Bathroom Remodel Statistics: 90+ Verified Figures on Cost, ROI, Bathrooms per Home and Vanity Trends (2026)
Homeowners spent a median of $15,000 on bathroom upgrades in 2025, and a midrange bath remodel recouped 80% of its cost at resale, according to the Houzz Bathroom Trends Study and Zonda's Cost vs Value report.
Two numbers get mixed up constantly. The $15,000 median covers every bathroom upgrade, including a vanity swap and new tile. The $26,138 midrange figure from Cost vs Value is one defined project with a specific scope. They answer different questions, and we keep them apart below.
This page gathers what the federal agencies, the trade associations and the two big homeowner surveys have published on bathroom remodeling in the United States: what projects cost, what comes back at resale, how many bathrooms new homes get, which vanity sizes people choose, and who does the work. Every figure links to the page it came from. We sell bathroom vanities and double sink bathroom vanities for a living, so we read these reports closely, and we've added a few calculations of our own where the sources stop short, each one labelled as an estimate with the arithmetic shown.
In short: bathroom remodeling in the US is a $15,000 median project in 2025, up from $13,000 in 2024 (Houzz). A midrange remodel costs $26,138 and returns 80% at resale (Zonda, 2025). 63.5% of new single-family homes started in 2025 have two full bathrooms (NAHB, Census data). 37% of renovating homeowners went over budget in 2025 (Houzz and Home).
Key Takeaways
Cost and resale value
- Median bathroom upgrade spend: $15,000 in 2025, up from $13,000 in 2024
- Median spend on a major bathroom remodel (shower included): $25,000
- Midrange bath remodel: $26,138 job cost, 80% recouped at resale
- Upscale bath remodel: $81,612 job cost, 41.7% recouped
- Homeowners who went over budget: 37%
The market
- Owner improvement and repair spending: $517 billion a year as of mid 2026
- Total remodeling spending in 2024: $670 billion
- Bathroom remodels' share of home improvement spending: 8.3%
- Kitchen and bath industry revenue forecast for 2026: $228 billion
- Remodeling Market Index, third quarter 2026: 62
Bathrooms in American homes
- New single-family starts with two full bathrooms: 63.5%
- Starts with three full bathrooms: 23.8%
- Starts with four or more: 7.8%
- New single-family homes completed in 2025: 1,005,000
Vanities and who does the work
- Renovations that upgraded the vanity cabinet: 75%
- Enhanced vanities wider than 72": 21%
- Homeowners hiring at least one pro: 89%
- Professionally installed share of improvement spending: 84.1%
How Much Does a Bathroom Remodel Cost in 2026?
The median homeowner spent $15,000 on bathroom upgrades in 2025, a rebound from $13,000 the year before, according to the 2026 Houzz Bathroom Trends Study of 1,619 homeowners.
The spread by scope:
| Project | Median spend | Source (date) |
|---|---|---|
| Any bathroom upgrade | $15,000 | Houzz Bathroom Trends Study (Sept 2026) |
| Major remodel, shower upgraded | $25,000 | Houzz Bathroom Trends Study (Sept 2026) |
| Bathroom of 100 sq ft or more | $30,000 | Houzz Bathroom Trends Study (Sept 2026) |
| Top 10% of major remodels | $70,000 and up | Houzz Bathroom Trends Study (Sept 2026) |
| Midrange bath remodel, defined scope | $26,138 | Zonda Cost vs Value (2025) |
| Upscale bath remodel, defined scope | $81,612 | Zonda Cost vs Value (2025) |
Houzz medians are what homeowners reported spending on whatever they chose to do. Cost vs Value prices one fixed project (a 5 by 7 foot bathroom with a specified tub, tile, vanity and fixtures), so it is the better yardstick for a full gut.
For context, the median spend across every renovation type was $20,000 in 2025, so a bathroom upgrade runs about 75% of a typical home renovation budget (our estimate: 15,000 divided by 20,000).
The Houzz major-remodel median of $25,000 and the Zonda midrange figure of $26,138 land within $1,200 of each other from completely different methods. That is as close to a consensus number as this industry gets.
How Much of a Bathroom Remodel Do You Get Back at Resale?
