The Best Time to Buy Appliances, by the Price Index
November — and the honest follow-up is that it barely matters.
Over the twenty complete years from 2005 to 2024, the federal government’s Major Appliances price index averaged further below its own annual average in November than in any other month, and November was the year’s cheapest month six times out of twenty. But the entire seasonal swing, dearest month to cheapest, is about three percentage points — roughly $36 on a $1,200 washer.
That is smaller than the sales tax most US buyers will pay on the same machine. And in four US states, there is a tax-free window each year when you don’t pay it at all — a Saturday-to-Monday weekend in Maryland and Texas, Friday to Sunday in Virginia, and a full seven days in Missouri. Which is the actual finding on this page: the month is nearly noise, and the tax is not.
Index figures re-verified against the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ public data API on September 2, 2026 — all twenty-four figures in the table below reproduce exactly. Sales-tax-holiday dates verified against state revenue departments for 2026; each state’s recurring rule re-read at source September 19, 2026.
The calendar, month by month
The two middle columns are the only part of this table that comes from measured prices; the month names and the retail calendar are not. Both are built from the same source — BLS series CUUR0000SEHK01, “Major appliances in U.S. city average, all urban consumers, not seasonally adjusted,” base December 1997 = 100 — downloaded from the BLS public data file and compared month-by-month against each year’s own twelve-month average, for every complete calendar year from 2005 through 2024. The second column averages each month’s twelve-month gap across the twenty years. The third counts how many of those twenty years the month finished lowest, so its figures sum to 20.
| Month | Avg. vs that year’s own average | Year’s cheapest month | On the retail calendar (2026) |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | +0.40% | 5 of 20 | Post-holiday clearance; CES announcements |
| February | +0.36% | 2 of 20 | Presidents Day, Feb 16 · MD tax-free Feb 14–16 |
| March | +0.84% | 1 of 20 | — |
| April | +1.14% (dearest) | 0 of 20 | MO tax-free Apr 19–25 |
| May | +0.58% | 0 of 20 | Memorial Day, May 25 · TX tax-free May 23–25 |
| June | +0.39% | 0 of 20 | — |
| July | −0.03% | 0 of 20 | Independence Day, Jul 4 |
| August | +0.01% | 0 of 20 | VA tax-free Aug 7–9 |
| September | +0.01% | 1 of 20 | Labor Day, Sep 7 |
| October | −0.36% | 1 of 20 | — |
| November | −1.86% (cheapest) | 6 of 20 | Black Friday Nov 27 · Cyber Monday Nov 30 |
| December | −1.48% | 4 of 20 | Year-end clearance |
Read the cheapest-month count before the percentage beside it. November and December were between them the cheapest month in ten of twenty years — but that also means the other ten years bottomed out somewhere else, and January took the title five times. Month-of-year is a tilt, not a rule.
One more count from the same file, because it cuts the other way: on the cruder test of simply finishing below its own year’s average, November and December are tied at 13 years out of 20, with October close behind at 12. November’s advantage is in the size of the dip, not in how reliably it happens.
Why the swing is only three points
The obvious objection: retailers advertise 30% and 40% off appliances every Black Friday, so how is the November effect worth 1.86%?
Both things are true, and the gap between them is the useful part. The CPI measures a category, not a machine. It averages across every major appliance sold, at every price point, including the large share sold at full price to people whose washer died on a Tuesday. A 40% markdown on one outgoing dishwasher model barely moves an index built from thousands of transactions, most of which weren’t discounted at all.
The index is also quality-adjusted. BLS prices a constant bundle of features over time, so when this year’s model adds a feature at the same sticker price, the index reads that as a price cut. It is measuring what a fixed amount of appliance costs, not what the box on the floor costs.
So the calendar tells you when the tide is out. It does not tell you what any specific machine costs, and it cannot — that number depends on which model is being cleared that week.
The discount that isn’t on the retail calendar
Four states waive sales tax on ENERGY STAR appliances for a few days each year. The exemption applies whether or not anything is on sale, and it does not appear in a single “best time to buy appliances” roundup this project could find.
