Textron lists a new Cessna Caravan at $2,808,000 and the Grand Caravan EX at $3,261,000, a gap of $453,000. In the used market the numbers soften: the median Caravan in our sample asks $2,200,000, about 78% of the new Caravan's list price.
This is not a private pilot's airplane, and the register shows it. Corporations hold 57.7% of the 1,024 Caravans on the FAA register and LLCs another 35.4%, while individuals hold 2.1%. The page is built from the same public data as every other aircraft guide here, with one honest limit: the Caravan market is thin and mostly unpriced, so the used figures below are a small sample.
What follows walks down the price curve, then looks at the family, who owns the fleet, what the airplane costs to run and what the NTSB accident files record. Every figure comes from a named public source or a dated sample, and the sources are listed at the end.
Data used: FAA fleet through 2026-10-12; NTSB file through 2026-09-30; asking-price sample 2026-10-14.
What a new Caravan costs, and what that number means
Textron's Fact Book lists the Caravan at $2,808,000 and the Grand Caravan EX at $3,261,000. Those are manufacturer's suggested retail prices: the standard configuration, before the options, avionics choices and dealer terms that move a real quote.
The FAA's type certificate data sheet covers the 208 from 1984 and the longer 208B from 1986. Both are single-engine turboprops with a Pratt and Whitney Canada PT6A-114A. The 208 has a maximum takeoff weight of 8,000 lb and the 208B 8,750 lb, which is 750 lb more, and each carries 332 gal of usable fuel. The sheet does not list the Grand Caravan EX under its own name, so this page gives no specification row for it.
A thin market, mostly without prices
We gathered 35 Caravan listings from one marketplace on 14 October 2026, and only 14 of them carried a usable asking price: 21 said to call for the price. That suggests a market in which prices are negotiated, and it makes the medians below indicative at best.
The gold bars are Textron's 2026 list prices. Teal bars are medians of asking prices. Groups with fewer than 5 priced listings are left out.
The median Caravan 208 asks $2,200,000 on 5 listings, from $1,573,000 to $2,450,000, with a median airframe of 2,008 hours. The Grand Caravan 208B EX sample also has 5 listings and asks a median of $2,150,000, 66% of its list price, but the range is huge: $390,000 to $3,295,000. The sample cannot say why one listing asks so far below the others. A fractional interest, a lease or a placeholder price are all possible.
The median Grand Caravan EX in our sample has flown 15,275 hours, 7.6 times the median Caravan 208's 2,008.
Those airframe hours are the story of the airplane. The Grand Caravan EX sample has flown heavily, which fits a working airplane, and hours on a turboprop airframe are only part of the picture: the engine and its hot-section history are separate numbers that the listings do not give.
The Grand Caravan 208B without the EX label has only 3 priced listings, asking $1,699,000 to $2,117,000, and the Super Cargomaster has 1. Both are too few for a median. One caution covers this whole section: it is one marketplace on one day, these are asking prices, not sales, and no individual listing is published. Prices were recorded to the nearest 1,000 dollars.
For the wider market, our guide to what a small plane costs puts the Caravan in context, and what a six-seat plane costs covers the piston alternatives. A bush-plane comparison is in what a bush plane costs, and the bigger single from the same maker in what a Cessna 185 Skywagon costs.
Show the asking-price table
| Model or band | Listings | Asking median (USD) | Asking range (USD) | Median total time (hours) | Sample years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Caravan 208 | 5 | $2,200,000 | $1,573,000 to $2,450,000 | 2,008 | 1998 to 2020 |
| Grand Caravan 208B | 3 | Range only | $1,699,000 to $2,117,000 | Not shown | 1995 to 2005 |
| Grand Caravan EX | 5 | $2,150,000 | $390,000 to $3,295,000 | 15,275 | 2013 to 2022 |
| 208B Super Cargomaster | 1 | Range only | $1,299,000 | Not shown | 1989 |
Two sizes of Caravan
The FAA data sheet covers the 208 and the stretched 208B, and the registry holds a few labels the sheet does not name, such as the 208A Cargomaster. The register splits cleanly: 860 aircraft carry the 208B label, 163 the 208. For where the Caravan sits among the rest, the guide to the main types of planes helps.
