UK tractor registrations hit a historic low in 2025, with new figures from the Agricultural Engineers Association (AEA) revealing the weakest December performance for almost a decade.
Just 541 agricultural tractors over 50hp were registered in December, a drop of 31.6% compared with the same month in 2024. It was the lowest December total since 2016 and around a quarter below the five-year average for the month.
The poor performance capped a difficult year for the machinery market. Across 2025 as a whole, data shows just 8,791 tractors were registered, a fall of 14.2% on the previous year.
This is the lowest annual total since the organisation began monitoring tractor registrations in the 1960s, according to the AEA's data.
Analysts at the association believe the underlying picture may be even starker, with tractor sales during 2025 likely to have fallen to their lowest level since before the Second World War.
The downturn reflects a sustained lack of confidence across the farming sector. Uncertainty over future agricultural and tax policy has weighed heavily on investment decisions, alongside challenging weather, rising input costs and weak commodity prices.
Arable producers in particular have faced pressure on margins, limiting appetite for major machinery purchases.
While modern tractors are far larger and more productive than those used in earlier decades, the scale of the decline points to a sharp slowdown in replacement cycles and new investment.
The sector has endured difficult periods before, including in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but 2025 is now being viewed as one of the toughest years on record for the UK agricultural machinery industry, with knock-on effects for ageing fleets, machinery dealers and the wider supply chain.