A midrange bathroom remodel recouped 80% of its cost at resale in 2025, while an upscale remodel recouped 41.7%, according to Zonda's Cost vs Value report.
| Project | Job cost | Resale value | Cost recouped | Source (date) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bath remodel, midrange | $26,138 | $20,915 | 80% | Zonda Cost vs Value (2025) |
| Bath remodel, upscale | $81,612 | $34,000 | 41.7% | Zonda Cost vs Value (2025) |
Put in dollars rather than percentages, the midrange project leaves about $5,223 on the table at sale (our estimate: 26,138 minus 20,915) and the upscale project about $47,612 (81,612 minus 34,000). The second bathroom costs three times as much and gives back less than half.
Cost recouped is not profit. An 80% return means a $26,000 project adds roughly $21,000 to the sale price. You are paying about $5,000 for the years you get to use the room.
Resale is a motive for a minority. 27% of homeowners renovate a bathroom to improve resale value. The top reason, at 47%, is that they can't stand the look of the old one.
How Big Is the US Remodeling Market?
Owner spending on home improvements and repairs is running at $517 billion a year as of the second quarter of 2026, according to Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies.
The headline numbers, each on its own definition:
| Measure | Figure | Source (date) |
|---|---|---|
| Owner improvement and repair spending, four quarters to 2026-Q2 | $517 billion | Harvard JCHS LIRA (July 2026) |
| Projected level, four quarters to 2027-Q2 | $519 billion | Harvard JCHS LIRA (July 2026) |
| Projected growth, 2026-Q3 | 2.1% | Harvard JCHS LIRA (July 2026) |
| Projected growth, 2027-Q2 | 0.5% | Harvard JCHS LIRA (July 2026) |
| Total remodeling spending, 2024 | $670 billion | NAHB (May 2026) |
| Home remodeling market, 2023 | $609 billion | Harvard JCHS Improving America's Housing (2025) |
| Growth in the market, 2019 to 2023 | 51% | Harvard JCHS Improving America's Housing (2025) |
| Kitchen and bath industry revenue, 2026 forecast | $228 billion | NKBA Outlook (Feb 2026) |
| Kitchen and bath growth, 2026 mid-year revision | -0.4% | NKBA Mid-Year Update (July 2026) |
The $517 billion and $670 billion figures are not in conflict. Harvard counts owner-occupied improvements and repairs over a rolling four quarters. NAHB's $670 billion is a broader 2024 estimate that includes rental property remodeling.
Bathroom remodels took 8.3% of home improvement spending in 2023, behind kitchens at 10.1%. Discretionary projects as a group, which include kitchen and bath remodels and room additions, were 30% of spending.
Growth is slowing, not reversing. Harvard projects year-over-year growth easing from 2.1% in the third quarter of 2026 to 0.5% by mid 2027. NKBA cut its 2026 kitchen and bath forecast to a 0.4% decline in July while holding the $228 billion total.
What Does the Remodeling Market Index Say Right Now?
NAHB's Remodeling Market Index read 62 in the third quarter of 2026, up one point from the second quarter. Anything above 50 means more remodelers see conditions as good than poor.
The components from the October 8, 2026 release:
- Current Conditions Index: 70, the third straight quarter at that level
- Future Indicators Index: 54, up two points
- Large projects ($50,000 and up): 66
- Moderate projects ($20,000 to $50,000): 71
- Small projects (under $20,000): 73
The project-size readings are separate sub-indexes, not pieces that add up to 62. Small projects score highest, which fits the Houzz medians: most bathroom work sits in the under $20,000 band where remodelers feel best about demand.
NAHB's release names high material costs and labor shortages as the drags, with remodelers reporting customers hesitant over economic uncertainty.
How Many Bathrooms Do New American Homes Have?
63.5% of single-family homes started in 2025 had two full bathrooms, according to NAHB's analysis of the Census Bureau's Survey of Construction.
Full bathrooms in 2025 single-family starts:
| Full bathrooms | Share of starts | Source (date) |
|---|---|---|
| One or fewer | 4.9% | NAHB Eye on Housing (Sept 2026) |
| Two | 63.5% | NAHB Eye on Housing (Sept 2026) |
| Three | 23.8% | NAHB Eye on Housing (Sept 2026) |
| Four or more | 7.8% | NAHB Eye on Housing (Sept 2026) |
Weighted out, that is about 2.35 full bathrooms per new home (our estimate: 4.9% times one, plus 63.5% times two, plus 23.8% times three, plus 7.8% times four, counting the top band as four).
The two-bath share slipped from 65.0% in 2024 while three-bath homes rose from 23.3%. At the same time, the one-bath share hit its highest level since 2012 at 4.9%. New construction is splitting toward both ends.
