When do caravans go on sale in Australia?
The two windows worth planning around are the run-up to 30 June, when dealer and manufacturer financial years close and sitting floor stock is what they most want moved, and the weeks around your state's big caravan and camping show, when a lot of sellers are competing under one roof.
Price moves most on stock already on the floor, because a factory order is not costing anybody money while it waits. A run-out van with last year's date on its compliance plate is brand new either way.
When do caravans go on sale
in Australia?
The buying year has a shape, and most buyers walk into it without knowing.
Here is the whole calendar, and what actually moves a price in each part of it.
Updated - specs from the manufacturer's own pages.
- The two windows worth planning around are the run-up to 30 June and the weeks either side of your state's big caravan show.
- A van with last year's date on its compliance plate is priced to move once the newer stock lands, and it is brand new either way.
- Price moves most on stock already sitting on the floor, because a factory order is not costing anybody money while it waits.
Why caravan prices have a calendar at all
A caravan on a dealer's floor is usually not the dealer's money. Most yards fund their stock through floorplan finance, which is a line of credit secured against the vans themselves, and it accrues for every day a van sits there unsold.
That single fact explains nearly everything else on this page. A van that has been on the floor a while is costing money right now, so the pressure to move it is real and it grows. A van you order from the factory costs the dealer nothing while it is being built, which is why the two are never priced the same way.
The industry itself describes caravan retail as running on seasonal sales cycles, and floorplan finance exists partly to let dealers ride them. Layer the show calendar and the 30 June books-close date over the top and you get a year with a repeating shape.
None of this means waiting is always right. The current market has the industry reporting buyers taking longer to decide, with the median caravan buying journey now around six months against roughly three a decade ago. If you start looking in August you are buying in February anyway, which puts you in show season whether you planned it or not.
The run-up to 30 June
The Australian financial year ends on 30 June, and it ends for the dealer and the manufacturer as well as for you. Sales booked before that date land in this year's numbers. Stock still sitting on 1 July is stock that has to be carried into the new year, still accruing.
So May and June are when the pressure to move a van is at its most obvious. It is also the most predictable window in the year, because unlike a show it happens everywhere at once and it never moves.
Two practical notes. The best of the floor stock goes early, so late June is not the clever play it sounds like. And a van bought on 29 June still has to be built, inspected and handed over, so if the van you want is a factory order the date does almost nothing for you.
About the tax angle, because it comes up every June
You will see the instant asset write-off mentioned around this time of year. It is worth knowing how it actually works before it influences a purchase. The threshold is measured against the asset's full cost, not the share you use for business, so a van priced anywhere near a normal caravan price does not fit inside it.
The threshold and the eligibility rules also change from year to year, and some announced changes are not law yet. The ATO's own page and your accountant are the only two sources worth acting on, and neither of them is a caravan yard.
Run-out stock and what the plate really costs you
Every caravan sold in Australia carries a compliance plate, and one of the things stamped on it is the date of manufacture. It sits there alongside the VIN, the Tare and the ATM for the life of the van.
That date is why run-out pricing exists. Once newer-plated vans are on the floor, the ones built earlier are harder to sell standing next to them, even where the two are mechanically identical. So they get priced to move.
Worth being clear about what you are actually buying. It is a brand new van that has never been towed, with the full manufacturer warranty, and the only thing wrong with it is a number on a plate. That number does follow you: it is the year the van will be advertised as when you sell or trade it, and buyers price on it then too.
So the sum is simple. If the discount today is larger than the difference the plate year makes when you eventually sell, run-out stock is a good buy, and for anyone planning to keep a van a decade it usually is. If you tend to change vans every few years, weigh it more carefully. Our depreciation guide has the resale side of that maths.
Timing is less tidy here than in the car world, where plate clearance has a well-known December habit. Caravans do not follow that calendar closely, and in practice run-out and the mid-year window tend to land on top of each other. The honest answer is to ask.
