Australians took a record 17.3 million caravan and camping trips in 2025 and spent a record $12.6 billion doing it. Over the same year domestic RV production fell to 23,963 units — 23.4% below its 2023 peak — and between 11 June and 6 July 2026 four Victorian caravan businesses entered voluntary administration or liquidation.
Record travel demand is not translating into new-unit sell-through, which is why the demand data is the most dangerous number in a caravan credit file.
AT A GLANCE · THE NUMBERS BEHIND THE FILE
SECTION ONE
None of these are exotic. All of them are missed because the information that would reveal them is not in the pack a lender is normally sent, and because the one number the borrower volunteers is the order book.
A caravan builder's cheapest money is the customer's. Zone RV's pre-administration schedule took 5% on order, 40% at build start, 35% near completion and 20% before handover — so buyers funded the factory as unsecured, interest-free creditors ranking behind secured lenders and priority employee claims. Its acquirer relaunched on 10% with nothing further until delivery. Where that structure spreads, facility sizing built on the old model understates the borrower's real funding need.
In 2025: 17.3 million trips, $12.6 billion of spend, caravan park revenue up 7% to $3.3 billion, and a registered fleet of 937,701 growing at 4%. Every one is a record. None of them measures demand for a newly built Australian van. The fleet is the competitor. Parks monetise vans that already exist. The domestic factory is the residual claimant on a replacement cycle, and imports were 49% of measured new-unit supply in 2025.
Great Aussie Caravans was wound up on $237,698 owed to Victorian WorkCover. Highline Caravans owed the ATO $235,000 of $1.14m total. Network RV owed the ATO $3m of $30m. Each carried material statutory liabilities. Across all industries, a business owing the ATO more than $100,000 shows a 21.9% insolvency rate against 0.7% nationally. Properly prepared accounts show the balance. They rarely show portal status, payment-plan compliance or enforcement activity.
Network RV's administrators inherited 129 complete and 18 incomplete caravans. Early-stage WIP can have close to no forced-sale value without the remaining bought-in components, title and the labour to finish it, and there is no deep wholesale auction channel for caravans the way there is for cars. The Zone RV sale price was reported at about $8m against early aggregate debt estimates of about $42m. Cor Cordis stated publicly that an immediate shutdown would not have returned anything to any class.
At list, the import is not automatically cheaper. In 2026 advertising, Snowy River's SRC-19 sat at $69,990 against a Jayco Starcraft 19.61-2.SC at $68,990, so the import was the dearer of the two. The competitive question is specification: imports bundle as standard what Australian builders sell as margin-bearing options. The thin base price plus profitable options model is being arbitraged away. Note also that Sunland and X Series were import-led businesses and still failed, so importing is not itself a safe harbour.
The ACCC found 80% of 2,270 caravan owners reported problems with a new purchase and 40% of suppliers said warranty cost is being pushed down the channel. Acquirers price the tail: on buying the Network RV brands, JB Group's chief executive said trust starts with 'resolving warranty issues that have gone on too long'. Accreditation is voluntary and only 66 businesses appear on the RVMAP register.
"A caravan builder will almost never tell you it is short of cash. It will tell you the order book is full. In this sector a full order book is a liability, because the money that came with it has already been spent."
BRENDAN RICHARDS · REBOUND ADVISORY
SECTION TWO
Several sit outside the borrower's immediate control, and none is cured merely by selling harder. Mix, pricing, payment schedules and production rate are partly controllable, which is where a plan starts. The order book here is a lagging indicator. The deposit book is a leading one.
Jayco's founder put unsold dealer stock at around 15,000 vans in February 2025 — an executive estimate rather than a census. On any similar number, the channel holds many months of output, and factory-gate volume cannot recover until it clears.
Imports rose 16% to 23,244 units in 2025 while domestic build fell 5% to 23,963, so imports were 49% of measured new-unit supply. Declared import value $619m, up 12.6%, at an average unit value that fell from $27,494 to $26,638.
On CIAA's 2026 State of the Industry segment data, motorised RVs fell 39.6% in 2025, motorhomes 6–7m fell 55%, towables under 4m fell 27% and 4–5m fell 21%, while over 6m held flat to up. Mix now tells you more than the revenue line.
Nobody buys a van they cannot tow, and 4x4 dual-cab ute sales have fallen by double digits in 2026 monthly VFACTS category comparisons while the total market has been broadly flat. Treat it as a watch item rather than a proven forward indicator.
Industry commentary puts the median purchase journey at around six months against three in 2017. Longer journeys mean slower conversion and weaker forecast reliability.
The cash rate is 4.35%. CBA's June 2026 forecast has the first cut in May 2027. Anti-dumping measures apply to specified Chinese aluminium extrusions and steel products, raising some input costs, while no anti-dumping measure on caravans was identified.
SECTION THREE
Split by where you sit. The left column is for the conversation before the facility is written or renewed. The right column is for the moment something starts to move on an existing file.
Eight questions that take twenty minutes and change the picture.
Eight questions that establish whether there is a business worth saving.
EARLY WARNING SIGNALS · REBOUND PORTFOLIO OBSERVATIONS
Most caravan files are not order book files. They are funding structure files.
The businesses failing here are rarely the ones without customers. They are the ones that funded a factory with money belonging to people waiting for a van. Rebound establishes that quickly, builds the forecast and the thirteen-week cash flow that prove it, and works out what debt the business can actually carry.
Sometimes the answer is a restructure and a longer runway. Sometimes it is telling you plainly there is none left. Either way you get an answer you can take to credit, and the people on the other side of it get some relief from not knowing.
How to read the figures: Primary means taken directly from the publisher's own statistics. Derived means calculated from published figures, with the calculation shown. Estimate means an industry or executive estimate rather than a measured series. Reported means drawn from media or practitioner reporting not independently verified.
Prepared by Rebound Advisory for financiers to the caravan and recreational vehicle sector. General information only, current at 3 August 2026. It is not legal, financial or insolvency advice, it is not a valuation or a recovery opinion, and it does not take account of any particular borrower's circumstances. Legal and PPSA observations should be confirmed with Australian insolvency counsel before being relied on in a facility or enforcement decision.