Carvana will carry out its first-ever forward stock split before the opening bell on May 7, turning each share into five and cutting the company’s quoted price to roughly $76 based on its May 5 close. The move follows a March 13 board decision and is aimed, the company said, at keeping shares accessible to team members while also making them more affordable for retail investors who do not have access to fractional-share purchases through their broker.
The split lands after one of the sharpest rebounds in the market. Carvana shares closed at an all-time low of $3.72 on Dec. 27, 2022, and now trade around $379, a gain of 10,091% in roughly 3.5 years. Even after that run, investors are still paying 50 times estimated 2026 earnings and 37 times forecast earnings per share for 2027, a level that leaves little room for disappointment for an online used-car retailer that spent years dealing with persistent losses and a sizable debt load.
Carvana’s rally has also come against a difficult backdrop in the auto market it serves. The company has historically targeted subprime and non-prime borrowers, and borrowers who were at least 60 days behind on their auto loans hit a record 6.9% in January 2026. That makes the stock split feel less like a reset than a signal that management wants the share price to stay visible to smaller investors even as the business remains tied to a fragile corner of consumer credit.
The tension is that a lower nominal share price does nothing to change the underlying valuation. Carvana’s board can make the stock look easier to buy on May 7, but the company still has to justify a premium that already assumes years of strong performance. The question now is not whether the split happens — it does — but whether Carvana can keep climbing fast enough to support the price behind it.