The United States kitchen and bath industry is forecast to turn over about USD 228 billion in 2026, revised in July to a 0.4 percent nominal contraction, while total homeowner improvement and repair spending runs at an annualised USD 519 billion through mid-2027. Houzz reports median homeowner spending of USD 55,000 on a major kitchen remodel. Zonda's separate national contractor-cost model estimates that a major midrange kitchen remodel recoups 51 percent of its cost at resale; a minor midrange remodel costs USD 28,458 and recoups 112.9 percent. Engineered quartz leads upgraded countertops at 32 percent, wood has overtaken white as the leading cabinet finish at 29 percent against 28 percent, and stainless steel holds 72 percent of appliance finishes — twelve times the next choice. Imported completed wooden kitchen cabinets and vanities and their covered wooden parts entering the United States carry a 25 percent Section 232 duty, not the 50 percent widely reported; that increase was deferred to 1 January 2027.
Data cut-off. All figures were verified on or before 12 August 2026. Each statistic states its own data year, which is often earlier than its publication year.
Source hierarchy. Government agencies, regulators and the original survey publisher rank first. Commercial research houses appear only where they are the original publisher of an estimate, and are labelled as estimates rather than measurements.
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No averaging across houses. Where research firms disagree on market size, every figure is printed separately with its publisher. Blending incompatible methodologies produces a number that nobody published and nobody can defend.
Derived figures are labelled. Percentages we calculated from a publisher's raw values are marked derived. They are our arithmetic, not the publisher's finding.
No credible public source establishes national cabinet box-material share, a standalone stainless steel cabinet market or the share of renovation searches beginning in an AI assistant. These evidence gaps remain unquantified.
First-party data. Fadior figures state sample size, observation window and known bias. They describe visitors to fadiorhome.com and enquiries to one manufacturer; they are not population estimates.
How big is the kitchen industry in 2026?
The three research houses that size this market differ by more than USD 12 billion on the base year alone, because each defines scope, channel and price basis differently. The most defensible figures are the ones published by the industry’s own association and by government-linked researchers.
NKBA, 2026 Kitchen & Bath Industry Outlook: Mid-Year Update
21 Jul 2026
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US kitchen and bath industry, 2026 forecast
Metric
Figure
Source
Published
Year-on-year growth of that total — February forecast
+0.1%
NKBA, 2026 Outlook
4 Feb 2026
Year-on-year growth — revised at mid-year
−0.4% nominal
NKBA, Mid-Year Update
21 Jul 2026
Existing-home kitchen & bath renovations
USD 124 billion, 54% of total K&B spend
NKBA, 2026 Outlook
4 Feb 2026
Repair & remodelling segment growth, 2026
+2.9%
NKBA
4 Feb 2026
New-construction segment change, 2026
−3.0% (single-family −3.8%, multifamily −2.9%)
NKBA
4 Feb 2026
Professional-led vs DIY spending growth, 2026
+4.4% pro vs +0.6% DIY
NKBA
4 Feb 2026
Industry selling prices
+4.3% year on year, Q1 2026
NKBA / John Burns, KBMI 1Q26
22 Apr 2026
Firms reporting flat or declining gross margins
80% in Q4 2025, citing tariffs and material costs
NKBA / John Burns, KBMI 4Q25
4 Feb 2026
Kitchen & Bath Market Index, Q2 2026
53 / 100 (flat activity)
NKBA / John Burns, KBMI 2Q26
21 Jul 2026
K&B firms' own expected 2026 revenue growth
−2%, down from +4% the previous quarter
NKBA / John Burns, KBMI 2Q26
21 Jul 2026
Top concerns of K&B professionals
Consumer uncertainty 49%, material costs 42%, tariffs 36%
NKBA / John Burns, KBMI 2Q26 (n ≈ 500)
21 Jul 2026
The KBMI surveys roughly 500 NKBA members each quarter. A reading of 50 indicates flat activity. Note the direction of travel: NKBA's February 2026 outlook had the industry growing 0.1%; by July it had been revised to a 0.4% contraction.
Global kitchen cabinet market — three houses, three answers
Publisher
Base-year size
Forecast
CAGR
Scope note
Mordor Intelligence
USD 91.07bn (2025)
USD 124.42bn by 2031
5.36% (2026–31)
Kitchen cabinets only
Fortune Business Insights
USD 107.86bn (2025)
USD 218.23bn by 2034
8.26% (2026–34)
Kitchen cabinets only; two forecast horizons circulate (2032 and 2034)
Grand View Research
USD 190.54bn (2025)
USD 322.51bn by 2033
6.9% (2026–33)
All cabinets, broader than kitchen; GVR puts kitchen at 62.60% of 2025 revenue
These are proprietary models, not measured data. Applying Grand View's 62.60% share to its own total gives roughly USD 119bn for kitchen cabinets in 2025 — that is our arithmetic (derived), not a figure Grand View published. On the 2026 figure alone, Fortune (USD 115.64bn) and Mordor (USD 95.95bn) are USD 19.69bn apart.
