Every number on this page comes from a named, linkable source: the American Pet Products Association (APPA), the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), the North American Pet Health Insurance Association (NAPHIA), Shelter Animals Count, Rover, Morgan Stanley, Bloomberg Intelligence, and The Harris Poll. Where a figure is an estimate — or two major surveys disagree — we say so plainly. Journalists and bloggers: you’re welcome to cite these statistics with a link back to this page.
Key statistics at a glance
- 95 million U.S. households owned at least one pet in 2025, according to APPA’s 2026 State of the Industry Report. (APPA)
- U.S. pet industry spending reached $158 billion in 2025 (+3.7%) and is projected to hit $165 billion in 2026. (APPA)
- America is home to roughly 87.3 million pet dogs and 76.3 million pet cats, per the AVMA’s 2025 Pet Ownership and Demographics Sourcebook. (AVMA)
- The average owner spent about $1,700 on their pets in 2025 — roughly $200 more than in each of the two previous years — with veterinary care taking 32.4% of that. (AVMA Sourcebook)
- 7.6 million pets were insured in North America by the end of 2025, and U.S. pet insurance premiums hit $5.7 billion — up 19.7% in a single year. (NAPHIA)
- Gen Z pet owners spend $6,103 a year on their pets — about 2.5 times what Baby Boomers spend ($2,454). (Statista, 2025)
How many U.S. households own a pet?
The two most authoritative surveys land on different totals, and it’s worth understanding both. APPA’s 2026 State of the Industry Report, built on its 2025 National Pet Owners Survey, puts pet ownership at 95 million U.S. households — roughly seven in ten homes. The AVMA’s 2025 Pet Ownership and Demographics Sourcebook is more conservative: 77.5 million households (58.6%). The gap comes down to survey methodology — but both series agree on the direction: ownership keeps climbing. AVMA’s own decade-over-decade numbers show pet-owning households up more than 8% since 2016 (from 71.5 million), the owned-dog population up from 76.8 million to 87.3 million, and the owned-cat population up from 58.3 million to 76.3 million.
| Metric | APPA (2025 National Pet Owners Survey) | AVMA (2025 Sourcebook) |
|---|---|---|
| Households with any pet | 95 million | 77.5 million (58.6%) |
| Dog-owning households | 71 million (53%) | 56.3 million (42.6%) |
| Cat-owning households | 53 million (39%) | 43.1 million (32.6%) |
| Total owned dogs | — | 87.3 million |
| Total owned cats | — | 76.3 million |
Sources: APPA; HumanePro’s side-by-side of the 2025 AVMA Sourcebook and 2025 APPA survey.
Dogs vs. cats: what changed in 2025
- Dog ownership grew from 51% of households in 2024 to 53% in 2025 — about 4 million additional dog-owning households in a single year, with growth led by Gen Z, Millennials, and Gen X. (APPA)
- Cat ownership rose 5% year over year to 39% of households (53 million), propelled by Gen Z and Millennials. (APPA)
- Cats are closing the gap on dogs. Among owners who acquired a pet in the previous two years, the share acquiring a cat rose from 43.5% in 2023 to 47.6% in 2025, while dog acquisitions slipped from 57.3% to 54.5%. (AVMA Sourcebook)
- Dog-owning households have averaged 1.6 dogs since 1987; cat households average 1.8 cats, down from 2.2 in 1987. (AVMA)
- 79.5% of dog owners and 70.4% of cat owners consider their pet a member of the family. (AVMA)
- Beyond dogs and cats, AVMA counts 3.4 million households with fish, 2.4 million with reptiles, 2.1 million with birds, roughly 900,000 with poultry, 800,000 with rabbits, and 500,000 with horses. (dvm360)
How much do Americans spend on their pets?
Total U.S. pet industry expenditures reached $158 billion in 2025, a 3.7% increase over 2024, and APPA projects $165 billion for 2026 — full-year growth near 4.4%, of which roughly two points is inflation (APPA). For context, industry spending was around $60 billion as recently as 2015 (Rover).
At the household level, the AVMA Sourcebook found owners spent about $1,700 on their pets in 2025 — roughly $200 more than in each of the prior two years. Veterinary care is the biggest line item at 32.4% of total pet spending: dog owners averaged $598 a year on vet care, cat owners $529. APPA’s 2026 Dog Report tells the same story by wallet share: veterinary care takes 29% of dog-owner spending and food 27%, and owners are getting strategic — 32% now buy dog food at supermarkets (+7% YoY) and 22% at discount retailers (+22% YoY).
Spending is resilient, but not unconditional: 22% of pet owners reported spending less on their pets in 2025, a 10% increase over 2024, while about half kept spending unchanged (APPA). Owners protect the pet budget anyway: in Rover’s 2026 Cost of Pet Parenthood Report, 56% of pet parents said pet spending is the last budget category they would cut, and 88% agreed their pet brings more joy than any other expense.
