Cost of Owning a Dog or Cat Statistics (2026)

The ASPCA estimates that a dog costs $3,221 in its first year and $1,391 in each later year, and a cat $1,904 and $1,149 (ASPCA). Those figures date from a 2021 update and have not been revised since.

Rover's 2026 research, which is company research built on price data and a survey of 1,000 US pet parents, gives ranges: $1,930 to $5,305 a year for an adult dog and $850 to $4,400 for an adult cat (Rover).

Owners' own reports fall between the two. In the AVMA's 2025 survey, pet owners said they spend about $1,700 a year on their pets (AVMA).

The first year costs more because of one-time spending. The ASPCA lists $1,030 of it for a dog: $300 to spay or neuter, $300 of initial medical care, $200 for training, $60 for a crate, $60 for a collar and leash, $50 for a carrier, $40 for grooming tools and $20 for a microchip.

Rover puts the upfront cost of bringing a dog home at $1,195 to $4,650 in 2026, 4.9% more than in 2025. An adoption fee runs $50 to $500 and a breeder $675 to $4,440, and Rover says average adoption costs are up 13% from last year (Rover).

Rover's other upfront items include $180 to $300 for vaccinations, $80 to $180 for the first vet exam, $260 to $1,125 for essential supplies and $35 to $80 for a pet license.

The ASPCA lists $455 of one-time costs for a cat: $150 to spay or neuter, $175 of initial medical care, $40 for a carrier, $20 each for a litter box, grooming tools and microchip, $15 for a scratching post and $15 for a collar.

Rover's 2026 range for a cat's first-year upfront cost is $705 to $2,960, 5% more than last year. Adoption runs $50 to $155, an 11% increase from 2025, and spaying or neutering $165 to $195 (Rover).

A kitten's vaccine series costs $100 to $210 and yearly boosters $30 to $100, and renters may face a pet deposit or pet rent of $300 to $750.

After the first year, the ASPCA puts a dog at $1,391 a year, which is about $116 a month by our arithmetic. Health insurance is the largest line at $516, followed by food at $300, routine medical care at $225 and preventive medication at $185.

Rover's ranges by life stage are $1,460 to $6,745 for a puppy, $1,930 to $5,305 for an adult and $2,475 to $5,200 for a senior, before end-of-life care. Moving from puppy to adult cuts yearly spending by 21%, according to Rover (Rover).

For a senior dog, insurance alone can reach $630 to $4,595 a year in Rover's figures, and dental care $435 to $490.

The ASPCA's annual figure for a cat is $1,149, about $96 a month. Insurance is $348, food $225, routine medical care $160, litter $150 and preventive medication $140.

Rover gives $840 to $3,665 a year for a kitten, a 15% increase on last year, and $850 to $4,400 for an adult cat. It says a senior cat may cost up to 16% less, although senior medical and dental costs rise to $580 to $1,335 a year (Rover).

Professional grooming for a cat costs up to $155 a session, or $620 a year, according to Rover.

Rover's monthly range for a medium-sized dog is $145 to $505, 15% higher than last year. For a medium-sized cat it is $70 to $305, up 14% (Rover).

On the ASPCA's annual figures, a dog works out to about $116 a month and a cat about $96, before any emergency care.

Insurance is a monthly bill for those who carry it. Rover quotes cat insurance at $10 to $95 a month, and Trupanion, a listed pet insurer, reported average monthly revenue per pet of $88.95 in the third quarter of 2026.

Rover's research finds that small-breed adult dogs can cost as much as 63% less per year than large and giant breeds (Rover). Food is the main reason: an adult dog's food bill ranges from $785 to $2,635 a year.

Over a lifetime the gap widens. Rover puts a small breed at $19,840 and a large breed at $58,875, with a medium-sized dog between $35,415 and $43,285.

Size also affects how long a dog lives. In UK veterinary records, toy and small breeds lived longer than larger dogs, which adds years of cost even as each year costs less.

Rover's 2026 median lifetime cost is $39,350 for a medium-sized dog and $32,527 for a cat. It notes that the cost-of-living adjustment rose 2.8% in 2026 while it expects pet-related costs to rise by up to 15% (Rover).

The lifetime total depends on lifespan. A study of 30,563 UK dog deaths found an average life expectancy at birth of 11.23 years, from 12.72 for Jack Russell Terriers to 4.53 for French Bulldogs (Teng et al., 2022).

For cats, a study of 7,936 UK deaths found a life expectancy of 11.74 years, 12.51 for females and 11.18 for males (Teng et al., 2024). Rover says a cat that lives 20 years can cost as much as $72,595.

The AVMA's 2025 Pet Ownership and Demographics Sourcebook found owners spending about $1,700 a year on their pets, roughly $200 more than in the previous two surveys. Veterinary care was 32.4% of that spending (AVMA).

Dog owners spent an average of $598 on veterinary care during the year, cat owners $529 and owners of other pets $552. The last vet visit cost $200 on average, up from $147 in the 2024 survey, and $220 for dog owners.

APPA's 2025 survey found that 29% of dog owners' pet spending went to the vet, the largest share, and 27% to food. Cat owners spent an average of $337.53 on food, up 9% (APPA).

Among dog owners in the AVMA survey, 47.7% took their dog to the vet twice in the year, 26.8% three times or more and 25.5% once. Cat owners went less often: 40.9% once, 43.3% twice and 15.8% three or more times.

16.1% of dog owners and 28.0% of cat owners spent nothing on the vet in the past year. Among cat owners, 16.4% said they skipped the vet because it was too expensive.