The wider categories a kitchen sits inside
Market
2025
2026
Forecast
Source
Global furniture market
USD 597.71bn
USD 629.15bn
USD 996.38bn by 2034, 5.92% CAGR
Fortune Business Insights
Global countertop market, all end uses
USD 136.19bn
USD 141.39bn
USD 206.49bn by 2034, 4.80% CAGR
Fortune Business Insights
Kitchen cabinets — North America
USD 27.91bn (25.88% of global)
USD 30.01bn
—
Fortune Business Insights
Kitchen cabinets — Europe
USD 30.30bn
USD 32.16bn
—
Fortune Business Insights
Kitchen cabinets — Asia-Pacific
USD 38.60bn
USD 41.70bn
—
Fortune Business Insights
Use the dollar figures, not this publisher's regional percentages. Its own page states an Asia-Pacific share of 8.68% while reporting USD 38.60bn against a USD 107.86bn global total, which is roughly 35.8%. The reported regional percentage conflicts with the published dollar figures; the contradiction was checked directly.
Global kitchen cabinet market structure (Mordor Intelligence estimates, 2025)
Dimension
Leading segment
Share
Fastest-growing
Construction type
Semi-custom
37.85%
Ready-to-assemble, 6.36% CAGR
Material
Wood
60.15%
Bamboo and recycled composites, 5.72% CAGR
Distribution channel
Specialty retail and showrooms
41.60%
Contractor / trade-direct, 6.50% CAGR
End user
Residential
82.35%
Commercial, 7.65% CAGR
Geography
North America
34.55%
Asia-Pacific, 6.07% CAGR
Mordor also reports that the top five suppliers control just over half of global revenue, that ready-to-assemble cabinets ship in 4–7 days against a 25-day average for made-to-order, and that custom lines cost 2–3× their stock equivalents.
US remodelling spending recovered through 2025 and is now decelerating again. The Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies publishes the benchmark series; the cabinet industry's own sales data tells a harsher story than the macro number does.
US homeowner improvement and repair spending
Metric
Figure
Period
Source
Annualised improvement + repair spending
USD 517 billion
Q2 2026
Harvard JCHS, LIRA
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US homeowner improvement and repair spending
Metric
Figure
Period
Source
Projected annualised spending
USD 519 billion
through mid-2027
Harvard JCHS, LIRA (23 Jul 2026)
Projected year-on-year growth
decelerating from 2.1% to 0.5%
Q3 2026 → Q2 2027
Harvard JCHS, LIRA
Trough of the last downturn
−2.5% year on year
Q3 2024
Harvard JCHS, LIRA historical series
Point at which growth turned positive again
Q2 2025, after five negative quarters
Q4 2023 – Q1 2025
Harvard JCHS, LIRA historical series
Total US remodelling spend
USD 603 billion
2024
NAR, citing JCHS Improving America's Housing 2025
LIRA measures owner-occupied improvement and repair spending as a four-quarter moving sum. It was re-benchmarked to the American Housing Survey in 2016 and last revised in late 2024.
US cabinet manufacturer sales, 2026 (KCMA participating-manufacturer survey)
Month
Year-on-year change
Note
January 2026
−11.7%
Custom −10.7%, semi-custom −10.4%, stock −17.6%
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US cabinet manufacturer sales, 2026 (KCMA participating-manufacturer survey)
Month
Year-on-year change
Note
February 2026
−9.1%
March 2026
−7.7%
April 2026
−3.5%
May 2026
−8.4%
June 2026
−2.8%
Shallowest decline of the year so far
KCMA's Trend of Business Report is a survey of participating manufacturers' reported sales, not the total US market. Every reported month of 2026 through June is negative year on year. The decline is narrowing, which is not the same as recovering.
The structural picture behind the quarterly numbers
Metric
Figure
Data year
US home improvement and repair spending
USD 404 billion → USD 611 billion
2019 → 2022
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The structural picture behind the quarterly numbers
Metric
Figure
Data year
Market size relative to before the pandemic
roughly 50% above pre-2020 levels
2025
Share of improvement spending going to replacement rather than discretionary remodelling
49%
2023
Average improvement spend per homeowner
about USD 4,700 — some 9% above the 2007 boom peak
2023
Median age of the US housing stock
44 years — the oldest ever recorded
2023
Improvement spending on pre-1980 homes vs homes built since 2010
24% higher (maintenance spending 76% higher)
2023
Energy-related improvement spending
USD 139 billion — nearly 4× the 2003 figure
2023
Disaster-repair spending
USD 16bn → USD 49bn
2002–03 → 2022–23
Share of improvement outlays from owners aged 65 and over
27%, up from 14% two decades earlier
2023
Immigrant share of the construction trades labour force
34% — a record
2023
Harvard JCHS, <i>Improving America's Housing 2025</i>, published 20 March 2025. This biennial report measures market size; the quarterly LIRA above is a separate indicator. JCHS says explicitly that the two series are not interchangeable — do not put USD 517bn and USD 611bn in the same sentence.