Ask what year is on the plate of the van in front of you, ask what else on the floor is plated differently, and check the plate yourself at handover. Our compliance plate guide shows where to find it and how to read every figure on it.
Show season
The state caravan and camping shows are the closest thing this market has to a fixed sales calendar. They put hundreds of exhibitors and a thousand vans under one roof for four or five days, with every seller pricing against the one across the aisle.
The offers are real, and they take a lot of forms: sharper drive-away pricing, solar and lithium upgrades included, accessory packages, extended warranty offers. They also come with a deadline attached, which is exactly what they are for.
Dates shift by a week or two each year, so check the organiser before you book anything. Regional expos and roadshows fill in around these, through Ballarat, Bendigo, Geelong, Wodonga, Cairns, Rockhampton and Hobart, and they are worth the drive if the big show is a long way off.
Going to a show without getting swept along
A show is the highest-pressure environment in caravan buying. Crowds, a countdown, and a lot of people signing things around you. The way through it is boring and it works: know your numbers before you walk in, and ask the same questions at every stand.
Six questions to ask at the stand
- Is this price available after the show closes, or only today?
- What is in the drive-away figure, and what sits outside it?
- What does the van weigh with these options fitted, on the plate, not the brochure?
- What is the build slot, and what is the delivery date in writing?
- What are the payment milestones between now and handover?
- What happens to my deposit if the delivery date moves?
The weights question is the one people skip and regret. Options add mass, and the figure that matters is the one on the plate of the van you are buying, not the brochure for the base model. Run the van you are looking at through our tow check on your phone at the stand, and read caravan weights explained before you go so the numbers mean something when you get there.
The quiet months, and why they suit some buyers better
After the June shows the calendar thins right out, and it stays thin until the smaller October cluster. That is also when a good share of the people who already own vans are somewhere north of Rockhampton, because the dry season across the top runs roughly May to September and that is when everyone goes.
A yard in Melbourne in August is a different experience to the same yard in February. Nobody is queued behind you, nothing closes on Sunday, and the person showing you around has time to open every hatch and answer the awkward questions properly.
We are not going to tell you prices are automatically lower in winter, because nobody publishes the data that would prove it and the people who say so loudest are usually selling something. What is true is that an unhurried inspection is worth real money, and a rushed one has cost plenty of people a lot more than a discount would have saved them.
The quiet stretch is when to do the unglamorous work
Get the tow vehicle's real numbers off its own plate, not off a brochure. Take the car to a weighbridge as it sits, loaded the way you actually travel. Build a shortlist on published specs and work out where your payload lands once the family and the gear are in.
Do all of that between July and September and you walk into show season with the hard part finished. Start it on the day of the show and you will be making the biggest decisions of the purchase in a crowd.
Factory order against buying in stock
Every window on this page applies mostly to vans already built and standing on a floor somewhere. That is the whole point: the discount is the dealer buying back the money the van is costing them to hold.
A factory order is a different transaction. You get the layout, the weights and the off-grid gear specified the way you want them, and you pay a deposit and wait. The wait is nothing like the pandemic years, when the industry was quoting delivery times out to twelve months and buyers took it because there was no alternative. Waits have come back a long way and the industry now describes lead times as markedly improved.
We are not going to put a number of months on your build, because it depends on the builder, the spec and the time of year, and a made-up figure helps nobody. Get the build slot and the delivery date in writing, ask what happens to the date if a supplier is late, and ask what your deposit does if it moves.
Order it when
- The layout has to be right and nothing on the floor is close
- You need specific weights, payload or off-grid capacity
- You have a date in mind that is comfortably months away
- You would rather wait than compromise and regret it for ten years
Buy in stock when
- A van on the floor is genuinely close to what you wanted
- You have a trip booked and the date is not moving
- The saving is real and the compromise is a couple of options
- You want to inspect the actual van rather than a drawing of it
How to tell a real deal from a good sign
A discount is only a discount against something. The number to measure it against is what the van, or its closest current equivalent, is published at new.
