The Rising Cost of Vet Bills: Can Americans Still Afford Their Pets?

Clinic visits have fallen for 16 consecutive quarters, the longest sustained decline on record (Bloomberg Intelligence, 2026)

More than half of American pet owners skipped or declined veterinary care last year because of cost.

That is not a fringe statistic from a small poll. It comes from a 2025 Gallup study commissioned by PetSmart Charities, one of the most rigorous surveys of pet owner behavior conducted in recent years, covering nearly 2,500 dog and cat owners across the United States.

The number behind that headline is worth sitting with: 52 percent. More than half. And among those who skipped care, 71 percent said cost was the primary reason.

This is not a niche problem affecting only low-income households. One in three pet owners with annual household incomes of at least $90,000 who skipped or declined care said they did so because they could not afford it.

The veterinary affordability crisis has arrived, and it is affecting nearly everyone.

How We Got Here

Veterinary care costs in the United States have risen more than 60 percent since 2014. That is not a typo. Over roughly a decade, the price of caring for a sick or injured animal has outpaced inflation by a significant margin.

Between 2019 and early 2025 alone, veterinary care inflation increased by 44 percent, according to a 2026 Dutch survey. For context, overall consumer prices rose about 23 percent over the same period. Vet care has been inflating at roughly twice the rate of the broader economy.

The drivers are real and not easily reversed. Veterinary schools produce a limited number of graduates each year. Demand for veterinary services grew sharply during the pandemic pet adoption boom. Corporate consolidation of veterinary practices has changed the pricing dynamics at many clinics. Advanced diagnostics and treatments that extend and improve animal lives cost more to deliver. And the workforce shortage in rural and underserved areas has reduced competition in many local markets.

None of that makes the bills easier to pay.

What the Data Actually Shows

The Gallup and PetSmart Charities numbers are striking on their own. But they are consistent with what multiple independent studies have found.

A MetLife survey of 1,000 American pet owners conducted in late 2025 found that 85 percent said the cost of veterinary care had affected their peace of mind. Three in four worried at least occasionally about being able to afford future vet visits or emergencies. Nearly 70 percent admitted to delaying or skipping a vet visit because of cost.

A separate ASPCA report found that six in ten American pet owners lack confidence in their ability to afford veterinary care for a medical emergency. The organization estimated this puts more than 100 million pets at risk.

Forbes reported in 2026 that the lifetime cost of pet ownership can reach $60,000, with veterinary costs representing a substantial portion of that figure.

Meanwhile, clinic visits have been declining for four consecutive years. According to a January 2026 Vetsource white paper analyzing data from nearly 6,500 veterinary practices, visits dropped 3.1 percent in 2025 following declines of 3.5 percent, 1.4 percent, and 2.6 percent in the preceding three years. Wellness visits, the preventive end of the care spectrum, fell even more steeply, by 3.8 percent in 2025.

People are not going less often because their pets are healthier. They are going less often because they cannot afford to go.

The Human Cost of Unaffordable Pet Care

Behind the statistics are real families making impossible choices.

Three in ten American pet owners report that a friend's or family member's pet died in the past five years because they could not afford treatment. Eleven percent know someone who had to surrender a pet because of financial barriers to care.

The MetLife survey found that 33 percent of pet owners who paid a large veterinary bill reported skipping meals or cutting back on groceries to cover the cost. Nearly two in five have already switched veterinarians specifically to find someone more affordable, even when they liked their previous clinic.

For many households, the emotional weight is significant. The same survey found that 63 percent of pet owners said worries about vet costs have made them second-guess whether to adopt another pet. The affordability crisis is not just affecting current pets. It is shaping whether people feel they can responsibly own animals at all.

The Gap Between Vets and Pet Owners

One of the most striking findings in the recent data is the disconnect between how veterinarians and pet owners describe the same interactions.

A 2025 PetSmart Charities-Gallup follow-up study surveyed 933 practicing veterinarians and found that 81 percent say they often or always recommend an alternative treatment plan when a client declines care due to cost.

But the companion survey of pet owners told a different story: 73 percent of pet owners who declined care due to affordability said they were not offered a more financially accessible option by their veterinarian.

Both groups are likely telling the truth as they experienced it. The gap suggests a communication problem as much as a financial one. When cost conversations happen late, briefly, or without a clear framework, they leave people feeling unheard even when the vet believes they offered options.

Nearly half of veterinarians, 48 percent, say their education did not prepare them at all to have conversations about financial barriers with clients. Another 32 percent say they were only minimally prepared. The profession is being asked to navigate one of the most emotionally loaded conversations in a clinical relationship, and most practitioners were never trained to do it.

What Pet Owners Are Doing About It

Faced with rising costs and limited options, pet owners are adapting in ways the industry should pay attention to.

Seventy-one percent of pet owners in the MetLife survey said they would switch veterinarians for better cost transparency or more flexible payment options. Younger pet owners are even more willing: 78 percent of Gen Z and 74 percent of millennials said they would make the change.

Interest in pet insurance is growing, though it remains complex and often misunderstood. Telehealth platforms like Vetster and Airvet are absorbing some of the demand for lower-cost triage and follow-up care. Payment plan tools like CareCredit and Scratchpay are helping some households bridge short-term gaps.

And a growing number of pet owners are searching for pricing information online before they book an appointment, trying to understand what care will cost before they are already sitting in the exam room.

The Transparency Problem Nobody Is Talking About

Here is a number that should be in every conversation about veterinary affordability: a peer-reviewed study published in Frontiers in Veterinary Science in 2026 investigated the websites of small animal clinics across the United States and found that the vast majority posted no pricing information whatsoever.

Think about what that means in practice. A pet owner sits down to research what a dental cleaning or an X-ray might cost before booking. They visit three, four, five clinic websites. They find business hours, staff bios, and a contact form. No prices. They call. They are told an estimate requires a consultation. They either go in blind or they do not go at all.

This is not a minor inconvenience. It is a structural condition that makes the affordability crisis worse than it needs to be. When people cannot plan for a cost, they cannot save for it, compare it, or make rational decisions about it. They can only react to it, usually in a room with a sick animal and a reception desk waiting for an answer.

The Gallup data surfaced something quietly important here. When pet owners were told upfront what care would cost and offered a payment plan, 64 percent said they could at least double the amount they originally said they could afford. The money, in many cases, was not the hard limit. The information gap was.

That is the problem FareVet is working on. Not by replacing the vet relationship, not by driving prices down artificially, but by giving pet owners the one thing the industry has systematically withheld: the ability to know what they are walking into. When a pet owner can look up what a spay costs at three different clinics in their zip code before making a single phone call, the entire dynamic of the care conversation changes. They arrive as informed participants, not surprised recipients of a bill they were never prepared for.

The Question Worth Asking

Can Americans still afford their pets?

The honest answer is: many cannot, and the number is growing. But the more useful question is what can be done about it.

The data points to a few clear directions. Payment flexibility matters more than most clinics currently offer. Communication about cost options needs to happen earlier and more directly. Price transparency gives pet owners the ability to plan rather than react. And a system that makes 52 percent of pet owners skip care is not working, not for pets, not for families, and not for the veterinary profession itself.

The affordability crisis is not inevitable. It is the result of specific, addressable failures in how costs are communicated, how options are presented, and how information flows between clinics and the people who love their animals.

The solutions exist. The question is whether the industry will move fast enough to deploy them.