The single most-searched question in this industry, and the one most often answered without a source. These medians come from Houzz's 2026 study of 1,780 US homeowners with recent, in-progress or planned kitchen renovations, fielded 6–30 July 2025. For a project budget, use the kitchen renovation planning guide alongside these survey medians.
Median US kitchen renovation spend
Project
Median spend
Source
Major kitchen remodel
USD 55,000
Houzz 2026 US Kitchen Trends Study
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Median US kitchen renovation spend
Project
Median spend
Source
Major remodel, kitchen of 250 sq ft or more
USD 75,000
Houzz 2026
Major remodel, smaller kitchen
USD 46,000
Houzz 2026
90th percentile, major remodel of a large kitchen
USD 150,000
Houzz 2026
Minor kitchen remodel
USD 20,000
Houzz 2026
Minor kitchen remodel, midrange (national average job cost)
USD 28,458
Zonda, 2025 Cost vs. Value Report
Major kitchen remodel, midrange (national average job cost)
USD 82,793
Zonda, 2025 Cost vs. Value
Major kitchen remodel, upscale (national average job cost)
USD 164,104
Zonda, 2025 Cost vs. Value
Houzz reports what homeowners say they spent; Zonda reports estimated job cost from a contractor cost model across 119 US markets. The two are not interchangeable, which is why both are shown. At the 90th percentile, a major remodel of a large kitchen reaches USD 150,000 and of a smaller kitchen USD 120,000.
Budget discipline and how long it takes
Metric
Figure
Homeowners who exceeded their initial budget
37% (35% came in on budget)
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Budget discipline and how long it takes
Metric
Figure
Reason: products or services cost more than expected
52%
Reason: chose higher-end materials than planned
35%
Reason: scope expanded during the project
31%
Median planning time before a kitchen project starts
9.5 months
Median construction time once it starts
5.8 months
US homeowners who renovated something in 2025
54%
Median spend across all renovation project types
USD 20,000; over USD 150,000 for the top decile
Houzz Research, 2026 US Houzz & Home Study, published 22 April 2026. A kitchen therefore occupies roughly fifteen months of a homeowner's attention from first plan to finished room — a fact worth remembering before reading any month-to-month demand indicator.
Line chart of US Google search interest in kitchen remodel from 2021 to 2026, peaking at 100 in February 2026.Bar chart of mean monthly US kitchen remodel search interest 2021 to 2025; January peaks at 62.3, May troughs at 47.8.
What is the return on a kitchen remodel?
Lower than most homeowners expect, and it falls as the budget rises. This is the clearest inverse relationship in the whole dataset: within a single edition of a single report, the cheapest kitchen project returns three times what the most expensive one does.
Cost recouped at resale, US national averages
Project
Job cost
Resale value
Cost recouped
Minor kitchen remodel, midrange
USD 28,458
USD 32,141
112.9%
Major kitchen remodel, midrange
USD 82,793
USD 42,130
51%
Major kitchen remodel, upscale
USD 164,104
USD 58,561
36%
Bath remodel, midrange (comparison)
USD 26,138
USD 20,915
80%
Garage door replacement (highest of all 28 projects)
USD 4,672
USD 12,507
268%
Zonda, 2025 Cost vs. Value Report — the 38th annual edition, released 18 September 2025, covering 28 projects across 119 US markets. There is no 2026 edition; Zonda publishes in September. Many pages already mislabel these as 2026 figures.
REALTORS® reporting increased demand for a kitchen upgrade
48% — the top project of all
NAR / NARI 2025
Method, because it is what makes these numbers defensible: 806 consumer respondents (winter 2024), 177 NARI member cost responses (summer 2024), and 4,005 REALTOR® value responses from a random sample of 100,000 members (4.0% adjusted response rate). All respondents were told to assume a 2,300 sq ft post-1978 house in good condition using standard-quality materials. Central tendency is the median.
Why any single-year kitchen ROI figure is a snapshot, not a constant
Cost vs. Value edition
Minor kitchen, midrange
Major kitchen, midrange
Major kitchen, upscale
2025 (current)
$28,458 → $32,141 = 113%
$82,793 → $42,130 = 51%
$164,104 → $58,561 = 36%
2024
$27,492 → $26,406 = 96%
$79,982 → $39,587 = 50%
$158,530 → $60,176 = 38%
2023
$26,790 → $22,963 = 86%
$77,939 → $32,574 = 42%
$154,483 → $48,913 = 32%
2022
$28,279 → $20,125 = 71%
$80,809 → $45,370 = 56%
$158,015 → $83,025 = 53%
Zonda, Cost vs. Value Reports 2022 through 2025, national averages.