- 8,000 lb maximum takeoff weight
- 332 gal usable fuel
- Pratt and Whitney Canada PT6A-114 turboprop
- 8,750 lb maximum takeoff weight
- 332 gal usable fuel
- Pratt and Whitney Canada PT6A-114A turboprop
The data sheet gives no shaft horsepower in the rows we could read, so this page prints none. The registry shows the larger airplane dominates: the 208B family is 84.0% of the register.
Show the full model comparison table
| Model and approval year | Certified specification | Ownership context |
|---|---|---|
| 208Approved: 1984 FAA sheet | Pratt & Whitney of Canada Ltd. PT6A-114 or PT6A-114A The FAA sheet gives shaft horsepower separately. 600 SHPMaximum takeoff weight: 8,000 lbFuel, total / usable: 335 gal / 332 galSeating: 11 seats | Registered: 163 all registrations; 159 valid (status V)Asking median: Not shown for this designationPrimary engine TBO: No applicable primary schedule retrieved |
| 208BApproved: 1986 FAA sheet | Pratt & Whitney of Canada Ltd. PT6A-114 or PT6A-114A The FAA sheet gives shaft horsepower separately. 600 SHPMaximum takeoff weight: 8,750 lbFuel, total / usable: 335 gal / 332 galSeating: 2 seats | Registered: 860 all registrations; 827 valid (status V)Asking median: Not shown for this designationPrimary engine TBO: No applicable primary schedule retrieved |
A working fleet
The FAA register lists 1,024 aircraft in the Caravan family, and 987 of them (96.4%) hold a valid registration, while 37 carry another status. Of the whole family, 930 records have a usable build year, and 918 of those are valid. That counts paperwork, not airplanes in the air: a valid registration says nothing about whether the aircraft is airworthy or flying.
- 1761980s
- 2491990s
- 1792000s
- 2032010s
- 1232020s
94 records have a blank or invalid build year and are left out of the chart.
The Caravan is still being built, and the register shows it. The 1990s lead with 249 aircraft, but the 2010s follow with 203 and the 2020s already stand at 123, well on the way to the 2000s total of 179. This is a young fleet by general aviation standards.
Corporations hold 57.7% of the register, 35.4% sits with LLCs and government owners hold 4.2%. Individuals hold only 2.1%. The registry records the owner category, not how the airplane is used, but a corporate or LLC owner of a turboprop usually means a commercial operator.
Tennessee holds 214 registrations (20.9%), the most by far, with Alaska second at 99 (9.7%), 115 fewer. Florida, Texas, Delaware and Utah follow. The state field is the registrant's address, not where the aircraft fly, and a few large operators registering many aircraft at one address can move a state's count a long way. Alaska's second place fits the backcountry flying the Caravan is known for.
Download the fleet CSV by model and build year. Free to use, please link back. It counts all registrations and valid ones (status V) by model label and build year, including blank years, and contains no personal records.