What does a pet actually cost an individual owner? Rover’s 2026 report puts the median lifetime cost of a medium-sized dog at $39,350 and a cat at $32,527 — with monthly costs of $145–$505 for a medium dog and $70–$305 for a cat — and warns pet-related costs could rise up to 15% in 2026 on the back of rising veterinary fees and tariff-inflated prices. Sobering footnote: 38% of owners say they would need to take on debt to cover an emergency vet visit. Looking ahead, Morgan Stanley Research projects annual spending per pet to reach $1,445 in 2026 and $1,733 by 2030, with total U.S. industry spending climbing to $261 billion by 2030.
Pet spending by generation
| Generation | Average annual pet spending (2025) |
|---|---|
| Gen Z | $6,103 |
| Millennials | $5,150 |
| Gen X | $3,878 |
| Baby Boomers | $2,454 |
Source: Statista.
The generational skew shows up everywhere. In a 2026 Harris Poll of 2,070 U.S. adults, Gen Z and Millennial pet owners out-bought Gen X and Boomers on toys (83% vs. 67%), pet insurance (61% vs. 22%), and prescribed medication (52% vs. 35%); 77% keep a separate budget just for their pet, and 29% say they’re in debt because of pet-related expenses — more than double the older generations’ 14%. Meanwhile, APPA’s 2025 data shows growth broadening beyond the young: Gen X pet ownership jumped 12% year over year, extending into birds (+25%), reptiles (+20%), and freshwater fish (+17%). We dug into why younger owners treat pets like children in our look at the millennial pet parent era.
Pet insurance statistics
Pet insurance remains the industry’s fastest-growing corner. Per NAPHIA’s 2026 State of the Industry Report, U.S. gross written premium reached about $5.7 billion at year-end 2025, up 19.7% from 2024’s $4.7 billion, and 7.6 million pets were insured across North America. Insured pets in the U.S. grew 9% in 2025 and roughly 76% over the past five years.
| Year | Total insured pets (U.S.) |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 3.10 million |
| 2021 | 3.97 million |
| 2022 | 4.85 million |
| 2023 | 5.68 million |
| 2024 | 6.41 million |
| 2025 | ~7.0 million (+9%) |
Sources: NAPHIA industry data; NAPHIA 2026 SOI highlights.
Dogs account for 75.6% of insured pets and cats 23.5% — but the cat share has risen every single year since 2020, when it was just 17.1% (AVMA news). Zoom out, though, and the market is still young: with roughly 163.6 million owned dogs and cats in the U.S., only about 4% are insured.
Adoption and shelter statistics
According to Shelter Animals Count’s 2025 Annual Analysis, about 5.79 million dogs and cats entered U.S. shelters and rescues in 2025 (2.96 million cats, 2.88 million dogs), down 2% from 2024 — and dog intakes are down 14% since 2019. Of those animals, 59% arrived as strays and 30% were relinquished by their owners. 70% were adopted (down 5 points compared with 2019) and about 10% were euthanized.
The statistic we can’t stop thinking about: of lost pets entering shelters, only 11% were returned to their owner — 19% of dogs and just 3% of cats. We break down why that number is so low, and what actually gets lost pets home, in our full lost pet statistics report.
The global pet economy
Bloomberg Intelligence projects the global pet industry will grow from about $320 billion to nearly $500 billion by 2030, driven by a growing worldwide pet population and the premiumization that follows pet humanization. Its 2025 Pet Economy Report pegs global pet food alone at $145 billion by 2030 (with the U.S. accounting for $68 billion), and expects premium food to make up nearly 60% of the U.S. market by decade’s end.
What the numbers mean for pet safety
Put the trends together: more households own pets than ever, owners treat them as family (and budget accordingly), and vet care commands a third of pet spending. Yet the cheapest layer of protection is still the most neglected — identification. Only 11% of lost pets that land in shelters make it back to their owners, and for cats it’s 3%. A visible, up-to-date ID is the single simplest fix, which is why we build NFC smart pet ID tags a finder can act on with one phone tap — no scanner, no app, no waiting for a shelter to open. If you’re weighing your options, see our honest comparisons of microchips vs. smart tags and the best smart pet ID tags of 2026.
Sources
- APPA, “U.S. Pet Industry Reaches $158 Billion in 2025” (March 2026) and the 2026 State of the Industry Report.
- APPA, 2026 Dog Report: Strategic Insights from the 2025 National Pet Owners Survey (July 2026).
- AVMA, National Pet Week 2026 release on the 2025 Pet Ownership and Demographics Sourcebook, with coverage from dvm360 and Petfood Industry.
- NAPHIA, 2026 State of the Industry Report highlights, NAPHIA total-pets-insured data, and AVMA’s summary of the 2025 report.
- HumanePro, “Pets by the Numbers”, compiling the 2025 AVMA Sourcebook, the 2025 APPA survey, and Shelter Animals Count’s 2025 Annual Analysis.
- Rover, 2026 Cost of Pet Parenthood Report (June 2026) and Rover’s 2026 report on generational pet parenthood.
- The Harris Poll, “Why Americans Are Choosing Pets Over Kids” (July 2026).
- Statista, annual U.S. pet expenditure by generation (2025).
- Morgan Stanley Research, pet care industry outlook to 2030.
- Bloomberg Intelligence, global pet industry projection and the 2025 Pet Economy Report summary.
Journalists and bloggers: you’re welcome to cite these statistics with a link back to this page.
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