Half-bathrooms:
Regionally, the East North Central division led two-full-bath starts at 70.2% and the Pacific trailed at 55.0%. Half-baths are a New England habit: 66.3% of starts there had one, against 34.0% in the East South Central division.
These are starts, not the existing housing stock. The Census Bureau counts a full bathroom as a washbasin, a toilet and a tub or shower. A home with three full baths typically runs a double sink vanity in the primary bath and singles elsewhere, which is why the two formats sell in roughly that proportion.
The Census Bureau's own highlights add that 1,005,000 single-family homes were completed in 2025 at a median 2,142 square feet, and that 42% of homes built for sale in the Northeast had three or more bathrooms.
Which Vanity Sizes and Features Are Homeowners Choosing?
Vanities wider than 72" made up 21% of enhanced vanities in 2025, up seven points and now ahead of the 60" (18%) and 72" (17%) sizes, according to Houzz.
Taken together, vanities 60" and wider are about 56% of enhanced vanities (our estimate: 21 plus 18 plus 17). That is the clearest data point we have seen on the shift from the old 36" to 48" standard toward 60" to 72" vanities in primary baths.
What homeowners are putting into the vanity itself:
| Feature | Share of enhanced vanities | Source (date) |
|---|---|---|
| Vanity cabinet upgraded during the renovation | 75% | Houzz (2026) |
| Engineered quartz countertop | 46% | Houzz (2026) |
| Wood-tone vanity color, the top choice | 31% | Houzz (2026) |
| Built-in electrical outlets | 32% | Houzz (Sept 2026) |
| Built-in drawer organizers | 25% | Houzz (Sept 2026) |
| Hair tool organizers | 19% | Houzz (Sept 2026) |
"Enhanced vanities" means vanities that were upgraded or replaced in the project, not every vanity in every home.
Wood tones beating white as the top vanity color is the single trend we'd flag for anyone planning a 2026 bath: white oak and walnut fronts under a quartz top are what the survey is describing. Our guide to the most popular bathroom vanity sizes walks through how the widths map to real room dimensions.
What Else Changes in a Bathroom Remodel?
Showers were upgraded in 84% of renovations and flooring in 82%, ahead of the vanity at 75%, per Houzz.
The bathtub story in 2025:
- Upgraded the tub: 38%
- Removed the tub: 26%
- Had no tub and did not add one: 27%
- Of those removing a tub, enlarged the shower: 79%
- Of those removing a tub, enlarged the vanity or sink: 11%
- Chose a soaking tub when adding or replacing one: 72%
More than half of renovated bathrooms now have no tub at all (26% removed plus 27% never had one). When the tub does stay, it is a soaking tub seven times out of ten.
Why people renovate, and what they want afterward:
- Can't stand the look of the old bathroom: 47%
- Deterioration: 35%
- Financially ready: 29%
- Recent home purchase: 21%
- Not enough storage: 15%
- Spend more time in the bathroom after the upgrade: 50%
- Name cleanliness the most relaxing feature: 76%, then a spacious shower at 71% and organized storage at 67%
Storage shows up twice, as a reason to start and as a reason the finished room feels calm, which is the practical case for a single sink vanity with drawers over an open-base pedestal in a small bath.
Who Does the Work, and What Do They Earn?
89% of homeowners hired at least one professional for their bathroom project, up five points year over year, according to Houzz.
Who gets hired:
| Professional | Share of bathroom projects | Source (date) |
|---|---|---|
| General contractor | 52% | Houzz (Sept 2026) |
| Bathroom remodeler | 23% | Houzz (Sept 2026) |
| Cabinetmaker | 23% | Houzz (Sept 2026) |
| Bathroom designer | 14% | Houzz (Sept 2026) |
| Interior designer | 12% | Houzz (Sept 2026) |
The DIY share of improvement spending on owner-occupied homes fell to a record low 15.9% in 2023, leaving 84.1% professionally installed, according to Harvard. The typical DIY project cost $2,600 against $7,800 for a professional one, so hiring out costs about three times as much per project (our estimate: 7,800 divided by 2,600).
The trades behind the work, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
| Occupation | Employment (2025) | Median pay (May 2025) | Growth 2025 to 2035 | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters | 510,600 | $63,800 | 7% | BLS OOH |
| Tile and stone setters | 45,200 | $54,390 (with flooring installers) | 10% | BLS OOH |
BLS projects about 42,000 plumber openings a year over the decade, most of them replacements for retiring workers. The $54,390 figure is the combined median for flooring installers and tile and stone setters; BLS does not publish a tile-only sentence on that page.