Show the fleet tables
| Group | All registrations | Valid (status V) | Share of all registrations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 208 and 208A Caravan registry labels | 164 | 160 | 16.0% |
| 208B Grand Caravan registry labels | 860 | 827 | 84.0% |
| Grand Caravan EX exact registry label | 0 | 0 | 0.0% |
| Model label | All registrations | Valid (status V) |
|---|---|---|
| 208B | 860 | 827 |
| 208 | 163 | 159 |
| 208A | 1 | 1 |
| Build decade | All registrations | Share of known years | Valid (status V) | Valid share of known years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1980s | 176 | 18.9% | 173 | 18.8% |
| 1990s | 249 | 26.8% | 248 | 27.0% |
| 2000s | 179 | 19.2% | 176 | 19.2% |
| 2010s | 203 | 21.8% | 202 | 22.0% |
| 2020s | 123 | 13.2% | 119 | 13.0% |
| FAA code | Registrant type | All registrations | Valid (status V) | Share of all registrations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Individual | 22 | 13 | 2.1% |
| 3 | Corporation | 591 | 564 | 57.7% |
| 4 | Co-Owned | 5 | 5 | 0.5% |
| 5 | Government | 43 | 43 | 4.2% |
| 7 | LLC | 362 | 362 | 35.4% |
| 8 | Non Citizen Corporation | 1 | 0 | 0.1% |
| 2 | Partnership | 0 | 0 | No records |
| 9 | Non Citizen Co-Owned | 0 | 0 | No records |
| State | All registrations | Valid (status V) | Share of all registrations |
|---|---|---|---|
| TN | 214 | 214 | 20.9% |
| AK | 99 | 99 | 9.7% |
| FL | 96 | 95 | 9.4% |
| TX | 75 | 75 | 7.3% |
| DE | 70 | 67 | 6.8% |
| UT | 64 | 63 | 6.2% |
| CA | 43 | 42 | 4.2% |
| KS | 39 | 12 | 3.8% |
| OK | 31 | 31 | 3.0% |
| WA | 30 | 30 | 2.9% |
Show every exact FAA model label
| Model label | All registrations | Valid (status V) |
|---|---|---|
| 208B | 860 | 827 |
| 208 | 163 | 159 |
| 208A | 1 | 1 |
| Total | 1,024 | 987 |
The list price is only the entry fee
After the purchase the airplane wants fuel, an engine program, an annual inspection, insurance and somewhere to sleep. Only some of those have a published number worth printing, and for a turboprop almost none do.
Fuel and the engine
We have no published fuel burn for the Caravan that we could verify against the maker or a dated specification table, so the calculator leaves fuel burn for you to fill in. The same goes for the engine. Overhaul and hot-section intervals for the Pratt and Whitney Canada PT6A sit in service bulletins behind a login we could not use, so we publish no interval. Ask the shop or the engine program provider that would do the work. The engine is the line item that arrives all at once, and on a turboprop it is a large one.
The rest
The FAA describes an annual inspection interval of 12 calendar months for ordinary US personal aircraft ownership. Insurance, hangar or tie-down fees, labour rates and loan terms depend too much on the owner, the airfield and the airplane for one published number to mean anything, so this page prints none. Add your own quotes and you have a budget that belongs to you. More on the wider costs of owning an aircraft sits in our ownership section.
Renting is the benchmark your own figure has to justify. Our guide to how much it costs to rent a Cessna 172 shows the other side of the ledger for a far smaller airplane.
What the accident files record
Every entry in the NTSB files is a real event, and the counts are all this page claims to know about them. The NTSB lists 260 accidents involving Caravan-family aircraft from 2000 through 2025. Of those, 94, or 36.2%, were fatal, and 318 people died in them, more people than fatal accidents, because a Caravan can carry passengers.
- 2000
- 2005
- 2010
- 2015
- 2020
- 15
- 92025
Counts only. The NTSB does not record how many hours the family flew, so these bars are not rates.
The count was highest in 2022, at 15, and stood at 9 in 2025. The yearly numbers are small, and the data holds no flying hours to divide by, so no trend should be read into them.
The first coded phase is the one attached to the first event in the NTSB's sequence for each accident. Accidents without a coded sequence, or with unmapped codes, sit in separate rows of the full table.
Enroute leads, at 16.2% of accidents, ahead of approach at 13.5%, takeoff at 12.3% and landing at 11.2%. Taxiing adds 7.3%.
The NTSB's own findings point at people more than machines here. Of the 95 accidents with causal findings in its current coding, 82.1% involve personnel issues and 62.1% involve aircraft issues. An accident can carry several findings, so the shares overlap and do not add up to the whole.
