About and method

Pet Premium Tracker follows what it costs to keep a pet in the United States, using official data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and state law. We are independent. We do not sell pet insurance, pet food or any other product, and we take no money from companies we cover.

Prices

Price pages use the BLS Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), US city average, not seasonally adjusted. Each page names the BLS series ID and base period.
12-month change compares a month with the same month a year earlier. Rebased charts divide each index by its value in the start month and multiply by 100.
The CPI follows the price of a fixed basket. It does not show what any one clinic or store charges.

Household spending

Spending pages use the BLS Consumer Expenditure Surveys: mean annual spending per consumer unit, in current dollars. Averages include households without pets.
The latest year available is 2024. BLS publishes each year's figures in September of the following year.

Pet insurance laws

We list a state only when we found the enacted bill or statute on an official site such as the state legislature or insurance department. Provisions are summarized from the bill or statute text, and each state page links its sources. Where a detail comes from a secondary source, such as the NAIC's state chart, the state page says so. This is not legal advice.
We do not publish insurer premiums, because there is no complete official source for them.

Corrections

Tell us the page and the figure and we will check it against the source and correct it with a dated note. Corrections are free. We never accept payment to change, add or remove anything.

Updates

BLS publishes the CPI monthly. Last checked 29 October 2026.

Sources

Checked 29 October 2026.