How Do Homeowners Pay for It, and Do They Stay on Budget?
37% of renovating homeowners exceeded their budget in 2025, slightly more than the 35% who came in on target, according to the 2026 Houzz and Home Study of 10,176 renovating homeowners.
The budget picture:
- Set a budget before starting: 75%
- Went over: 37%
- Chose higher-end materials than planned: 35%
- Expanded the scope mid-project: 31%
- Paid from savings: 84%
- Used a credit card: 34%, up five points
These figures cover all renovation types, not bathrooms alone. Houzz did not publish a bathroom-only overrun rate in its 2026 study.
Overruns are mostly chosen, not suffered. More homeowners upgraded their materials on purpose (35%) than were caught by surprise, which matches what we see at checkout: the quartz top and the wider vanity get added after the first quote.
Looking ahead, 50% of homeowners plan a renovation in 2026, down from 52%, with a median planned spend of $15,000 against the $20,000 they spent in 2025.
How Much Water Does a Bathroom Use?
Bathrooms account for more than 50% of all indoor household water use, according to the EPA's WaterSense program.
Fixture by fixture:
- Federal standard for a toilet: 1.6 gallons per flush
- WaterSense toilet: 1.28 gallons per flush or less, 20% below the standard
- Replacing older toilets with WaterSense models: nearly 13,000 gallons a year saved per home, or about 36 gallons a day (our estimate: 13,000 divided by 365)
- WaterSense faucets and aerators: 700 gallons a year saved
The 50% figure is a share of indoor use. Outdoor irrigation sits outside that denominator, so bathrooms are not half of a home's total water bill in every climate.
How Common Are Bathroom Injuries?
An estimated 234,094 nonfatal bathroom injuries among people aged 15 and older were treated in US emergency departments in 2008, the most recent year the CDC studied, with about two thirds occurring in or around the tub or shower.
Among adults 65 and older, bathroom injuries were 2.5% of all unintentional injuries. The CDC data is from 2008 and has not been updated in the same form; we include it because it is still the only national estimate and it explains the 79% of tub removals that go to a bigger, step-free shower.
Conclusion
The 2026 bathroom remodel is a $15,000 median project that most homeowners hand to a contractor, returns about 80% at resale when kept midrange, and increasingly swaps the tub for a bigger shower and a wider, wood-toned vanity. New homes are standardizing on two full baths with a third gaining ground. Spending growth is flattening into 2027, but the Remodeling Market Index says small and moderate projects are holding up best.
Cite This Page
BathGems (2026). Bathroom Remodel Statistics: 90+ Verified Figures on Cost, ROI, Bathrooms per Home and Vanity Trends. https://bathgems.com/pages/bathroom-remodel-statistics
Free to use with a link to this page. The charts and the dataset download are licensed CC BY 4.0. Download the dataset (CSV).
Sources
Houzz, 2026 U.S. Houzz Bathroom Trends Study (Sept 2026) · Houzz, The Bathroom Features Homeowners Want Most in 2026 · Houzz, 2026 U.S. Houzz and Home Study (April 2026) · Zonda, Cost vs Value 2025, national averages · Harvard JCHS, Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity (July 2026) · Harvard JCHS, Improving America's Housing 2025 · Harvard JCHS, Improving America's Housing 2025 Key Facts · NAHB, Remodeling Market Index Q3 2026 (Oct 8, 2026) · NAHB, Which Home Owners Are Fueling Remodeling (May 2026) · NAHB Eye on Housing, Number of Bathrooms in New Single-Family Homes in 2025 (Sept 2026) · NKBA, 2026 Kitchen and Bath Industry Outlook (Feb 2026) · NKBA, 2026 Outlook Mid-Year Update (July 2026) · US Census Bureau, Characteristics of New Housing, 2025 highlights · BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, Plumbers, Pipefitters and Steamfitters · BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, Flooring Installers and Tile and Stone Setters · EPA WaterSense, About WaterSense · EPA WaterSense, Residential Toilets · CDC MMWR, Nonfatal Bathroom Injuries Among Persons Aged 15 and Older (2011)
Last updated October 2026. We reviewed 19 primary source pages from federal agencies, trade associations and the two largest homeowner surveys, kept 116 figures that we could see on the source page, and calculated seven estimates of our own, each labelled. Figures are refreshed when the sources publish their next editions; the next Harvard LIRA release is scheduled for October 22, 2026.