Routine or preventive care was the reason for 81.6% of dog owners' last visit. Vet prices themselves rose 4.6% in the 12 months to September 2026, which the veterinary cost statistics page covers in detail.

The average US accident and illness premium was $836 a year for a dog in 2025, up 11.5% from $749, and $435 for a cat, up 12.6% from $386 (NAPHIA). Dog premiums have risen 34% since 2021 by our arithmetic.

Accident-only cover is far cheaper, $190 a year for a dog and $112 for a cat, and its price fell slightly for dogs in 2025. Plans with embedded wellness cover cost $1,414 for a dog and $859 for a cat.

The largest single claims paid in 2025 were $66,600 for a Bernese Mountain Dog and $51,600 for an American Shorthair cat with cancer, according to NAPHIA.

Only 4.27% of US pets were insured at the end of 2025: 5.99% of dogs and 2.29% of cats (NAPHIA). That covered 5.23 million dogs, up 6.8%, and 1.75 million cats, up 16.3%.

US premiums reached about $5.7 billion in 2025, up 19.7%, and the number of insured pets rose 9.0%. Dogs make up 74.9% of insured pets and 84.5% of premiums.

Insurance is far more common elsewhere. Trupanion's annual report says about 28% of household dogs and cats are insured in the UK and 67% in Sweden (Trupanion 10-K). California holds 18.1% of all US insured pets.

The BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey put average pet spending at $997.05 per household in 2025, 1.2% of total spending (BLS). Veterinary services were $361.00, pet food $356.69, supplies and medicine $186.75 and pet services $92.61.

That is up 13.3% from $880.11 in 2024 and from $770 in 2021 (BLS multi-year table). Spending on pet food rose 20.5% in a year and on vet services 17.4%.

These averages cover all 137,994,000 households, including those with no pet, so they understate what a pet owner spends. They are useful for the trend and for comparing groups.

Pet spending rises steeply with income. The lowest-income fifth of households spent $514 on pets in 2025 and the highest fifth $2,049, four times as much (BLS table 1101).

By age, households headed by someone 25 to 34 spent the most, $1,369, followed by those aged 45 to 54 at $1,259. Households aged 75 and older spent $463 (BLS CE by age).

Homeowners spent $1,264 on pets and renters $511, (BLS CE by housing tenure). Married couples whose oldest child is 6 to 17 spent $1,957.

APPA's 2025 survey counted 95 million pet-owning households. 71 million owned a dog, 53% of households and about 4 million more than a year earlier, and 53 million owned a cat, 39% (APPA).

Multi-cat homes are growing: two-cat ownership rose 7% in a year and households with three or more cats are up 45% since 2018, according to APPA's cat report (APPA).

The AVMA counts animals rather than households: 87.3 million dogs and 76.3 million cats in 2025, with 1.6 dogs per dog-owning household and 1.8 cats per cat-owning household (AVMA). The two surveys use different methods and their household shares do not match.

US pet industry spending reached $158 billion in 2025, up 3.7%, and APPA projects $165 billion for 2026 (APPA). In 2018 it was $91 billion.

Food and treats were the largest category at $68.3 billion, followed by vet care and product sales at $41.0 billion, supplies, live animals and over-the-counter medicine at $34.4 billion, and other services such as boarding, grooming, insurance and walking at $14.3 billion.

Online buying has grown with it. Chewy reported 21.3 million active customers spending an average of $591 a year in its 2025 fiscal year, and 83.3% of its sales came through Autoship repeat orders (Chewy 10-K).

In the 12 months to September 2026, prices for pets and pet products rose 1.3%, below the 3.7% for all items (BLS CPI table 2). Pet food and treats rose 1.5% and the purchase of pets, supplies and accessories 0.1%.

Services rose faster. Pet services such as grooming and boarding rose 3.6%, and veterinarian services 4.6%.

So the goods side of owning a pet has stayed close to flat while the services side, led by the vet, has risen faster than general inflation.

In Rover's May 2026 survey of 1,000 pet parents, 83% had noticed pet costs rising and 38% said they could not cover an emergency vet visit without going into debt. Only 10% had a pet savings account (Rover).

Vet visits were the top cost pressure for 50%, food for 43% and medication for 28%. To make room, 48% had cut dining out, 39% shopping and 25% had delayed financial goals, while 56% said pet spending would be the last thing they cut.

APPA found that 22% of owners spent less on their pets in 2025, and that dog owners cut back on boarding, salon grooming and treats, with average treat spending down 11% (APPA).

Rover puts a dog's additional costs at $1,055 to $4,425, including $300 to $2,500 for an emergency vet visit and $570 to $1,005 for end-of-life care (Rover). It says a typical emergency visit starts at $300 and can reach $4,000.

For cats, Rover lists euthanasia at $300 to $550, cremation at $70 to $255 and private cremation at $285 to $395. Senior medication runs $660 to $1,380 a year and a special diet $660 to $1,500 (Rover).

None of the annual estimates above include a major surgery. Rover says cat surgery can add $3,000 to $4,000.

The sources measure different things. The ASPCA and Rover price a single animal, the AVMA and APPA survey owners, and the BLS averages across every household whether it has a pet or not.

The ASPCA table dates from 2021. Rover's figures are company research given as wide ranges, and its lifetime medians are its own calculation. NAPHIA premiums are averages for insured pets, which are a small and not necessarily typical group.

Life expectancy figures come from UK veterinary records because no comparable US life table is published. Our arithmetic, such as monthly equivalents and percentage changes, is labelled where it appears.