Updated 2026-10-31 · data to September 2026
Data and method
Everything comes from a public SRI file. Here is each file, how many rows we read, what we left out and why.
Source
Every file, with its date and fingerprint →
Every month SRI, Ecuador’s tax authority, publishes a new vehicles file for each year since 2017 on its open data portal, under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (as listed on datosabiertos.gob.ec). Each row describes one vehicle: brand, description, model year, class, fuel, engine size, valuation, dates, canton and buyer type. There are no owners’ names. There are no files before 2017.
| Year | Rows in the file | Repeats | Older model years | Counted |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 275,320 | 69,694 | 11,626 | 194,000 |
| 2018 | 366,696 | 93,819 | 7,577 | 265,300 |
| 2019 | 366,354 | 84,079 | 5,112 | 277,163 |
| 2020 | 322,187 | 103,348 | 5,745 | 213,094 |
| 2021 | 661,062 | 374,659 | 7,767 | 278,636 |
| 2022 | 629,524 | 305,897 | 6,209 | 317,418 |
| 2023 | 555,126 | 223,578 | 5,274 | 326,274 |
| 2024 | 460,550 | 132,480 | 7,283 | 320,787 |
| 2025 | 482,754 | 82,926 | 7,747 | 392,081 |
| 2026 | 457,014 | 92,759 | 5,898 | 358,357 |
| Total | 4,576,587 | 1,563,239 | 70,238 | 2,943,110 |
Method
Reading
The files change format between years: encoding, column names, dates (28/12/2018, 27-Nov-20, 2-dic-21), decimal commas or points, and the canton as a code or a name. We read each column by its name and reject any unknown column. Every line in a file must become a row read, or the update stops.
One vehicle, once
The files repeat vehicles: the same vehicle code appears on several rows that differ only in the processing date (34.2% of all rows; half of 2021). We count each vehicle once, in the month of its first processing from the purchase date on. If it turns up again in a later year’s file, nearly always in January, it counts in the first.
New only
We leave out vehicles whose model year is more than a year before the year of registration (2.3% of the rows): they are older units registered for the first time.
Models
SRI has no model code: each row carries a description such as “SOLUTO LX AC 1.4 4P 4X2 TM”. The model is the name at the start of the description (Soluto, Tiggo 2 Pro, CX-5); the full description is the version. We merge spelling variants (CX-5 and CX5) and fix by hand what the rule groups wrongly. We checked the 100 best-selling light vehicles by hand. Version descriptions stay in Spanish, as SRI writes them.
Valuation
A version’s valuation in a month is the most common value among its local purchases that month, for the newest model year. Direct imports have their own valuation and are left out of that calculation. A version is current if it sold in the last 6 months.
Cantons
SRI writes the canton as a five-digit code (region + the official four-digit code) or, in 2026, as a name. Official names come from the Ministerio de Gobierno’s Organización Territorial Cantonal (CC BY 4.0), with INEC’s codes. In 2026, “Bolívar” and “Olmedo” exist in two provinces and are left without a province. The canton is where the vehicle was registered, not where the buyer lives.
Tax
See the calculator: the table, the share by months and the electric exemption, with their sources.
Downloads
- mercado.csv — units by month and type, hybrids, electric, made in China and the average valuation of light vehicles.
- modelos.csv — units by model and year.
- avaluos.csv — current valuation by version.
- modelos.json — the index the Compare page uses.
Column names are in Spanish: mes = month, livianos = light vehicles, motos = motorbikes, pesados = heavy vehicles, avaluo = valuation, anio = year, unidades = units.
Free to use, crediting “Cero Kilómetros, with SRI data”. The original rows are in the SRI files linked above.