How Long Does a Used Nissan Altima Take to Sell?

Real days-on-lot from 1,985 retail sales at independent dealerships, broken out by model year and measured against the midsize sedans it competes with.

Sales window: Jan 2024 – Nov 2026 Sample: 1,985 sales Updated monthly
Short answer

Half of all used Nissan Altimas sell within 36 days, against an all-vehicle median of 39 days — that is 3 days faster than the typical vehicle on an independent lot. Among midsize sedans it ranks 4 of 8 for turn speed. A quarter move in under 15 days and a quarter take more than 85 — that spread is the part worth planning around.

36
days on lot
median
15–85
middle half
sells in
1,985
sales in
the sample
91,447
average
miles
$14,759
average
list price
$1,188
est. holding
cost*
“We need to buy and sell more cars to net the same profit levels.”
— An independent dealer in the Midwest, Cox Automotive's Q4 2025 Dealer Sentiment Index

By model year

Age and turn time are not the straight line most dealers assume. The 2010 moves fastest at 18 days, while the 2022 sits for 59.5.

Model year Median days Sales Avg miles Avg list price
2025 Nissan Altima 36 125 36,692 $22,264
2024 Nissan Altima 57 103 34,173 $22,998
2023 Nissan Altima 29.5 114 36,566 $22,596
2022 Nissan Altima 59.5 140 56,150 $20,088
2021 Nissan Altima 57.5 124 76,462 $18,137
2020 Nissan Altima 45.5 156 83,943 $15,909
2019 Nissan Altima 40 148 91,628 $15,540
2018 Nissan Altima 31 147 104,361 $13,829
2017 Nissan Altima 30 169 111,747 $12,459
2016 Nissan Altima 30.5 150 112,573 $11,446
2015 Nissan Altima 33 199 112,151 $10,340
2014 Nissan Altima 24 99 117,327 $9,520
2013 Nissan Altima 34 81 117,374 $9,321
2012 Nissan Altima 34 59 126,899 $8,411
2011 Nissan Altima 31 41 143,448 $6,299
2010 Nissan Altima 18 45 143,978 $6,245

Model years with at least 40 recorded sales. Days on lot is the calendar gap between inventory entry and sale date.

Against the midsize sedans it competes with

Nissan Altima 36 d
Kia Optima 41 d

Average days on lot, sales since January 2024. Shorter is better. Minimum 150 sales per model.

Methodology

Days on lot is the number of calendar days between a vehicle being added to a dealership's inventory and its recorded sale date. That clock starts at intake, so on units that need work it includes reconditioning time. We exclude vehicles with no entry date, sales recorded before the entry date, and anything over 730 days — those are data-entry artifacts, not slow-moving inventory.

We report the median, not the average. Turn time has a long right tail: a handful of units that sit for a year or more drag the mean well above what a normal car does. Across every vehicle we track, the mean is 66.9 days while the median is 39. The median answers the question a dealer is actually asking, and the quartiles show the spread around it.

These figures come from aggregated, de-identified activity across independent dealerships that use AutoRaptor. We report only totals across many dealerships, never an individual dealership's results. No customer records, buyer information or dealership names are included.

We publish a model only at 150 or more sales, and a model year only at 40 or more. We do not publish gross profit figures, because the price fields in our data are incomplete and any margin we reported would be wrong.

Average list price is the advertised price at the time of listing, not necessarily what the buyer paid — the field that records the actual sale price is populated on a small fraction of sales, too few to publish. We exclude listings under $500 or over $200,000 as data-entry artifacts.

*Est. holding cost is Nissan Altima's median days on lot multiplied by $33, the industry-wide daily floorplan cost per vehicle reported in the NIADA 2025 Used Car Industry Report — an external benchmark, not a figure derived from AutoRaptor data. It's a reminder that a slower-turning model doesn't just sell later, it costs more to hold.

There's a second cost to sitting: Mid-Size Cars — the closest category to a Nissan Altima — lost about 12.5% of their wholesale value over 2025, against 13.9% across all vehicles (Black Book, via the NIADA 2025 Used Car Industry Report). A car that sits isn't just costing floorplan interest — it's quietly worth less than it was when it arrived.

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