Who renovates a kitchen, and why?
Style dissatisfaction still triggers more kitchen renovations than anything else, and the professional's role is near-universal at the top of the market. All figures below are from the Houzz 2026 US Kitchen Trends Study unless stated.
Hire at least one professional on projects over USD 50,000
98%
Hire a general contractor (all projects)
48%
Hire a kitchen designer (all projects)
22%
Hire a general contractor (projects over USD 50,000)
60%
Hire a cabinetmaker (projects over USD 50,000)
43%
Paid using a home equity loan or HELOC (all remodel types)
54% — NAR/NARI 2025
Paid from savings (all remodel types)
29% — NAR/NARI 2025
What gets changed
Element
Share of renovators upgrading it
Countertops
91%
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What gets changed
Element
Share of renovators upgrading it
Backsplash
85%
Sink
85%
Cabinets
84%
Faucet
82%
Lighting
78%
Flooring
65%
Wall finishes
44%
Windows
29%
Interior doors
18%
Electronics
7%
68% replace all cabinets; a further 27% replace some. 51% replace all appliances. 78% change the kitchen's style, down 3 points year on year — of those, 25% choose transitional, 12% traditional, 11% modern, 10% contemporary and 6% midcentury.
Which materials are actually being specified?
Two findings here overturn statements that circulate as settled fact: white is no longer the leading cabinet finish, and engineered quartz holds a third of the countertop market rather than the four-fifths often claimed.
Houzz 2026 US Kitchen Trends Study, fielded July 2025. This is homeowner material choice among those upgrading a countertop — it is not slab wholesale volume or installed area, and the three metrics should never be mixed. Engineered quartz remains the leader, but it is the category losing share fastest.
Cabinet finish and construction
Metric
Figure
Wood cabinet finishes (medium 15%, light 11%, dark 3%)
29%
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Cabinet finish and construction
Metric
Figure
White
28%
Off-white
15%
Green
6%
Grey
5%
Choosing contrasting upper and lower finishes
24%
Custom cabinets
46%
Semi-custom cabinets
33%
Custom plus semi-custom combined
79%
Houzz 2026. In two-tone kitchens, uppers run white 40% / off-white 19% / wood 17%, and lowers run wood 37% / blue 19% / green 14%.
Backsplash and colour
Metric
Figure
Tile backsplash
72% (ceramic is 49% of tile choices)
Slab backsplash
28% — of which engineered quartz 39%, quartzite 33%, granite 9%, marble 6%, porcelain 4%
The engineered-stone shock: a regulatory timeline and its measurable aftermath
This is the single largest material disruption in the kitchen industry in a decade, and its effect on design discourse has not previously been quantified. Fadior measured it directly.
Work Health and Safety ministers unanimously agree to prohibit engineered stone
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Engineered stone: the regulatory record
Date
Jurisdiction
Action
29 December 2023
California, USA
Cal/OSHA emergency temporary standard on respirable crystalline silica takes effect
1 July 2024
Australia
Prohibition commences on the manufacture, supply, processing and installation of engineered stone benchtops, panels and slabs — the first such ban in the world
1 January 2025
Australia
Engineered stone benchtops, panels and slabs become prohibited imports
February 2025
California, USA
Permanent strengthened silica standard adopted (Title 8 §5204)
July 2026
California, USA
A proposed prohibition on fabricating artificial stone above 1% crystalline silica remains in the advisory process — California has not banned engineered stone
Sources: Safe Work Australia; California Department of Industrial Relations / Cal/OSHA.
What the Australian ban covers: an artificial product containing at least 1% crystalline silica by weight, created by combining natural stone materials with constituents such as water, resins or pigments, and which then hardens.
What it expressly excludes: concrete and cement products; bricks and pavers; ceramic wall and floor tiles; sintered stone containing no resin; porcelain products containing no resin; roof tiles; grout, mortar and render; plasterboard.
What it does not do: require removal of engineered stone already installed. Australian guidance states that undisturbed installed material does not pose the relevant risk; the hazard arises when cutting, grinding, polishing, repairing or removing it generates respirable dust.
Workplace exposure limits and the industry's response
Metric
Figure
Source
OSHA action level
25 µg/m³, 8-hour TWA
29 CFR 1926.1153
Silestone production below 40% crystalline silica by 2023
85% of output
Cosentino (manufacturer-reported)
Silestone production below 10% crystalline silica by 2023
15% of output
Cosentino (manufacturer-reported)
Maximum crystalline silica content, Silestone XM
10%
Cosentino (manufacturer-reported)
Prototype zero-silica surface, previewed at KBIS 2025
below 1% crystalline silica, up to 90% recycled content
Cosentino, 27 Feb 2025
Line chart showing engineered stone mentions in Architectural Digest kitchen articles peaking at 12.2% in 2024 then falling to 4.4% in 2026.
