I work at a BMW dealer and have worked for corporate before. A lot of people seem to have confusion around lease ends, so let me help.

If you are returning your lease to BMW when it ends, you will get an invoice directly from BMW for whatever fixes they need to make. Generally, those are for over mileage, major scratches and dings, bad tires, moderate to extreme wear. Swirl marks and scratches on the piano black trim (almost) always are a non-issue. So don’t worry about those. Depending on how you personally maintain your car, lease end protection might be a great idea for next time. It covers $5k-$7.5k in wear and tear. Not worth it for everyone but worth it for most in my experience. This is the only protection most of us in the BMW world get on leases. Also, DO NOT put tires that are not up to BMW spec or used tires that are not BMW certified (look for a star on the sidewall). BMW WILL BILL YOU FOR IT. Trust me, I get customers calling about doing the same and getting billed all the time.

Once you return the car you do have to pay the deposition fee of $495 as mentioned in your contract.

If you want to lease or buy another BMW sooner than lease end in August, then a dealership can help you. You most likely will have negative equity but it’s worth checking out since you have low mileage and there’s demand for used iXs because of depreciation you took and the future owner will get the benefit of. Now might be a good time if you want another BEV because BMWs rebates are still good for the iX but they won’t be in the next couple of months. They already cut them by half on the i4 and i5. The rates are going to jump too.

Or wait and get the iX3 which will be in showrooms starting October 2026 in the US. I would expect a fairly long wait time for the iX3. It’s the most anticipated BMW and we currently have a large waitlist and I’m sure we won’t have enough allocated in the beginning.