White Was Still The Most Popular Car Color In 2025, But Green Is Making A Comeback

It's no secret that the landscape of automotive paint colors is really damn boring, and has been for years. Despite bright colors in pastels being huge in the 1950s and '60s, and lots of weird color schemes in the '80s and '90s, modern consumers typically just buy their cars in white, gray or black. We have the data to prove it, as every year German paint supplier BASF puts out a Color Report for Automotive OEM Coatings that details exactly how popular all the different car colors are, both globally and in specific regions like the Americas, Europe and Asia. 

Once again white was the most popular color globally in 2025, and at 33% it won by a pretty big margin compared to black in second place at 23% and gray at 19%, each of those compared to 34%, 22% and 17% in 2024, respectively. Last year red, blue and gold each declined 1%, but there's still some good news: Green's popularity increased by 1% globally, and the report is even better when looking at the Americas specifically.

In the American market, white is still king but it's on the decline, at 28% in 2025 compared to 29% the year before and 34% in 2023. Gray also declined 4% in 2025, to 16%, while black held steady at 20% — in 2024 gray had gone up by 10%, but black was down 2%. Silver did grab 13% of the market last year, up 2%. At least Americans like red and blue more than people in the rest of the world, as both stayed the same as last year with red at 7% and blue at 9%. Brown didn't even make the report in 2024, but in 2025 it was 1% of the market, and violet stayed at 1% alongside beige. But green doubled its popularity in the Americas, going from 2% in 2024 to 4% last year. Speaking about the results for the Americas, BASF's report says:

The share of colored car paints has risen by almost two percentage points, showing a stronger preference for expressive colors. While red and blue have historically led in the Americas, shades like green, beige, brown, and violet are now gaining momentum, highlighting a shift toward nature-inspired and diverse aesthetics.

"In 2021, brown and beige have been key colors of our trend collection. The sales now validate these early predictions and illustrate, how long-term trends continue to shape the market," said Mark Gutjahr, global head of Automotive Color Design at BASF Coatings.

Monochromatic colors are more popular in the Asia Pacific area, with gray and silver up and black, white, and every color except beige and green seeing a decline. In Europe, black and gray gained but silver and white declined, and blue and green got 1% more popular while beige and reach each went down by 1%. Yellow makes the report everywhere but the Americas, but only ever taking up 1% of the market. It sucks that real colors are still so relatively unpopular across the world, but hopefully that continues to change.