Method. Corpus of 35,786 design-industry articles from 33 publications held in Fadior's research warehouse, of which 15,595 carry a publication date. Restricted to articles from architecturaldigest.com that contain the word “kitchen”, 2019–2026. Term matching is case-insensitive across title and body.
Why one publication. Across the full corpus the source mix shifts sharply by year — 2018 is 66% Domus, 2024 is 91% Architectural Digest, 2026 is 39% — so an unrestricted year-on-year comparison measures our crawl, not the industry. Holding the publication constant removes that composition effect.
Confidence. Intervals are Wilson 95%. The 2024-to-2026 fall in engineered-stone mentions is statistically significant; the parallel fall in solid-timber mentions, from 20.6% to 13.7%, is not, and is reported here only as directional.
Limits. One US luxury shelter title is not the world. A mention is not an endorsement and certainly not a specification. 2026 is a partial year, to 12 August.
Layout, islands and storage: what is being built
Islands are now in a clear majority of renovations, specialty storage is close to universal, and the butler's pantry remains a minority feature despite its share of the coverage. The kitchen layout planning guide connects these adoption rates with decisions about circulation and storage.
Professionals expecting slab or solid-surface backsplashes
75% (NKBA)
Homeowner figures from Houzz 2026; professional expectations from NKBA's KBIS 2026 Kitchen Trends Report, 16 September 2025. Note the tension worth watching: 95% of homeowners still specify handles while 69% of professionals expect flat-slab fronts to dominate.
The United States federal formaldehyde limits are set at the same levels as California's CARB Phase II standard and have applied to imports since 2018. They are the most frequently misquoted numbers in cabinet marketing.
TSCA Title VI formaldehyde emission standards
Composite wood product
Emission limit
Reference method
Hardwood plywood
0.05 ppm
ASTM E1333-14
Particleboard
0.09 ppm
ASTM E1333-14
Medium-density fibreboard
0.11 ppm
ASTM E1333-14
Thin medium-density fibreboard
0.13 ppm
ASTM E1333-14
US EPA, 40 CFR 770.10. Compliance date 1 June 2018, applying to products sold, supplied, offered for sale or manufactured — including imported — on or after that date. The limits are identical to California CARB ATCM Phase II.
What homeowners actually specify for sustainability
Feature or motivation
Share
Kitchen projects including at least one sustainability feature
88%
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What homeowners actually specify for sustainability
Feature or motivation
Share
LED bulbs
64%
Energy-efficient appliances
56%
Timeless design chosen explicitly for longevity
48%
Dimmers
47%
VOC-free paints and finishes
22%
Cabinets described as non-toxic
12%
Motivation: long-run cost-effectiveness
72%
Motivation: environmental friendliness
53%
Houzz 2026 US Kitchen Trends Study. Note the gap between the 88% headline and the 12% who specify a non-toxic cabinet: “sustainability” in a kitchen renovation overwhelmingly means energy use, not material chemistry.
Material end-of-life and embodied carbon, stainless steel
Metric
Figure
Source
Share of end-of-life stainless steel recycled, without loss of quality
Embodied carbon in stainless steel varies by a factor of 3.5 depending on scrap input alone, which is why a single number for “the carbon footprint of stainless” is meaningless without the scrap ratio attached.
Tariffs and sourcing: the most misreported numbers in the industry
The Section 232 duty on imported completed wooden kitchen cabinets and vanities and their covered wooden parts is 25 percent, not 50 percent. The increase was deferred by a year on 31 December 2025, and a great deal of published guidance has not caught up.
US Section 232 duties on completed wooden kitchen cabinets and vanities and their covered wooden parts
Item
Detail
Rate in force today
25% ad valorem, on imported completed wooden kitchen cabinets and vanities and their covered wooden parts
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US Section 232 duties on completed wooden kitchen cabinets and vanities and their covered wooden parts
Item
Detail
Effective from
12:01 a.m. EDT, 14 October 2025 (proclamation signed 29 September 2025)
Scheduled increase to 50%
Was set for 1 January 2026 — deferred one year to 1 January 2027 by amendment on 31 December 2025
Companion rates in the same proclamation
25% on upholstered wooden furniture; 10% on softwood timber and lumber
Country caps
United Kingdom capped at 10%; European Union and Japan capped at 15%, inclusive of the MFN Column 1 rate
Scope note
Applies to all origins, including Canada and Mexico notwithstanding USMCA, and stacks on existing duties
Sources: White House proclamation of 29 September 2025 and the amendment of 31 December 2025.
