Today’s homeowners want more bathrooms, but not powder rooms, at least according to the nation’s homebuilders.
Last year, the share of new single-family home starts with two full bathrooms hit 65%, marking two straight years of increases and inching back toward a 2005 peak of 69.9%, according to Census Bureau data the National Association of Home Builders analyzed. According to the Washington, D.C.-based trade association, a full bathroom has “a washbasin, a toilet and either a bathtub or shower, or a combination of a bathtub and shower.”
Homes with two bathrooms constituted the most housing starts, with three-bath setups a distant second:
| Number of bathrooms | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
| 1 or less | 3.5% | 2.9% | 3.1% | 4.4% | 4.6% | 4.5% |
| 2 | 64.1% | 65.1% | 62.6% | 62.3% | 64.7% | 65% |
| 3 | 24.7% | 25.3% | 27% | 25.8% | 23.8% | 23.2% |
| 4-plus | 7.6% | 6.7% | 7.3% | 7.5% | 6.9% | 7.2% |
Despite noting an overall preference for new single-family homes with at least two bathrooms, last year’s demand wasn’t spread evenly across the country, NAHB found:
- The region that includes Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky had the largest proportion of two-bathroom starts, accounting for 71.6% of new single-family construction.
- The area encompassing Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio came in second, at 68.9%.
- New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania had the smallest percentage of two-bathroom projects. Instead, those states had single-family starts with at least four bathrooms — 20.2%, more than double that of other U.S. regions.
Powder rooms are on the outs
As two-plus bathrooms settle in as the norm for new single-family construction, half bathrooms are becoming an endangered feature.
Most new single-family homes started in 2024 — 53.7% — had no half-bathrooms, a term for the pared-back space with either a toilet, a tub or a shower. A mere 1.4% of single-family starts had at least two half-bathrooms in 2024, NAHB found, although many of those were in New England. Although down dramatically from almost 80% in 2023, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine boasted a whopping 64% of new-single family homes starts with at least one half bathroom. That was nearly double that of the West Coast, where homes with half bathrooms accounted for 38.3%.
As home footprints shrink, bathrooms may get bigger
Although the seeming preference for full and bigger bathrooms seemingly butts against shrinking residential footprints, according to some homebuilder predictions, it makes a certain amount of sense given what some homeowners want from these sanctuary spaces.
In coming years, some designers expect consumers to opt for higher-tech wellness features, luxurious showers, personalized spaces and organic aesthetics, according to the 2026 Bath Trends Report from the National Kitchen and Bath Association and its trade show, KBIS. Often, those are the amenities of a full bathroom, and a bigger one at that: Over the next three years, a majority of designers polled also said they anticipated an increase in bathroom size.