Copart — Business Overview

What does Copart do?

Copart is an online-only vehicle auction platform that connects sellers of damaged or unwanted cars with buyers around the world. Founded in 1982 and headquartered in Dallas, Texas, Copart processes vehicles on behalf of sellers — primarily insurance companies — and auctions them through its proprietary internet platform called VB3 (Virtual Bidding Third Generation). Think of it as eBay for salvage cars, but built specifically for the insurance and automotive industries, with roughly 1 million registered buyers (called "members") worldwide.

The company operates through two reportable segments: U.S. and International.

For fiscal year 2025 (ending July 31, 2025), Copart generated $4.6 billion in revenue and $1.7 billion in operating income — an operating margin of roughly 37%, which is exceptionally high for a marketplace business.

How does Copart make money?

Copart earns fees from vehicle sellers at each step of the remarketing process, rather than simply taking a cut of the final sale price. In the U.S., Canada, Brazil, and most of its international markets, Copart acts as an agent — it never owns the vehicle — and charges a menu of fees including vehicle listing fees, selling fees (either a percentage of the sale price, tiered amounts, or flat fees), transportation fees, storage fees, title processing fees, and bidding fees paid by buyers. Because Copart's revenue under its Percentage Incentive Program (PIP) is tied directly to the final sale price, it has a built-in incentive to merchandise vehicles well and attract as many bidders as possible.

In the U.K., Germany, and Spain, Copart also acts as a principal — buying vehicles outright and reselling them. In the U.K. specifically, some insurance companies hold tenders where Copart bids to purchase salvage vehicles in bulk. Copart also earns revenue in the U.K. through Green Parts Specialist (GPS), which dismantles vehicles and sells used parts, and in Germany from listing vehicles for insurance companies to assess residual value.

What market does Copart operate in?

Copart sits at the center of the salvage vehicle remarketing industry, which exists to help insurance companies efficiently dispose of total-loss vehicles — cars deemed too expensive to repair relative to their pre-accident value. Insurance companies account for 81% of all vehicles Copart processed in both fiscal 2025 and 2024. The remaining volume comes from dealers, rental car companies, banks, fleet operators, charities, and individuals.

Several structural trends are pushing more vehicles into the total-loss category. Modern cars increasingly include complex and expensive components: unibody frames made with exotic metals, airbags, collision warning systems, backup cameras, lane departure systems, automatic braking, and electric drivetrains. When these vehicles are in even minor accidents, repair costs can quickly exceed the car's market value, making a total-loss declaration more likely. This is a quiet but powerful tailwind for Copart's core volume.

The buyer side of the market is global and growing. In fiscal 2025, 38.8% of U.S. vehicles were sold to international members, with buyers located outside the state of the vehicle accounting for 69.8% of total U.S. unit sales. Exported vehicles often end up in developing countries where affordable used transportation is in high demand, broadening the pool of potential bidders and supporting sale prices.

Who are Copart's main competitors?

The salvage vehicle auction market in the U.S. is effectively a duopoly at the national level. Copart's largest direct competitor is RB Global, which operates Insurance Auto Auctions (IAA). Other named competitors include Carvana, Openlane, Manheim (owned by Cox Automotive), and ACV Auctions. On the buyer side, LKQ Corporation — the largest national vehicle dismantler — can bypass auction companies entirely by purchasing salvage vehicles directly from insurance companies, which represents a structural competitive threat. Regional trade groups like the American Recycling Association and United Recyclers Group present similar bypass risk.

Copart's clearest competitive advantage is its fully virtual auction model. Unlike competitors that use physical or hybrid auctions requiring buyers to travel to a location, Copart conducts virtually all sales online through VB3. This eliminates geographic constraints on bidding, expands the buyer pool for every vehicle, and removes significant capital costs associated with running live auctions. Copart also holds a patent on certain aspects of VB3, filed in 2008. Additional advantages include its dense national and international network of storage facilities (critical for rapid disaster response), its title-processing expertise, its proprietary AI and machine learning tools for total-loss estimation (Co.ai) and pricing optimization (IntelliSeller), and long-standing national supply contracts with major insurance carriers — relationships that are sticky and difficult for new entrants to displace.

Where does Copart operate?

The United States is Copart's home base and dominant revenue source, contributing 83% of fiscal 2025 revenue. Copart's U.S. network spans hundreds of vehicle storage facilities, and the company has continued adding locations, opening three new U.S. facilities in fiscal 2025 alone. The U.S. business handles both salvage vehicle auctions and specialty segments including powersports (through NPA, based in San Diego) and construction and agricultural equipment (through majority-owned Purple Wave, based in Manhattan, Kansas).

Internationally, the U.K. is the most developed market, where Copart operates both as an agent and as a principal, runs end-of-life vehicle processing, and sells dismantled parts through GPS. New facilities were opened in the U.K. and Spain in fiscal 2025. Other international markets — Germany, Canada, Brazil, the U.A.E., Spain, Finland, Oman, Ireland, and Bahrain — are at earlier stages of development. As of July 31, 2025, approximately 36% of Copart's roughly 11,600 employees were based outside the U.S., reflecting the growing but still secondary scale of its international operations.