This round’s story
Cat A vs Cat B spread narrows to $980
The Cat A and Cat B spread this round is $980. Last round it was $5,272. Over the past twelve months, that gap has ranged as wide as $21,489 and as narrow as $1,446. A sub-$1,000 gap is, by any recent measure, unusual.
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What this could mean
The Cat A and Cat B spread this round is $980. Last round it was $5,272. Over the past twelve months, that gap has ranged as wide as $21,489 and as narrow as $1,446. A sub-$1,000 gap is, by any recent measure, unusual.
What makes it stranger is the direction each category moved. Cat A rose 1.4% to $126,009. Cat B fell 1.9% to $126,989. They converged from both sides simultaneously, which is less common than one category chasing the other. One read of this is that Cat A demand has a structural floor that Cat B does not. Cat A covers cars up to 1,600cc and 130bhp, and buyers in that bracket often have fewer practical alternatives. Someone who needs an affordable family car cannot simply switch to a used 3-Series. Cat B buyers, by contrast, may have more flexibility, including the option to wait or to look at the used market. That asymmetry could explain why Cat A keeps pressing upward even as Cat B softens.
Or it could just be one noisy month.
The bid-to-quota ratios are worth sitting with. Cat A came in at 1.67, which reads as genuine demand pressure. Cat B was 1.46, still healthy but below the 1.5 threshold that typically signals real tightness. Cat C was 1.55. The spread between Cat A’s ratio and Cat B’s ratio tells a similar story to the price spread: Cat A is being competed for more aggressively, relative to available quota.
Cat E at $129,000 sits above both Cat A and Cat B this round. Cat E carries no PQP cap, so there is no renewal ceiling mechanism anchoring its price the way there is for Cat A and Cat B renewals. Whether that structural difference is influencing how buyers and dealers treat Cat E COEs is hard to say from price data alone.
The COE results June 2026 first round have left Cat A and Cat B closer in price than they have been for most of the past year. Anyone budgeting on the assumption that Cat A is meaningfully cheaper than Cat B should probably revisit that assumption before the next round.
Next round of bidding: 17 June 2026
Looking ahead
The COE results June 2026 first round have left Cat A and Cat B closer in price than they have been for most of the past year. Anyone budgeting on the assumption that Cat A is meaningfully cheaper than Cat B should probably revisit that assumption before the next round.
Next round of bidding: 17 June 2026.