Dog boarding prices are up 35% since 2019
The same 813 facilities, tracked year by year from archived copies of their own rate pages. Boarding rose faster than prices overall (+29.7%) but slower than the government’s pet-services index (+42.9%).
Boarding rates vs inflation, 2019 = 100
Year by year
| Year | Dogs Away index | Facilities compared | Share that changed price | Pet services CPI | All-items CPI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 100.0 | — | — | 100.0 | 100.0 |
| 2020 | 103.4 | 182 | 37.4% | 102.4 | 101.2 |
| 2021 | 108.4 | 203 | 48.3% | 107.4 | 106.0 |
| 2022 | 115.6 | 252 | 59.1% | 114.2 | 114.5 |
| 2023 | 122.5 | 316 | 53.8% | 120.7 | 119.2 |
| 2024 | 127.5 | 389 | 42.2% | 129.1 | 122.7 |
| 2025 | 131.4 | 476 | 37.6% | 135.5 | 125.9 |
| 2026 | 135.3 | 633 | 38.4% | 142.9 | 129.7 |
Most facilities hold a price for a year or more, then raise it in one step: in a typical year only about half change their rate. That is why the index uses the average change across facilities, not the median, which is 0% in most years.
By metro, 2023 to 2026
| Metro | Median change | Middle half | Facilities |
|---|---|---|---|
| Boston, MA | +17.1% | +10.0% to +20.0% | 14 |
| Los Angeles, CA | +15.4% | +7.7% to +21.4% | 33 |
| Phoenix, AZ | +14.4% | +0.0% to +27.8% | 8 |
| Seattle, WA | +14.3% | +8.0% to +20.0% | 27 |
| Atlanta, GA | +12.6% | +0.0% to +21.3% | 23 |
| Kansas City, MO | +12.5% | +9.1% to +19.2% | 12 |
| Chicago, IL | +12.1% | +2.1% to +15.0% | 31 |
| Columbus, OH | +10.5% | +0.0% to +16.7% | 13 |
| Portland, OR | +10.0% | +4.3% to +15.3% | 15 |
| Denver, CO | +9.1% | +8.5% to +15.8% | 11 |
| Austin, TX | +8.8% | +0.0% to +14.0% | 17 |
| Philadelphia, PA | +8.8% | +4.2% to +18.8% | 9 |
| Dallas, TX | +8.6% | +0.0% to +12.5% | 29 |
| Colorado Springs, CO | +8.3% | +1.8% to +15.0% | 11 |
| New York, NY | +8.3% | +0.0% to +14.1% | 30 |
| San Antonio, TX | +8.1% | +0.0% to +11.5% | 9 |
| Houston, TX | +8.0% | +0.0% to +16.3% | 26 |
| Tampa, FL | +8.0% | +0.0% to +16.0% | 23 |
| Minneapolis, MN | +5.7% | +0.0% to +10.7% | 10 |
| San Francisco, CA | +5.3% | +0.0% to +11.4% | 9 |
| Charlotte, NC | +4.7% | +0.9% to +11.7% | 22 |
| Miami, FL | +3.7% | +0.0% to +10.1% | 14 |
Not enough archived history yet for a metro figure: Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Nashville, Orlando, Raleigh, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Diego, St. Louis. These metros still count toward the national index.
How it’s built
- Each facility's published first-dog standard overnight rate (lower end of its range), for the same product tier in every year, read from archived copies of its own rate page (Internet Archive) and from its current website.
- Same-facility basis: every comparison uses only facilities with a rate in both periods.
- Chained index, 2019 = 100: each year's change is the geometric mean of that year's same-facility price ratios.
- Current-year point is the rate on the facility website when we last checked it; the BLS series are annual means of published months.
- Facilities that closed or stopped publishing rates drop out, so the sample leans toward businesses that survived and publish prices.
Every historical rate on Dogs Away links to the archived page it came from and quotes it word for word. Find a facility’s own history on its page, under “Price history.” Benchmarks: BLS CPI-U, US city average, not seasonally adjusted (download.bls.gov cu.data.0.Current); annual mean of published monthly values — 2026 is Jan–Aug, 2025 lacks October (not published).
Use this data
Download the index (CSV) Free under CC BY 4.0 — credit “Dogs Away Boarding Price Index.” More on the data page.