Show the NTSB tables
| Year | Accidents | Fatal accidents |
|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 10 | 4 |
| 2001 | 12 | 6 |
| 2002 | 11 | 5 |
| 2003 | 13 | 1 |
| 2004 | 11 | 2 |
| 2005 | 14 | 3 |
| 2006 | 8 | 5 |
| 2007 | 13 | 3 |
| 2008 | 8 | 2 |
| 2009 | 6 | 1 |
| 2010 | 4 | 1 |
| 2011 | 10 | 4 |
| 2012 | 9 | 4 |
| 2013 | 8 | 4 |
| 2014 | 5 | 2 |
| 2015 | 9 | 2 |
| 2016 | 13 | 6 |
| 2017 | 12 | 5 |
| 2018 | 6 | 4 |
| 2019 | 11 | 4 |
| 2020 | 8 | 1 |
| 2021 | 12 | 4 |
| 2022 | 15 | 7 |
| 2023 | 10 | 4 |
| 2024 | 13 | 6 |
| 2025 | 9 | 4 |
| Phase of flight | Accidents | Share of all accidents |
|---|---|---|
| Enroute | 42 | 16.2% |
| Approach | 35 | 13.5% |
| Takeoff | 32 | 12.3% |
| Landing | 29 | 11.2% |
| Taxi | 19 | 7.3% |
| Initial Climb | 14 | 5.4% |
| Maneuvering | 14 | 5.4% |
| Cruise | 8 | 3.1% |
| Standing | 5 | 1.9% |
| Climb | 4 | 1.5% |
| Prior to Flight | 4 | 1.5% |
| Other, unknown or not coded | 54 | 20.8% |
| Total | 260 | 100.0% |
| Group | Accidents | Share of all | Share of coded subset |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aircraft | 59 | 22.7% | 62.1% |
| Personnel issues | 78 | 30.0% | 82.1% |
| Environmental issues | 28 | 10.8% | 29.5% |
| Organizational issues | 10 | 3.8% | 10.5% |
| Not determined | 6 | 2.3% | 6.3% |
| Group | Accidents | Share of all | Share of coded subset |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aircraft/Environment | 39 | 15.0% | 72.2% |
| Human Performance | 52 | 20.0% | 96.3% |
| Direct Underlying Factors | 6 | 2.3% | 11.1% |
| Manufacture band | Accidents | Share of all |
|---|---|---|
| Year of manufacture 1984 to 2025 | 81 | 31.2% |
| Unknown year of manufacture | 179 | 68.8% |
| Family aircraft in different manufacture-year bands | 0 | 0.0% |
What to take from the numbers
- Expect a negotiated market. Most listings in our sample carried no price, and the 14 that did ask very different amounts. The Grand Caravan EX asks run from $390,000 to $3,295,000, and the low end looks like a share or a lease rather than a whole airplane, so the EX median is fragile.
- Read hours as a work history. The median Grand Caravan EX in our sample has flown 15,275 hours, so ask about the engine program, the airframe inspections and what the airplane did for a living.
- Treat an asking price as an opening line. These are what sellers want. The sample cannot see what buyers pay.
- Get the engine's history in writing. Overhaul and hot-section status on a PT6A is a major cost, and no listing summary replaces the records.
- Do not read a valid registration as a clean bill of health. Status V is paperwork, not an inspection.
Questions buyers ask
How much does a new Cessna Caravan cost?
Textron lists a new 2026 Caravan at $2,808,000 MSRP and the Grand Caravan EX at $3,261,000 in its Fact Book. Real quotes vary with options and dealer terms.
How much does a used Cessna Caravan cost?
In a one-day sample of asking prices on Controller.com, the median ask was $2,200,000 for a Caravan 208 and $2,150,000 for a Grand Caravan EX, from small samples in which most listings had no price. Those are asking prices, not sales.
How many Cessna Caravans are there?
The FAA register lists 1,024 aircraft in the Caravan family, 987 with a valid registration: 860 208B and 163 208.
How many Cessna Caravan accidents has the NTSB recorded?
The NTSB files hold 260 accidents from 2000 through 2025, 94 of them fatal. These are counts, not rates, because flying hours by model are not published.
What engine does the Caravan have?
The FAA data sheet lists a Pratt and Whitney Canada PT6A-114A turboprop for the 208B.
Related guides: How Much Does a Cargo Plane Cost?.
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Sources and how the numbers were made
Data through: FAA 2026-10-12; NTSB 2026-09-30; asking sample 2026-10-14.