Antidumping and countervailing duties, Chinese wooden cabinets
Item
Figure
Orders published
21 April 2020 — 85 FR 22126, cases A-570-106 (AD) and C-570-107 (CVD)
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Antidumping and countervailing duties, Chinese wooden cabinets
Item
Figure
China-wide entity margin, original 2020 order
262.18%
China-wide entity rate in the cited administrative review
251.64% — final results of administrative review, 23 April 2026
Both orders continued rather than revoked, 17 September 2025 (90 FR 44800)
US Department of Commerce, International Trade Administration. Scope covers wooden cabinets and vanities for permanent installation, assembled or ready-to-assemble, made substantially of wood, engineered wood or bamboo. Administrative reviews reset these margins periodically — always check the most recent review, not the original order.
Production data, not market forecasts. worldstainless measures melt-shop output — crude production, not consumption and not demand.
Global stainless steel melt-shop production
Region
2025 full year
Q1 2026
World total
64.2 Mt, up 2.1% on 2024
15.8 Mt, up 2.5% year on year
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Global stainless steel melt-shop production
Region
2025 full year
Q1 2026
Asia
55.3 Mt, up 2.7%
13.4 Mt, up 3.3%
China
40.9 Mt, up 3.6%
9.8 Mt, up 4.3%
European Union
5.7 Mt, down 1.9%
1.5 Mt, down 4.6%
United States
2.1 Mt, up 7.6%
0.6 Mt, up 2.3%
Rest of world
1.1 Mt, down 11.3%
0.3 Mt, up 6.7%
worldstainless press releases of 27 February 2026 and 29 May 2026. Derived from these tonnages: China accounts for roughly 64% of world stainless production and Asia roughly 86% — that share calculation is ours, not worldstainless's.
Country-level kitchen data is far thinner than US data. Where a defensible figure exists it is given; where it does not, that is said plainly rather than substituted with a construction-pipeline number.
more than 163,000 transactions worth over AED 544bn (≈ USD 148bn)
Dubai Land Department
The Dubai figure is a real-estate demand proxy, not kitchen spend. Treating a development pipeline as kitchen demand is unsound and we do not do it here. The dirham figure is converted at the fixed AED/USD peg of 3.6725, in force since 1997 — a currency-board peg, not a market rate sampled on the day.
Italy — the one European market with a published kitchen-sector figure
Metric
2025
Change on 2024
Italian kitchen furniture sector turnover
€3.0 billion
+0.5%
…of which domestic
€2.0 billion
+3.4%
…of which exports
€1.0 billion
−5%
Italian furniture macro-system turnover
€27.7 billion
+0.6%
Italian wood-furniture supply chain, total
€52.2 billion
+1.3%
FederlegnoArredo Study Centre, annual figures released April 2026. The kitchen export decline was concentrated in the <b>United States and France</b>, with growth signals in the UAE and Spain. That timing sits alongside the October 2025 US Section 232 cabinet tariff — a correlation worth noting and not, on these two figures alone, a demonstration of cause.
1,900 brands from 32 countries across more than 169,000 m², sold out
EuroCucina with FTK
106 brands from 17 countries
International Bathroom Exhibition
163 brands from 14 countries
Next edition
13–18 April 2027
Official closing figures, Salone del Mobile.Milano. EuroCucina runs in even years only and should never be described as annual.
AI, search and how buyers now find a kitchen
This is the area with the widest gap between confident assertion and available evidence. There is no credible published survey of how many renovation searches begin in an AI assistant. Rather than repeat a vendor's number, we publish our own measurement and show the method.
NKBA members who need a technology integrator but do not know whom to contact
35%
NKBA / CEDIA, 3 Sep 2025
Grand View's public pages do not expose an exact publication date, so these are recorded as qualified research-house estimates.
Cabinetry in a completed residence.Line chart comparing monthly sessions to fadiorhome.com from AI assistants versus Google organic search, April to August 2026.
What this is. Google Analytics 4 sessions for a single manufacturer's website, classified by referring source. Window 1 April – 12 August 2026. August is a partial month of 12 days and is shown as such.
What it is not. It is not a population estimate, not a measure of AI search share, and not generalisable to the industry. A site whose content AI assistants happen to cite will over-report; a site they ignore will under-report.
Why publish it anyway. Because the alternative on offer is an unsourced number. A transparent measurement of one site, with its bias stated, is worth more than a confident industry percentage nobody can trace.
Fadior original research: demand signals from the buying end
Three further datasets that exist nowhere else, published with their limits attached.
Horizontal bar chart of 866 Fadior enquiries by declared project type; new luxury build 37.1%, full-home renovation 33.4%.
Google Trends is a relative index normalised to the peak of each query set, not a count of searches. Comparing full-year means against a partial 2026 would flatter the recent period because January is the seasonal peak, so all figures here compare January-to-August windows only. Fadior calculation from Google Trends data retrieved 12 August 2026.
Kitchen statistics that circulate widely and are wrong
The following industry claims failed checks against their primary sources.
“A kitchen remodel returns 70–80% of its cost.” No current source supports this as a universal figure. Verified 2025 figures range from 112.9% for a minor midrange remodel to 36% for a major upscale one, with NAR/NARI separately estimating 60%. Project definition decides the answer.
