Toyota Just Made Leasing More Attractive Than Buying Right Now
Toyota raised lease residual values across most models for August, making monthly payments drop while purchase incentives stay flat or disappear entirely.
Toyota bumped up residual values on most of its lineup for August 2026, and if you've been sitting on the fence between leasing and buying, this tips the scale hard toward leasing.
Residual values determine how much a leasing company thinks your car will be worth at lease end. Higher residuals mean lower depreciation gets baked into your monthly payment. Toyota just increased residuals by 2 to 4 percentage points on the Camry, RAV4, Highlander, and Tacoma. A RAV4 XLE that had a 56% residual last month now sits at 59%. On a $35,000 vehicle over 36 months, that's roughly $90 less per month before even factoring in money factor.
Meanwhile, Toyota's purchase incentives remain anemic. Most models still carry zero cash back, and APR offers top out at 3.9% for well-qualified buyers. That rate isn't terrible, but it's not competitive with what you'd get refinancing a used Toyota right now.
What You Should Do
If you planned to buy a new Toyota and keep it forever, nothing changes. But if you typically trade every three to five years anyway, leasing just became the smarter financial move. You're essentially betting against Toyota's own accountants who think these vehicles will hold value better than they did 30 days ago.
Check the lease vs buy calculator with your specific model and trim. Run the numbers with these new residuals. In most cases, you'll find leasing saves you $75 to $150 monthly compared to financing, and you're not stuck with a depreciating asset if the market shifts.
One warning: Toyota's money factors haven't dropped. They're holding steady around 0.00195 (roughly 4.7% APR equivalent), so this isn't a total slam dunk. But the residual bump alone makes August a genuinely good time to lease a Toyota, which we don't say often.
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