The catch is that the four states do not exempt the same appliances, and the differences are not intuitive. The table below was compiled by reading each state’s own published list.
| Maryland Feb 14–16 |
Missouri Apr 19–25 |
Texas May 23–25 |
Virginia Aug 7–9 |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clothes washer | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Clothes dryer | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ excluded | ✗ not listed |
| Dishwasher | ✗ not listed | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Refrigerator | ✓ standard size | ✓ | ✓ ≤ $2,000 | ✓ |
| Freezer | ✗ not listed | ✓ | ✗ excluded | ✗ not listed |
| Range / oven / stove | ✗ not listed | ✓ | ✗ excluded | ✗ not listed |
| Per-item cap | none stated | $1,500 per appliance | $2,000 fridge / $6,000 A/C | $2,500 |
| Rate waived | 6%, no local tax | 4.225% state, plus local | 6.25% state | 5.3% to 7%, local included |
Sources, in order: Comptroller of Maryland, Shop Maryland Energy FAQs · Missouri DOR, Show-Me Green and its vendor guidance, with the local-tax and $1,500 clauses read at Mo. Rev. Stat. §144.526 (version effective January 1, 2023), all three re-read September 23, 2026 · Texas Comptroller, publication 96-1331 · Virginia Tax, qualifying items list. Rates from each state’s own tax authority, read September 11, 2026: Missouri DOR (“The 4.225 percent state sales and use tax”) · Texas Comptroller (“a 6.25 percent state sales and use tax”) · Virginia Tax, retail sales and use tax rates (5.3% everywhere else, 6% in three named regions, 6.3% in eight named localities, 7% in the Historic Triangle). Read September 15, 2026: Comptroller of Maryland, Business Tax Tip #8, for Maryland’s rate, which its holiday FAQ does not print · Virginia Tax, Guidelines for Combined Sales Tax Holiday, linked from its holiday page · Texas Administrative Code, 34 TAC § 3.369, the rule Texas’s publication links.
Four things worth knowing before you plan around this:
The dryer is the dividing line. Maryland and Missouri exempt clothes dryers; Texas names them among the products that do not qualify, and Virginia’s list doesn’t include them. If you are replacing a matched laundry pair in Texas or Virginia, half the purchase is taxable — and in Texas it can be all of it. Rule 3.369 §(d)(1) says a washer and dryer sold as a set “for a single price is taxable,” and only a separately stated washer price keeps its exemption. Ask for the two prices on separate lines.
Two of the four are deliberately stacked on a sale weekend. Maryland’s runs Saturday to Monday and ends on Presidents Day. Texas’s runs Saturday to Monday and ends on Memorial Day. In those two states the tax break and the retail promotion land on the same machine.
The dates above are 2026’s, and all four of them close before the end of August. Three of the four recur on a rule their own state publishes, so the next one can be dated without waiting for an announcement. Missouri’s is fixed outright — its Department of Revenue describes “a seven-day period beginning at 12:01 a.m. on April 19 and ending at midnight on April 25” — and Virginia’s “starts the first Friday in August at 12:01 am and ends the following Sunday at 11:59 pm.” Texas’s is the Saturday-to-Monday of Memorial Day weekend, so it moves with that holiday. Maryland’s is the one you cannot date in advance, which matters because Maryland is also the state where the saving is largest: the Comptroller’s FAQ calls it “an annual three-day period in February” and names the weekend only when it publishes that year’s FAQ — the 2026 edition is dated January 29, 2026. All four rules read at source on September 19, 2026, and the three Missouri documents re-read on September 25, 2026.
In Texas, delivery and installation can cost you the exemption. The Comptroller’s own publication counts delivery, shipping and handling as part of an item’s sales price, and adds: “Charges for installing free-standing items are also part of the item’s sales price.” For a refrigerator that total must stay within the $2,000 cap, and Rule 3.369 §(e)(1) counts delivery “regardless of whether the charges are separately stated.” A $1,940 refrigerator with a $95 delivery charge is over the line and fully taxable. Haul-away is taxed either way: §(c)(7) says fees for removing an old appliance “are taxable as a waste removal service.”