“The 2026 Cost vs. Value Report says 71.2% minor and 56.1% major.” Those are the 2022 edition figures, and there is no 2026 edition — the current one is 2025, Zonda's 38th annual, released 18 September 2025. Zonda publishes each September.
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“OSHA's silica limit is 25 µg/m³.” Backwards. 25 µg/m³ is the action level, which triggers exposure assessment and medical surveillance. The permissible exposure limit is 50 µg/m³ as an 8-hour time-weighted average.
“TSCA Title VI limits formaldehyde to 0.05 ppm.” That figure applies to hardwood plywood only. Particleboard is 0.09 ppm, MDF 0.11 ppm and thin MDF 0.13 ppm — and since cabinet boxes are usually particleboard or MDF, quoting 0.05 ppm as “the cabinet standard” is both wrong and stricter than the rule that actually applies.
“98% of homeowners hire a professional.” Scope error. 98% applies to projects of USD 50,000 or more. Across all kitchen renovations the figure is 87%.
“Kitchen upgrades recover 100% of their cost, according to NAR.” Conflation. In NAR's 2025 report, 100% is the recovery on a new steel front door. Kitchens recover 60%. What kitchens score 10 out of 10 on is the Joy Score, which measures happiness, not money.
“The kitchen cabinet market is worth USD 228 billion.” Wrong scope by roughly 2.5× and wrong geography. That is NKBA's forecast for the entire US kitchen and bath industry including fixtures, appliances, surfaces and labour. Global kitchen cabinets are estimated at USD 91–108 billion.
“US homeowners spend over USD 500 billion a year on kitchens.” Wrong scope. The USD 517 billion LIRA figure covers all homeowner improvement and repair spending — roofs, windows, HVAC, everything. Kitchens are a fraction of it.
“White is the most popular cabinet colour.” Outdated. In the 2026 Houzz study, wood led at 29% against white at 28%.
“Quartz has 80–90% of the countertop market.” Unvalidated. Homeowner choice among upgraded countertops puts engineered quartz at 32%, granite 15%, quartzite 10%.
“Australia banned all quartz or all stone countertops.” Incorrect. The prohibition covers engineered-stone benchtops, panels and slabs meeting a specific definition. Resin-free sintered stone and porcelain are expressly excluded.
“California has banned engineered stone.” Incorrect as of 12 August 2026. California has a strengthened permanent silica standard; a prohibition proposal was still in the advisory process in July 2026.
“US tariffs on completed wooden kitchen cabinets and vanities and their covered wooden parts rose from 25% to 50% on 1 January 2026.” Outdated. The 31 December 2025 amendment retained 25% and deferred the increase to 1 January 2027.
“Asia-Pacific holds 8.68% of the global kitchen cabinet market.” Internally inconsistent. The same publisher's page reports USD 38.6bn Asia-Pacific against USD 107.86bn global for 2025, which is roughly 35.8%. Quote the dollar figure, not the percentage.
“Most kitchen remodels are DIY.” The evidence points the other way: 87% hire at least one professional, 98% on projects above USD 50,000.
“Installed engineered stone is unsafe in the home.” Australian official guidance states that undisturbed installed material does not pose the relevant risk. The occupational hazard arises during cutting, grinding, polishing, repair or removal.
“US cabinet sales fell 11.7%.” That is one month — January 2026 — in a voluntary survey of participating KCMA manufacturers, not the US market. By June 2026 the decline had narrowed to 2.8%.
“The median US kitchen remodel costs USD 55,000.” Sample error. That is the Houzz median for a major remodel among Houzz platform users, a self-selected renovation-active panel of 1,780 people. The same study's minor-remodel median is USD 20,000.
“EuroCucina is held every year.” It is biennial, running in even years alongside Salone del Mobile. There will be no EuroCucina in 2027.
“The 300-series is 70–75% of global stainless steel production.” The traceable version of this figure has a data year of 2003. worldstainless now publishes the grade split only inside a paid brochure. Given the growth in Chinese output since, a 23-year-old share should not be presented as current.
The median major kitchen remodel in the United States costs USD 55,000, rising to USD 75,000 for kitchens of 250 square feet or more and USD 46,000 for smaller kitchens, according to the Houzz 2026 US Kitchen Trends Study of 1,780 homeowners. A minor remodel has a median of USD 20,000. Zonda's 2025 Cost vs. Value Report, which models contractor job cost rather than reported spend, puts a midrange minor remodel at USD 28,458, a midrange major remodel at USD 82,793 and an upscale major remodel at USD 164,104.
It depends almost entirely on how much you spend. In Zonda's 2025 Cost vs. Value Report, a minor midrange kitchen remodel recoups 112.9% of its cost, a major midrange remodel 51%, and a major upscale remodel 36%. The National Association of REALTORS® and NARI, using a different method, estimate 60% recovery for both a complete kitchen renovation and a minor kitchen upgrade. The often-quoted figure of 70–80% is not supported by either source.
