Last sold in America in 2017, the small displacement sportbike is back with ABS now standard, after a decade in which US first time buyers jumped from no Kawasaki sportsbike to the larger displacement Ninja 500.
For nearly a decade, US riders who wanted a small, beginner-friendly Kawasaki sportbike had exactly one option: jump to the Ninja 500. The 296cc Ninja 300, last sold in America in 2017, sat out the entire run from 400 to 500, leaving a missing rung on the displacement ladder that put a noticeably larger machine in front of first-time buyers. Kawasaki is now bringing the 300 back, confirmed by both a California Air Resources Board executive order and a live product page on Kawasaki USA's site, and New Atlas reports it is expected to land as a 2027 model.
The return leaked the way a lot of motorcycle news does these days: through a regulatory filing. Motorcycle.com was first to flag a California Air Resources Board executive order classifying a 2026 Kawasaki model coded EX300GT. Inside Kawasaki's internal naming, "EX" denotes a parallel-twin Ninja (the same prefix used for the Ninja 500's EX500 and the Ninja 650's EX650), and the 2017 Ninja 300 was the EX300AH, with the "A" marking that generation and the "H" suffix indicating the 2017 model year. The new code's "T" suffix is, by Kawasaki convention, the next model year, which is how a careful reader of the CARB document could identify the EX300GT as a 2027 Ninja 300 months before any official US announcement.
What is actually coming back is the same basic motorcycle Kawasaki last sold here in 2017, with a handful of small updates bolted to a largely carryover package. The engine is the 296cc liquid-cooled parallel-twin, making 38.9 horsepower at 10,000 rpm and 19.3 lb-ft (26.1 Nm) of torque at the same engine speed. The chassis is the familiar steel-tube diamond frame on rubber-isolated front engine mounts, a 37 mm telescopic fork, and a Uni-Trak rear shock with preload adjust. Brakes are unchanged: a single two-piston caliper biting a 290 mm disc up front, a two-piston caliper and 220 mm disc at the rear. The piece that is new for the US is that ABS is now standard across the line, where it was optional on some 2017 trims.
The updated kit is mild but visible. The new fairing carries a larger floating windscreen, full LED lighting with dual-projector headlamps, an assist-and-slipper clutch, and a hybrid instrument cluster: an analog-style tachometer paired with a multi-function LCD panel for the rest. Dimensions sit where they did: 30.9-inch (784.8 mm) seat height, 5.5 inches (140 mm) of ground clearance, a 55.3-inch (1,404 mm) wheelbase, and a curb weight of 388.1 lb (176 kg). New Atlas frames that as a quiet counterpoint to an industry trend toward bigger engines, more electronics, and richer TFT dashboards, calling the 300's return "almost rebellious." That is opinion, but the underlying point is structural: while competitors have been moving up the displacement curve, Kawasaki is putting a 296cc rung back on its own ladder.
The lineup history explains why that matters. When the Ninja 300 was discontinued after 2017, Kawasaki replaced it with the Ninja 400 for the 2018 model year, then the Ninja 500, and never offered a true small-bore sportbike in the US in between. For new riders, that meant the entry point on Kawasaki's US sportsbike shelf went from a 296cc, 38.9-horsepower machine to a noticeably larger-displacement Ninja 500, a step many dealer and rider-training organizations have long argued is too large for genuine first-time buyers. Bringing the 300 back closes that gap on Kawasaki's own floor plan.
The market context, as New Atlas reports, is that other manufacturers are also re-entering or expanding US entry-level offerings, which is why a 296cc return reads as more than a nostalgia play. That broader claim is the one to watch. It is sourced to a single outlet's framing in the current packet, and the competitive picture (Honda's CB300R, Yamaha's MT-03, KTM's 390 Duke, and the smaller-displacement Kawasaki-versus-Asia-built competition) is worth a follow-up beat before treating the 300's return as the leading edge of a small-bore wave.
What is still missing, and worth flagging before anyone treats this as a buy recommendation, is the part Kawasaki USA has not yet published: US pricing, exact dealer arrival timing, and the full trim breakdown. The CARB filing classifies a 2026 model year, but New Atlas and the trade coverage both read the EX300GT code as pointing to a 2027 US arrival, so the model year is probable rather than locked. The product page is up; the spec sheet, the colorways, and the MSRP are not. Watch Kawasaki USA's configurator and the dealer network: that is where this story stops being a regulatory leak and becomes a motorcycle on a showroom floor.