Missouri’s $1,500 limit is the one figure in that table its own sources will not settle. The statute exempts qualifying appliances “up to one thousand five hundred dollars per appliance”, and both of DOR’s holiday pages repeat that phrase without elaborating. It carries two readings that diverge by hundreds of dollars on a dearer machine: a ceiling on the exempt amount, leaving the first $1,500 untaxed whatever the price, or a limit on eligibility, in which case a machine priced above $1,500 qualifies for nothing at all. The operative subsection does not choose between them. The one place the statute characterizes the figure at all is subsection 5(1), on discounts, which calls it a “price threshold” and turns on whether a discounted price “falls below” it — wording that only does work under the second reading, because a ceiling would apply at any price. Ask the retailer to show you the tax line before you count on the first. And Missouri waives local tax, not only the 4.225% state rate — but its own consumer page will not tell you so. That page says the holiday “exempts state sales tax” and never uses the word local. The statute is explicit that the sales are exempt “from state sales tax law and all local sales and use taxes,” a version effective January 1, 2023, and DOR’s guidance for vendors says the same thing in plain words: “The customer will receive an exemption from both state and local tax for this time period.” The size of that gap is on DOR’s own page: its worked filing example runs the tax at 6.225%, which is the 4.225% state rate plus 2% local for that filer. On a $1,200 washer the local share alone is $24, and the consumer page’s wording gives a buyer no reason to expect it.
Maryland’s holiday FAQ prints no rate. The Comptroller’s Business Tax Tip #8 does — “The Maryland sales and use tax rate is 6% on taxable sales” — and adds “There are no general local sales taxes in Maryland,” so 6% is the whole bill. On a $1,200 washer that is $72 — twice the entire average seasonal swing on the same machine, available on one specific weekend in February. What that wait costs is not a property of the $72 — it is how far off February is: two months from December, eleven from March. Read the rate row before assuming the other three are worth the same wait, because they are not: the four rates span about 2.8 points, which is nearly the whole 3-point swing between the dearest and cheapest months. Missouri’s is the smallest of the four at 4.225%, which on the same washer is $50.70 against roughly $36 for buying in the cheapest month — still the larger number, but by 1.4× rather than Maryland’s 2×.
Virginia’s reaches the highest of the four, and it depends on where in the state you stand: 5.3% across most of it, 6% in three regions, 6.3% in eight localities and 7% in the Historic Triangle — $63.60 to $84 on this washer. That is the whole rate, not a state share: Virginia’s holiday guidelines say qualifying purchases are “exempt from the 4.3 percent state sales tax, the 1 percent local option tax, and any otherwise applicable regional and additional local taxes.” Missouri says outright that its holiday waives local tax as well, so its true figure is above the 4.225% state rate. Texas is the one column that stops at the state share. Its rule says only that “Sales or use tax is not due,” its publication only that items are tax free, and neither separates the 6.25% state rate from local tax, so this page reads Texas at 6.25% and nothing more. The floor under all four is what matters here: even the smallest beats the calendar.
Outside these four states, the closest month-independent equivalent is the EPA’s ENERGY STAR rebate finder, which lists utility and retailer offers by zip code.
Where the “September and October” rule comes from
Search results for this question agree on part of it: washers, dryers and dishwashers get new models in early fall, and last year’s stock is marked down to clear the floor. Past those three machines they disagree. Of five of those pages read in full on September 15, 2026, Bob Vila puts new refrigerators in May and ranges in January, Money Crashers puts refrigeration at the start of summer and ranges in early fall, a Los Angeles retailer’s blog stretches the window to September through December, and NerdWallet has new models reaching showrooms at the beginning of the year. The fall claim is worth tracing, because the sourcing is thinner than its repetition suggests.
The named attribution behind it is Jason Hallam, vice president of merchandising for the appliance division at Lowe’s, quoted in Fidelity’s guide to buying appliances: new models are typically released in September and October “for most appliances, such as washers, dryers, and dishwashers.” The same article carries the exception that repetition drops: it has Hallam putting refrigerators in May, “when new models are released and older models go on sale.” Fidelity’s is the only one of the five that puts a name to its release months. No manufacturer publishes a model-year changeover schedule, and none of the five pages cites one.