In its 21 July 2026 Mid-Year Update, the National Kitchen & Bath Association forecasts total United States kitchen and bath industry revenue of about USD 228 billion in 2026, a 0.4% year-on-year decline. Globally, estimates of the kitchen cabinet market alone range from roughly USD 91 billion to USD 108 billion for 2025, depending on the research house, because each defines scope, channel and price basis differently. These estimates should not be averaged.
Engineered quartz, at 32% of upgraded countertops in the Houzz 2026 US Kitchen Trends Study, followed by granite at 15% and quartzite at 10%. The frequently repeated claim that quartz holds 80–90% of the countertop market cannot be validated against any homeowner survey.
No. In the Houzz 2026 US Kitchen Trends Study, wood finishes led at 29% — medium wood 15%, light wood 11%, dark wood 3% — narrowly ahead of white at 28%, with off-white at 15%. Any source stating that white leads should be checked for its year.
Australia prohibited the manufacture, supply, processing and installation of engineered stone benchtops, panels and slabs from 1 July 2024, and prohibited their import from 1 January 2025. The ban applies to artificial products containing at least 1% crystalline silica by weight that combine natural stone materials with constituents such as resin and then harden. Resin-free sintered stone and porcelain are expressly excluded, as are concrete, ceramic tiles and several other categories. There is no requirement to remove engineered stone already installed.
No, not as of 12 August 2026. California adopted a permanent strengthened respirable crystalline silica standard in February 2025, following an emergency temporary standard effective 29 December 2023. A proposed prohibition on fabricating artificial stone containing more than 1% crystalline silica was still moving through the advisory process as of July 2026.
Imported completed wooden kitchen cabinets and vanities and their covered wooden parts carry a 25% Section 232 duty, in force since 14 October 2025. A scheduled increase to 50% was deferred by one year on 31 December 2025 and is now set for 1 January 2027. The United Kingdom is capped at 10% and the European Union and Japan at 15%. Chinese-origin wooden cabinets additionally face Section 301 duties of 7.5–25% and exporter-specific antidumping duties; the 23 April 2026 administrative-review notice states a 251.64% China-wide entity rate. Those orders were continued for a further five years in September 2025.
Yes. 87% of kitchen renovators hire at least one professional, rising to 98% on projects above USD 50,000, according to the Houzz 2026 US Kitchen Trends Study. On those larger projects, 60% hire a general contractor and 43% a cabinetmaker. NKBA forecasts professional-led kitchen and bath spending to grow 4.4% in 2026 against 0.6% for DIY.
58% of renovating homeowners add or update an island — 29% add a new one and 29% upgrade an existing one — while 36% have no island and are not adding one. Of those with an island, 53% place at least one appliance in it, most often a dishwasher (35%) or microwave (32%).
Stainless steel, at 72% of appliance finishes in the Houzz 2026 US Kitchen Trends Study. The next choices, white and black stainless, are 6% each — stainless leads by a factor of twelve.
Global stainless steel melt-shop production reached 64.2 million tonnes in 2025, up 2.1% on 2024, according to worldstainless. China produced 40.9 million tonnes of that total and Asia as a whole 55.3 million tonnes. First-quarter 2026 output was 15.8 million tonnes, up 2.5% year on year. These are production figures, not consumption or demand.
January, but the seasonality is weaker than most of the trade assumes. Averaging weekly Google Trends data for “kitchen remodel” in the United States across the five complete years 2021 to 2025, January reads 62.3 and May, the weakest month, reads 47.8 — a peak-to-trough ratio of only 1.30 to 1.
No credible published survey answers this. Figures circulating online trace to vendor marketing rather than to research with a stated population, sampling method and field dates. As a single transparent data point rather than an industry estimate: referrals to fadiorhome.com from AI assistants grew from 32 sessions in April 2026 to 174 in July, against Google organic search growing from 342 to 936 over the same months — a ratio rising from 9% to 19%. That describes one website, not the market.
Under TSCA Title VI, 40 CFR 770.10, the emission limits are 0.05 ppm for hardwood plywood, 0.09 ppm for particleboard, 0.11 ppm for medium-density fibreboard and 0.13 ppm for thin MDF, measured by ASTM E1333-14. They have applied since 1 June 2018 to products sold, supplied, offered for sale or manufactured in the United States, including imports, and are set at the same levels as California CARB Phase II.
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2025 Cost vs. Value Report, 38th annual edition, 18 September 2025 — 28 projects across 119 US markets. Editions 2022–2024 also consulted for the four-year series.
Resident household counts, tenure and dwelling type, 2024.
This article is published under a Fadior Home editorial byline, produced through an editorial workflow with human review by the Fadior Home editorial team.
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