New vehicle registrations in Mauritius, 2026

One in five buyers did not turn up

Between January and April 2026, 10,404 vehicles were newly registered in Mauritius. Over the same four months of 2025 the figure was 13,246. That is 2,842 fewer, a fall of 21%.

The slowdown is in both halves of the market. Brand-new vehicles went from 9,567 to 7,629, down 20%. Second-hand went from 3,679 to 2,775, down 25%.

The last budget measures are the obvious suspect, and the trade says so itself. Whatever the cause, four months is four months, not a trend.

April was the month second-hand came back

New vehicles dominate every month of the year: roughly three of every four registrations. January was the strongest month for them and nothing since has matched it.

Second-hand went the other way. From 596 in January it climbed to 833 in April, its best month of the year, and its share of the month went from 22% to 30%.

One month is not a reversal. It is worth watching, because a second-hand market picking up while the new market cools is what a squeeze on household budgets looks like from the outside.

The fleet grew anyway

Fewer arrivals is not the same as fewer vehicles. Almost nothing leaves the register, so a slower year still adds to the total, and the total passed 750,000 for the first time in April 2026.

In seven years the register has gained 176,044 vehicles. The population has not moved: it has hovered around 1.2 million throughout.

What those 756,673 vehicles are

Cars are not quite half of it. Put motorcycles and mopeds together and they come to a third, which is more of the island's traffic than most people picture.

And 3,497 buses

The whole island is served by 3,497 buses, against 365,603 cars. That is one bus for every hundred and five cars.

It is the same shape the register has had for fifteen years, and it is why the morning does not improve on its own.

What the numbers do not say

These are registrations, not traffic. A registered vehicle can be off the road, off the island, or under a tarpaulin, and the register still counts it. Nobody publishes how many cars are on the M1 at ten to eight.

January to April is a third of a year, and vehicle registrations are not spread evenly across one. Comparing it with the same four months of 2025 is fair; comparing it with a full year is not.

What is not in doubt is the direction of the total. It has gone one way every year on this table.

And if you are reading both pages of numbers on this site: everything here is the register at the end of April 2026. The page on how many cars there are in Mauritius quotes the July 2026 column, three months later, so its totals run a few thousand higher. Same source, different date, not a contradiction.

How many cars are there in Mauritius?

Where Lotokam comes in

A slower year still adds nearly ten thousand vehicles in four months, on the same roads, at the same hour of the morning. Most of them will go to work with one person inside.

Lotokam introduces you to somebody already making your trip, at your time, so two of those cars become one. Free, no money moves through the app, and your number stays private until you have both agreed.