F&I income per vehicle retailed reached a record $1,769 in the second quarter of 2026 — up 4.8% year over year and the highest quarterly figure in the history of the Presidio-NCM Average Dealership Performance Benchmark report.

Analysts say average franchised dealership profitability slid 11.8% against an unusually strong year-ago comparison. Fixed operations and F&I together are increasingly carrying dealership earnings as front-end margins compress; fixed ops alone generated 52.8% of total dealership gross profit in Q2, up from 50.1% a year earlier, and posted a 5.2% year-over-year gross profit gain for the quarter.

“As vehicle margins tighten, the conversation should shift to execution,” writes Paul Faletti, CEO of NCM Associates. “The dealerships performing best are the ones that understand where their profits are coming from and are intentional about protecting those profit streams while watching costs.”

The Q2 decline follows an unusually strong 2025 comparison driven by tariff-related pull-ahead demand and an easy comp to the CDK outage-disrupted Q2 2024. Gross profit per new vehicle retailed fell 13.5% year over year to $1,840 but improved 3.3% sequentially, while gross profit per used vehicle retailed declined 10.0% year over year to $1,409 but rose for a second straight quarter.

Read the full report at The Presidio Group