How the numbers were made: We counted matching FAA registrations and showed valid registrations (status V) separately. We combined the NTSB files, counted each accident once and excluded incidents. Used prices are summaries of advertised prices. Fuel cost examples multiply published fuel burn by example fuel prices.
Privacy: No personal data is used in the published results. No owner, seller, crew, operator, narrative or individual accident record is published.
- Federal Aviation Administration. Releasable Aircraft Database. Retrieved 2026-10-13. The registry supplies fleet counts by model, build year, registrant type and state.
Source SHA-256:ad4497553c4b71a14e7a0768b2e9c66974998ced50177a963b7942eabc259dec - Federal Aviation Administration. Aircraft Registration Database Description. Retrieved 2026-10-13. This document explains registration status and registrant-type codes.
- Federal Aviation Administration. Pilot Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge. Glossary. Retrieved 2026-10-13. The glossary explains the annual inspection interval.
Source SHA-256:210d7cebd33f4094af682b49cb83a93505bebfe3d22e7db4de25dbdaa5476140 - Textron Inc. Textron Fact Book 2025. Retrieved 2026-10-14. The Fact Book gives the new aircraft MSRP for the named models.
Source SHA-256:da8915482a3206a16a3d572899426e730be221f9fa6147b7494e2148121afd83
Text SHA-256:20d6831f2555f51b59e14fabec670ab0da2756e311f0768359031aea830fe043 - National Transportation Safety Board. Aviation accident data: avall. Retrieved 2026-10-13. The later accident file supplies counts, fatal outcomes, phases of flight, findings and manufacture years.
Source SHA-256:bc74fefb1b39e1b86700a4be82b8ff6014bb1f6d81008524de73f2ddbd38b052
Database SHA-256:c891b8a6fe55651294a0cb0fa328e5648833caf5ac62b1c21d6caf3ea5e99bb7 - National Transportation Safety Board. Historical aviation accident data: Pre2008. Retrieved 2026-10-13. The historical accident file supplies earlier counts and its own phase and finding categories.
Source SHA-256:89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Database SHA-256:c2102e7e9f6773ab25c5564904db9b02d0a6d58ad8e73b3e9accda349ea85b9a - National Transportation Safety Board. Aviation data dictionaries. Retrieved 2026-10-13. Each file's dictionary defines the accident codes used here.
- National Transportation Safety Board. Aviation data download directory. Retrieved 2026-10-13. The directory gives the accident files' release dates.
- National Transportation Safety Board. Aviation database release notes. Retrieved 2026-10-13. The release notes explain file coverage and how causes and contributing factors are marked.
- National Transportation Safety Board. Aviation accident database query help. Retrieved 2026-10-13. The help page explains event dates, first phases, investigation status and limits on foreign investigations.
- National Transportation Safety Board. Aviation accident database. Retrieved 2026-10-13. The database page explains the geographic limits of these accident records.
- Federal Aviation Administration. General Aviation and Part 135 Activity Survey. Retrieved 2026-10-13. The survey reports flight hours by aircraft category, which cannot support a model accident rate.
- Federal Aviation Administration. Type Certificate Data Sheet No. A37CE. Retrieved 2026-10-14. The FAA sheet gives certified engines, ratings, weights, fuel capacities and seating for the covered models.
Source SHA-256:4d31562f875b4b2d18a1d6f98404ffd7b2520a39f2f90783c8054dece06dd862
Text SHA-256:5fbf2847d5c9cd2d894e96351fb6718348191e475e7dd34a1bccf18165559b47 - U.S. Air Force, via Wikimedia Commons. Xwing autonomous Cessna 208B Grand Caravan receives fuel at McClellan Airfield. Retrieved 2026-10-14. The opening photograph, taken by Matthew Clouse. It is a work of the U.S. federal government and is in the public domain.
- Controller.com. Cessna 208 Caravan aircraft for sale. Retrieved 2026-10-14. The advertised prices supply model medians, ranges and airframe hours for the dated sample.
Send corrections and a supporting source through the contact page. We check each correction against the source.