That is most of why this site exists. Open the range page for the van you are being offered, on your phone, at the stand. A seller quoting a genuine price will not mind at all.
Four things that quietly change the number
What is inside the drive-away price. Registration, stamp duty, delivery and dealer charges all sit differently from one quote to the next, and a headline price with three of them outside it is not the price.
What the included options actually weigh. A generous accessory package is worth having, and every kilogram of it comes off your payload.
Whether the offer survives the deadline. Ask plainly whether the same deal is there next week. The answer tells you what kind of offer it is.
What the trade-in is doing. A strong price on the new van and a soft one on your old one is a common shape. Price the two separately, then add them up.
Have the money question settled before the window opens
Every window on this page is a deadline of one kind or another, and deadlines are exactly where an unsorted budget hurts. The buyer who knows what they can comfortably spend is the one who can say yes on the day, or walk away without wondering.
It also keeps the conversation on the price of the van rather than on a monthly figure, which is a better conversation to be having on a busy show floor.
Our finance partner Jade Finance is able to arrange caravan loans and leases, for new and used vans. Worth starting the conversation before the show or the end of June rather than during it.
Enquire about caravan finance with Jade FinanceFree quote, no obligation.The form takes about 2 minutes.
Jade Finance is our finance partner. If you finance through them, Jade pays us a commission.It's part of what keeps this site free. About us
Background on how caravan lending works is in caravan finance explained, and you can model repayments at your own numbers with the finance calculator.
The year on one screen
January to June
Show season. Every mainland state runs its big show in this stretch, and the buying pressure concentrates around them.
May and June
The end of the financial year. Dealer and manufacturer books close on 30 June, and floor stock that has been sitting is the stock they most want gone.
July to September
The quiet stretch in the southern states. Fewer shows, fewer people in the yards, and more of a salesperson's attention for the price of a cold morning.
October and November
A smaller second cluster of shows, mostly Victorian and ACT, before the year winds down.
December and January
Holidays. Yards are open, staff are thin, and anything ordered now is a next-year van.
The last thing worth saying is the thing that undoes all of it. Timing is worth a few thousand dollars. Buying the wrong van is worth a great deal more than that, and no window in the year makes a van that does not suit you into one that does.
Work out the van first. Then pick your window.
Common questions
When is the best time of year to buy a caravan in Australia?
The two windows worth planning around are the run-up to 30 June, when dealer and manufacturer financial years close and floor stock is what they most want moved, and the weeks around your state's big caravan and camping show, when a lot of sellers are competing in one building. The quieter stretch from July to September is the other option: no window pressure, but an unhurried yard and time to inspect properly.
What is a caravan run-out or plate clearance sale?
Every caravan carries a compliance plate stamped with its date of manufacture. Once a newer build year is on the floor, the earlier-plated vans beside it are harder to sell, so they get priced to move. The van is brand new and has never been towed. It simply says an older year on the plate, and it will say that again the day you trade it in.
Are caravan show deals actually cheaper?
Shows concentrate a lot of sellers in one place for a few days, so the offers are real and they are competitive. They also come with a deadline attached, which is the point of them. The single question that sorts a genuine show price from a bit of theatre is whether the same deal is available the week after the show, and it costs nothing to ask.
How long does it take to get a new caravan built in Australia?
Nothing like the waits of the pandemic years, when the industry was quoting delivery times out to twelve months. Waits have come back a long way since then, but a factory-ordered van is still measured in months rather than weeks, and the honest answer for the van you want is the build slot and delivery date the dealer will put in writing. In-stock vans are the trade-off: less say over the spec, and you tow it home.
Should I buy a caravan in stock or order one from the factory?
Order from the factory when the layout, the weights or the off-grid gear have to be exactly right, and you can wait. Buy in stock when the timing matters more than the last few options, or when a van already on the floor is close enough to what you wanted. Stock on the floor is costing the dealer money every day it sits, and a factory order is not, which is most of why the two are priced differently.
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