The value of the Irish agricultural tractor and farm machinery market has grown significantly in value over the past 10 years. The numbers of new agricultural tractors sold remains reasonably stable at close to 2,000 units per annum, the numbers of imported used tractors that have been registered in Ireland for the first time is consistently higher at closer to 3,000 units per annum.
Between new and used imported tractors, it can be estimated that Irish farmers and agricultural contractors have purchased 55,664 agricultural tractors and invested €3.4 billion in doing so. This is based on the units registered, new and used imports with an average value included for each tractor based on current and previous agricultural tractor prices.
The Irish total agricultural tractor pool or the number of tractors paying annual road tax is estimated to be 79,484. This would indicate that over 20,000 of the tractors that were registered as new at their first registration are less than 10 years old.
We do not have accurate data on the age of the used tractor imports at the time of their registration. If can be estimated based on a sample of the tractors examined, that there are typically 70% less than 10 years old (22,500 units approx.) and the balance of almost 37,000 units are more than 10 years old, including some vintage tractors registered as used imports during that period.
The other high value agricultural self-propelled machines in the fleet of Irish farmers and agricultural contractors are combine harvesters and self-propelled forage harvesters. Combine harvesters are typically 50% owned by farmers and 50% in agricultural contractor ownership. There were almost 600 new combine harvested sold in Ireland between 2012 and 2025 with a value of close to €184 million. In that time, there were 426 used machines registered for the first time in Ireland with a value of €40 million.
The self-propelled forage harvester (SPFH) market is almost exclusively an agricultural contractor market and over the period from 2012 to 2025, over 500 new machines been sold. The value of that market was in excess of €162 million. Less than 100 used SPFH’s were imported into Ireland during that period.
The growth area in terms higher cost machine sales on Irish farms is the telehandler market. The growth of these machines comes at the expense of tractor loaders. There were 534 new telescopic loaders registered in Ireland in 2022 which has grown by more than 40% to 754 units in 2025. The total value of this market based on a unit price of €100,000, is now €75 million and 50% of this is now attributable to the agricultural sector based on the machine specifications being registered.
