FMK Research · Price Index

What dog boarding actually costs, by state (2026)

Name: Dog Boarding Cost by State (2026) — Find My Kennel Price Index
Creator: Find My Kennel
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Most cost pages publish estimated ranges. This one doesn’t. We measured the advertised prices of 1,160 real boarding facilities across the US (June 2026), and report medians only where a state clears an n ≥ 10 sample bar — 31 states qualify. Every number below traces to facilities you can look up in our boarding directory.

The headline numbers (June 2026)

Overview

1,160
boarding facilities measured: 31
states with n ≥ 10: $31
cheapest state median (MO): $66
priciest state median (NJ)

Key findings

The most expensive states to board a dog are New Jersey ($66), California ($60) and New York ($57) — measured as the median advertised price, per night.
The least expensive are Missouri ($31), Kentucky ($35) and Alabama ($35). The gap between the priciest and cheapest state median is $35 per night — in New Jersey it costs about 2.1× what it does in Missouri.
Adjusted for each state’s cost of living (BEA Regional Price Parities, services), New Jersey is the most expensive in real terms ($63.75 adjusted) and Missouri the least ($32.57) — so the ranking is not just a map of where everything is expensive.
Across every facility in our directory that publishes a price, the national median is $45 per night.

Median price by state (n ≥ 10)

Prices are the lowest advertised nightly boarding rateper facility. p25/p75 are the 25th and 75th percentile facilities in the state. The adjusted column deflates the median by the state’s BEA services price level (US average = 100), so states can be compared like-for-like.

#	State	n	p25	Median	p75	Adj. median
1	New Jersey	17	$50	$66	$72	$63.75
2	California	79	$45	$60	$80	$58.48
3	New York	43	$45	$57	$65	$54.77
4	Arizona	19	$45	$55	$66.50	$53.50
5	Colorado	25	$47	$50	$60	$50.19
6	Connecticut	11	$45	$50	$60	$48.71
7	Florida	108	$40	$50	$54	$49.35
8	Maryland	17	$40	$50	$69	$49.21
9	Massachusetts	28	$35.75	$50	$66.25	$48.61
10	Washington	44	$40	$50	$65	$48.14
11	North Carolina	45	$35	$45.50	$55	$46.34
12	Georgia	54	$30	$45	$51.50	$46.23
13	Pennsylvania	41	$30	$45	$70	$45.11
14	Virginia	37	$40	$45	$65	$44.90
15	Tennessee	27	$35	$44	$54	$46.25
16	Texas	103	$35	$43	$53	$44.29
17	Illinois	37	$35	$42	$65	$41.93
18	Oregon	20	$40	$42	$52	$41.88
19	Ohio	53	$35	$41	$49	$41.44
20	Kansas	13	$30	$40	$50	$42.64
21	Maine	16	$38	$40	$50	$38.76
22	Minnesota	27	$31	$40	$49.44	$39.91
23	Iowa	11	$32.50	$39	$45.50	$41.97
24	South Carolina	34	$25	$38.50	$51.50	$39.17
25	Indiana	20	$33.75	$37.50	$42	$37.82
26	Michigan	36	$25	$37.50	$46.75	$37.15
27	Arkansas	12	$34.25	$37	$46.25	$38.82
28	Wisconsin	26	$27.75	$35.50	$41.75	$35.68
29	Alabama	19	$30	$35	$44.50	$36.19
30	Kentucky	15	$28.01	$35	$41.50	$35.99
31	Missouri	16	$25	$31	$44	$32.57

Download the full dataset (CSV) — includes every state, the below-bar rows flagged.

States we don't publish

20 states have priced facilities in our dataset but fewer than 10, so we report insufficient data rather than a number a handful of facilities would swing: Mississippi (n=9), Montana (n=9), Oklahoma (n=8), Utah (n=8), Vermont (n=8), Idaho (n=7), Nevada (n=7), West Virginia (n=7), Louisiana (n=6), Nebraska (n=5), Alaska (n=4), Delaware (n=4), Hawaii (n=4), New Hampshire (n=4), New Mexico (n=4), District of Columbia (n=3), North Dakota (n=3), South Dakota (n=3), Rhode Island (n=2), Wyoming (n=2). They appear in the CSV with sample sizes but no published stats.

Methodology

What was measured. The lowest advertised nightly boarding rate published by each facility — on its own website — collected June 2026 as part of the Find My Kennel enrichment pipeline. One price per facility; facilities that publish no price are excluded rather than imputed (1,160 of the 24,940 boarding facilities in our directory publish one).

What “advertised” means. These are list prices, not transaction prices: the base tier before holiday surcharges, size upcharges, or multi-dog discounts. They will skew slightly below what a typical stay actually costs, uniformly across states.

Publication bar.A state’s statistics are published only at n ≥ 10 facilities. Below-bar states are listed as insufficient data — never interpolated, never borrowed from neighbors.

Cost-of-living adjustment.The adjusted median divides each state’s median by its BEA Regional Price Parity for services (2024 vintage), US average = 100. This answers “where is it expensive relative to everything else there” rather than “where are prices high.”

Known limitations. Facilities that publish prices online skew larger and more urban than the industry as a whole; rural cash-only operations are underrepresented. Sample sizes vary by state and are printed next to every number so you can weigh them.

Freshness. The underlying directory re-syncs monthly; this study re-publishes with each refresh of the price data.

Common questions

What is the average cost of dog boarding per night?

Measured across 1,160 US boarding facilities (June 2026), the national median advertised price is $45 per night. Dog Boarding prices by state range from a median of $31 in Missouri to $66 in New Jersey.

Which state has the cheapest dog boarding?

Missouri, at a median advertised price of $31 per night — the lowest of the 31 states that clear our n ≥ 10 publication bar. Next cheapest are Kentucky ($35) and Alabama ($35).

Which state is the most expensive to board a dog?

New Jersey, at a median of $66 per night. Adjusted for each state's cost of living (BEA Regional Price Parities), New Jersey is the most expensive in real terms, at $63.75 adjusted.

Use this data

The dataset is free to use under CC BY 4.0 — cite it as “Find My Kennel Dog Boarding Price Index, June 2026” with a link to this page. If you’re a journalist and want a cut we don’t publish here (metro-level, a specific state’s facility list, year-over-year once we have it), ask via the contact details on our data page.

data.csv · collected June 2026 · published June 2026