E-Bike Demand in 2026: Europe Holds Steady, US Imports Climb

After the pandemic boom and two years of clearing overstocked warehouses, the e-bike market has split in two. Europe's largest market has settled into a steady plateau, where most buyers are replacing or adding to bikes they already own. The United States is still in its growth phase, with e-bike imports rising even as imports of conventional bicycles fall to their lowest in a decade.

Germany: a plateau at two million

Germany is Europe's largest e-bike market and the one with the most complete public data. Its e-bike sales quadrupled between 2015 and 2020 and have held at around two million a year since. In 2025 they slipped 4.8% to about 2.0 million, in a year of weak consumer spending overall. Total bicycle and e-bike sales fell only slightly, from 3.9 to 3.8 million units, and e-bikes held a 52.7% share, about the same as in 2023 and 2024 [1].

Source: ZIV [1]. Pedelecs (assistance up to 25 km/h); fast S-pedelecs are counted separately.

Value fell faster than volume. Turnover from bicycles and e-bikes dropped 7.7% to €5.85 billion, still well above pre-pandemic levels, because discounts pushed prices down in almost every category: the average e-bike sold for €2,550, 3.8% less than in 2024 and €400 less than in 2023 [1]. With an estimated 17.2 million e-bikes already on German roads, almost ten million more than in 2020, much of today's demand is replacement and second bikes rather than first-time buyers.

Company bike leasing, where employers offer bikes as a salary benefit, keeps the high end of the market moving: it accounted for 41.9% of specialist retailers' sales in 2025. Retailers' expectations for 2026 are evenly balanced between growth and decline, and ZIV expects stock levels across the market to be back to normal by the end of 2026 [1].

Production and imports

German factories built 1.3 million e-bikes in 2025, 3% fewer than in 2024: about two e-bikes for every conventional bike produced. German companies' own factories abroad were used far less, producing 280,000 units, 42% fewer than a year earlier. E-bike imports fell 9.4% to 0.78 million while e-bike exports rose 12%, almost 85% of them to other EU countries [1].

Most of the e-bikes Germany imports still come from within the EU, but the share is slipping: 73.1% in 2025, down from 75.3%, while Asia's share rose from 21.2% to 25.1%. The Czech Republic is the largest single source (18%), followed by the Netherlands and Vietnam (12% each) and Austria (10%); Taiwan's share doubled from 4% to 8% [1].

Europe

Across the EU and the UK, 5.1 million e-bikes were sold in 2023, in a bicycle industry with a turnover of €19.3 billion and 170,000 direct and indirect manufacturing jobs [2]. European production is protected: in January 2025 the European Commission extended its anti-dumping duties (10.3% to 70.1%) and countervailing duties (3.9% to 17.2%) on e-bikes from China for another five years, citing an EU e-bike industry that directly employs 12,000 people [3].

United States: imports climb

The US has no public annual count of e-bike sales like Germany's, and since most e-bikes sold there are imported, imports are the clearest measure of demand. The Light Electric Vehicle Association and eCycleElectric Consultants counted 2.2 million complete e-bikes in US import records for 2025, 29% more than their 2024 estimate of 1.7 million, and say sell-through appears to be excellent [4]. Their 2024 count was itself 72% above 2023, when 0.99 million e-bikes were imported by just over 300 businesses; by 2024 the number of importers had grown to roughly 900 [6].

Complete e-bikes, estimated from customs records by LEVA and eCycleElectric Consultants [4] [6].

Conventional bicycles went the other way. The US imported 8.54 million of them in 2025, 21% fewer than in 2024 and the lowest number in at least a decade; their import value fell below $1 billion for the first time since 2006 [5]. E-bikes are taking a growing part of what Americans buy to ride.

Where those bikes come from is changing fast. China supplied 80% of the adult bicycles the US imported in 2019 and 38% in 2025, as Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam took much of the new business [5]. Our prices and tariffs analysis looks at why.

What it means

• For brands selling into Europe: growth now comes from taking share in a stable market, from leasing and from replacing an ageing fleet of 17 million e-bikes in Germany alone, not from first-time buyers.
• For brands selling into the US: demand is still expanding, but so is regulation: certification rules in New York City and California, and new limits on fast e-bikes and e-motos. See our safety certification report and consumer trends.
• For buyers: a market with normalising stock and active discounting is a good one to buy in; compare current prices in each market in our e-bike database.

Sources

1. 2025 Market Data for the Bicycle Industry, ZIV – Zweirad-Industrie-Verband (German Bicycle Industry Association), 11 March 2026.
2. Industry and market reports: Industry outlook, CONEBI – Confederation of the European Bicycle Industry, accessed October 2026.
3. EU extends duties on electric bicycles from China, European Commission, Directorate-General for Trade, 24 January 2025.
4. USA Imports of Electric Bikes in 2025 top 2.2 Million Units, Light Electric Vehicle Association and eCycleElectric Consultants, 5 March 2026.
5. Annual bike imports fall to lowest number in at least a decade, Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, 26 February 2026.
6. How Big is the USA E-bike Market in 2024-25?, eCycleElectric Consultants, 12 February 2025.