The index neither confirms nor refutes it. September averages +0.01% and October −0.36% against their own years, and each was the cheapest month exactly once in twenty years — no category-wide dip. That is consistent with the claim rather than against it: clearance concentrated on specific outgoing models is exactly the kind of discount a category average cannot see. Treat it as a good reason to ask a salesperson which models are being replaced, and a bad reason to assume the store is broadly cheaper in October. For a refrigerator the month to ask about is May, and the index is no more help there: May averages +0.58% and was never the cheapest month in twenty years.
Why the month rarely decides it
Nobody replacing a failed machine gets to choose the month. A failed refrigerator is a four-hour problem, not a shopping trip. FoodSafety.gov’s power-outage chart, reviewed August 8, 2024, puts it plainly: a refrigerator “will keep food safe for up to 4 hours” with the door shut, and perishables go in the bin after that. The 48 hours people remember is the freezer figure, and only for a full one — a half-full freezer is 24. So the calendar above is only actionable if you are buying ahead of a failure — which is the argument for reading the warning signs an appliance is about to fail rather than the discount calendar.
The month is a rounding error against the long trend. The same BLS series stood at 100.0 in December 1997 and 86.9 in July 2026 — major appliance prices are about 13% lower in plain dollars than they were 28 years ago, before adjusting for inflation at all. Meanwhile BLS’s “Repair of household items” index, on the identical December 1997 = 100 base, averaged 352.6 in 2023. Appliances got slightly cheaper; fixing things got roughly three and a half times more expensive. Whether you land on repair or replace moves far more money than which month you buy in. (Two caveats, stated because they matter: “Repair of household items” is broader than appliance repair, and BLS publishes it irregularly — the last monthly reading in the public file is July 2024.)
“Buy now before prices rise” is not supported right now. Averaging the published months, the index ran at 88.05 for January–July 2026 against 88.98 for the same months of 2025 — down about 1%. One gap in the series, falling outside the months compared here: BLS records no October 2025 value, footnoted “Data unavailable due to the 2025 lapse in appropriations.”
If the machine is already dead
Six things that work in any month:
- Ask which floor models and open-box units are available — they are discounted continuously, not seasonally.
- Get delivery, haul-away and installation quoted as separate line items. Sales discount the appliance; they rarely discount these. In Texas, delivery counts against a refrigerator’s exemption cap even when itemized, and so does installing a free-standing one; haul-away is taxed through the holiday.
- Check the ENERGY STAR rebate finder for your zip code before you buy, not after.
- If you are within a few weeks of your state’s tax holiday and the machine can limp, wait for it.
- Price the model you want at two retailers on the same day. The spread between sellers routinely exceeds the spread between months.
- Check the warranty term before the price — it is the number that decides what the next five years cost. See extended warranty vs. repair fund.
Scope note: the price index and all four tax holidays are United States only. No equivalent published month-by-month appliance index for Canada or the UK was checked for this page, so the seasonal pattern above should not be assumed to transfer.
Before you buy
- What to look for when replacing a washing machine — what to check before you commit to a model
- How long do appliances actually last? — the lifespan table, source by source
- Which washing machine brands are most reliable?
- Appliance repair costs by type, 2026 — the other half of the decision
- The buying section — five pages in the order the decisions actually arrive: when, what, whether it fits, whether to insure it, and the old one
Sources: BLS series CUUR0000SEHK01, Major appliances, U.S. city average, NSA and BLS series CUUR0000SEHP04, Repair of household items, both retrieved from the BLS public time-series files · Comptroller of Maryland, Shop Maryland Energy FAQs · Missouri Department of Revenue, Show-Me Green and vendor guidance · Mo. Rev. Stat. §144.526 · Texas Comptroller publication 96-1331 · Virginia Tax sales tax holiday and its Guidelines for Combined Sales Tax Holiday · 34 TAC § 3.369 · Comptroller of Maryland, Business Tax Tip #8 · ENERGY STAR rebate finder · Fidelity, “When is the best time to buy appliances?”
Index figures verified August 2026; the four states’ holiday rules re-read September 19, 2026. The dates in the tables are 2026’s and all four windows have closed — three of the four recur on a rule the state publishes, and Maryland announces its weekend each January, which is when these rows are reverified. Next scheduled review January 2027.