD baselines. The 14-inch M3 Pro 18/512 retains 67 to 83% of its $1,999 MSRP at 30 months, against a curve that would predict 48% for a 30-month-old machine. That is the largest single deviation from the curve in the laptop market.

The mechanism: Apple removed the 256GB-SSD base SKU during the Late-2023 M3 cycle, anchoring buyers to 18GB/512GB as the new entry tier and pushing secondary demand toward prior-generation M3 Pros as the natural cheap-Pro option. The structural effect is one-way. Apple does not typically reintroduce a discontinued lower tier.

Part of the flattening is also functional sufficiency stretching further. The M3 Pro at 30 months is closer to current-generation utility than the M1 Pro was at the same point in its life, because workloads have not scaled as fast as the chips. Most users running productivity, light development, and creative tools on a 2023 M3 Pro see no daily-driver friction at all.

The composite hides category variance#

A single curve obscures meaningful differences across model families.

Entry desktops are unusually resilient in percentage terms. The M2 Mac mini retains roughly 70% of launch MSRP at 3.3 years, and the base M4 Mac mini is currently trading above MSRP at 18 months. The driver: the Mac mini is the cheapest Apple Silicon machine that can serve as a node in a small local-LLM inference cluster, and Apple's supply on the base M4 mini has been intermittent through early 2026.

Portable Macs retain less than desktops as newer chips cascade down the lineup. The M1 Air has lost roughly 65% of launch value at 4.5 years; the M2 Air has lost roughly 55% at 3 years. Laptop buyers cycle harder, and the new-laptop floor at any given price point compresses prior-generation residuals.

Mac Studio retention is bifurcated. M1 Max base Studios retain roughly 52% at 50 months, while M1 Ultras retain only about 45% on a much larger MSRP. The Ultra tier's incremental dollars depreciate faster than the chassis, because the buyer pool for the higher tier is smaller and the marginal upgrade dollar is harder to recover.

iMac residuals run slightly behind comparable Air vintages. The all-in-one form factor narrows the buyer pool somewhat, and the non-detachable display drags long-tail residuals.

What pushes a unit off the curve#

Three factors move a specific machine away from the median curve.

The CTO upgrade level matters most. Apple charges roughly 2x to 4x retail premium on RAM and SSD upgrades versus underlying component cost, and the secondary market does not respect those premiums proportionally. A base 14-inch MacBook Pro might lose 15% in year one while a maxed-RAM/maxed-SSD version of the same machine loses 30%. Upgrade-dollar recovery typically runs 30 to 50% versus 60 to 76% on the base machine. The worked numbers on the CTO upgrade tax cover this configuration by configuration.

The 2026 RAM exception cuts the other way. The DRAM and NAND shortage that began in late 2025 has created a one-time inversion on high-RAM configurations. A 128GB MacBook Pro M3/M4 Max RAM upgrade ($1,000 to $1,200 original) currently recovers $700 to $1,000, or 60 to 85%, well above the historical rate (AppleInsider on DRAM pricing). The high-RAM Mac recovery dynamics walk through why this inversion holds for RAM but not for SSD. SSD upgrades have not seen the same inversion and still recover at 25 to 50%.

Discontinued capability tiers also pull units off the curve in the other direction. The 512GB unified-memory M3 Ultra Mac Studio, removed from Apple's configurator around March 5 to 6, 2026, now sells from $9,500 to over $20,000 against a $9,499 last-list price. That is the largest single deviation from the curve in the entire current Mac market, but it is a structural anomaly rather than a generalizable pattern.

Battery cycle count and condition#

Two non-price-table factors compress or extend the curve at the unit level.

Battery cycle count moves the number predictably. Under 300 cycles reads as "excellent" and adds 5 to 10%. Over 800 cycles reduces value by 10 to 20% regardless of cosmetic condition. Once a battery is past Apple's 80% maximum-capacity threshold, the unit reads as service-required to a careful buyer, and the price reflects that. The resale impact of cycle count and cosmetic grade walks through the per-tier grading mechanics.

Cosmetic grade compresses the curve in the same direction but with a wider band. Two MacBooks of the same model and same battery health can differ by $400 in used price based on RAM and SSD alone, before condition factors are layered in. The peer-to-peer prices throughout this analysis assume good-to-excellent cosmetic condition with verified working hardware. Fair-condition units typically sell for 15 to 30% less, and worse grades sell substantially below that or do not clear at all.

What this means#

If you are buying, the value sweet spot moves with the curve. A two-year-old base configuration sitting at the plateau, with low cycle count and excellent cosmetic condition, is the cleanest entry. The 14-inch M3 Pro 18/512 is the current best example: 30 months old, 67 to 83% retention, post-cliff, pre-terminal-decline. The cliff has already happened to that owner; the plateau is yours.

If you are selling, the timing variable that matters is years since launch more than calendar month. Selling at month 11, just before the first-year cliff steepens, captures meaningfully more value than selling at month 14. Selling at month 30, while the machine is still sitting on the plateau, captures meaningfully more than selling at month 50, once terminal decline has begun. Apple's refresh cycle does add monthly volatility on top of the curve (a 5 to 10% softening in the weeks around a WWDC announcement, for example), but the underlying curve is the dominant force.

The 15 to 18% annual decay rate is structural and will reassert itself once the DRAM shortage eases and Apple's SKU pruning cycle stabilizes. Until then, the curve in May 2026 is unusually flat, and the gap to competing premium laptops is unusually wide. That gap is the cleanest measurable expression of how Apple Silicon has changed the secondary market for consumer computing.