How many cats are there in the UK?

If you have ever wondered whether Britain really is a nation of cat lovers, the honest answer is: yes, but the number is more complicated than it first looks. Several different organisations count UK cats in different ways, using different survey methods, so you will see figures ranging from around 10 million to over 11 million depending on which report you read and which year it covers.

None of these organisations are wrong. They are simply measuring slightly different things: some count owned pet cats reported by adults in a household survey, others count cats reported by cat owners specifically, and some try to estimate the much harder-to-count population of stray and feral cats living outside anyone's home. Understanding the difference helps make sense of the headlines.

Below we walk through the most recent, credible UK figures, where they come from, how the total has changed over the past decade, and why an exact national cat census doesn't exist.

How many cats are there in the UK right now

The two most-cited sources for UK pet population figures are the PDSA Animal Wellbeing (PAW) Report and the Cats Protection CATS Report, both produced annually from large-scale owner surveys.

• The PDSA PAW Report 2024 put the UK's owned cat population at 10.8 million, based on a nationally representative survey of pet-owning adults, with 24% of UK adults saying they own a cat.
• The PDSA PAW Mini Report 2025 recorded a slight fall to 10.5 million cats, described as part of a population that has "remained relatively stable" over the past 15 years despite year-to-year fluctuations.
• Cats Protection's CATS Report 2025 (its sixth annual survey, based on YouGov polling of thousands of UK adults) estimated 10.2 million owned cats, down from 10.6 million in 2024, with 24% of households owning at least one cat.

So, depending on the source and the year, the realistic range for the UK's owned cat population sits between roughly 10.2 and 10.8 million. There is no single official government census of pet cats in the UK, so all of these figures are estimates drawn from large surveys rather than an exact head-count.

Owned cats vs the total "cat population"

When people ask "how many cats are in the UK," they usually mean pet cats living in homes. But the true number of cats in the country, at any one time, is bigger than that. There are three broad groups:

• Owned cats – pets living in a household, as counted by PDSA and Cats Protection above.
• Stray cats – cats that were once owned, or are the offspring of owned cats, now living without a home but often still comfortable around people.
• Feral cats – cats born outdoors with little or no human contact, living in colonies and generally too wild to be rehomed as pets.

The 10.2–10.8 million figure only covers the first group. The stray and feral population is separate, much harder to measure, and is covered in its own section below.

How many households have a cat

Roughly one in four UK households owns a cat, a figure that has been fairly consistent across recent Cats Protection reports (26% in earlier surveys, 24–25% in 2024–2025). Within cat-owning households, the CATS Report 2025 found:

• 66% of cat-owning households have one cat.
• 34% have two or more.

That skew toward single-cat households is one reason the percentage of adults who own a cat (around 24%) sits below the equivalent figure for dogs (around 28%), even though the two total pet populations are similar in size — multi-dog households are less common than multi-cat ones.

Roughly one in four UK households shares its home with at least one cat – making cats one of the nation's most common pets, just behind dogs.

Has the UK cat population changed over time?

Looking at PDSA's longer trend data, the picture is one of relative stability rather than dramatic growth or decline. The PAW Report tracks pet populations back to 2011, and cat numbers have moved within a fairly narrow band since then — from roughly 9.6 million at the lower end (2013) up to around 11.8 million at the higher end (2011), before settling around 10.5–10.8 million more recently. Adult cat ownership has held close to 24% for most of the last decade, having been a little higher (27%) in 2011.

The Cats Protection CATS Report, which began in 2020, shows a slightly different short-term pattern: cat ownership rose noticeably during and just after the pandemic (10.8 million owned cats in 2021, an increase Cats Protection linked partly to lockdown pet acquisitions), before easing back down to 10.2–10.6 million in 2024–2025.

A few underlying shifts are worth flagging, since they may explain some of the year-to-year movement:

• More cats are being bought rather than adopted. The proportion of cats acquired as pedigrees has risen sharply — from around a third historically to over half (51%) of cats acquired in the last year, according to the 2025 CATS Report.
• Ownership is shifting younger. Cats Protection reports rising ownership among 18–34-year-olds, while ownership among the 35–54 age group and those aged 55+ has eased.
• Cost of living is a factor for existing owners. PDSA's 2024 data found 22% of cat owners (roughly 2.4 million) said the cost of living had affected how they care for their cat, with some switching to cheaper food or reporting they were considering cancelling pet insurance.

How many stray and feral cats are there in the UK?

This is the figure most people struggle to find a solid answer for, because unlike owned cats, nobody can survey stray and feral cats directly by knocking on doors.

The best evidence-based estimate comes from research led by the University of Bristol in partnership with Cats Protection, published in the journal *Scientific Reports*. Researchers combined resident sightings, community reports, and confirmed sightings from Cats Protection teams across five contrasting urban areas (Bradford, Dunstable and Houghton Regis, Everton, Beeston, and Bulwell), then built a statistical model to extrapolate a national estimate for urban unowned cats.

The headline result: an estimated 247,429 unowned cats living in UK urban areas alone (95% credible interval of roughly 157,000 to 366,000) — described by the researchers as "the first evidence-based national estimate of the number of stray and feral cats in the UK." Dr Jenni McDonald, feline epidemiologist at Cats Protection, noted that before this study there had been no robust estimates of the UK's stray and feral cat numbers at all.

That figure covers urban areas only, and Cats Protection's more recent, broader estimate — covering free-roaming unowned cats generally, not just urban ones — puts the number at around 900,000, while stressing that research is ongoing to refine this figure further.

The Bristol study also found something practically useful: unowned cat numbers vary enormously between neighbourhoods, and tend to cluster in the most densely populated and most deprived areas. That matters for welfare organisations, because it means neutering and community cat programmes can be targeted at the places where they will have the biggest impact, rather than spread evenly across the whole country.

Why is there no exact number?

There are a few honest reasons no single figure exists:

• No compulsory national cat register. Unlike, say, car ownership or the electoral roll, there is no requirement for every cat owner to register their pet centrally, so there is nothing for a government body to simply add up. (Compulsory cat microchipping in England, in force since June 2024, is starting to build better underlying data, but coverage and reporting still rely on vets and scanning.)
• Surveys sample rather than count. Both PDSA and Cats Protection extrapolate a national total from a representative sample of a few thousand people, then scale it up — a robust method, but one that always carries a margin of error.
• Stray and feral cats are, by definition, not registered anywhere. They can only be estimated through sightings-based population modelling, as the Bristol/Cats Protection study did.
• Cats move between categories. A cat can be owned, then lost or abandoned and become a stray, then potentially be adopted again — the boundaries between "owned," "stray," and "feral" are not fixed over a cat's lifetime.

What the numbers mean for cat welfare

The population figures are not just trivia — they shape how much preventive care UK cats are getting, and where the gaps are. PDSA's 2024 PAW Report, drawn from the same pool of owners used to estimate the population, found:

• 87% of cats (around 9.4 million) are neutered — a higher rate than dogs (68%).
• 78% of cats are microchipped, though only 44% of cat owners in England were aware that microchipping cats became a legal requirement from 10 June 2024.
• 45% of cats are insured, up from 39% the year before, even as some owners said cost of living pressure was pushing them to consider cancelling cover.
• 65% (around 7 million cats) receive regular booster vaccinations.
• 22% of cats have no litter tray at all in multi-cat households, which PDSA links to higher stress levels — a reminder that population size and cat wellbeing are closely linked issues, not separate topics.

These are useful benchmarks if you are a cat owner wondering whether your own cat's care is in line with the national picture — for example, on neutering, insurance, or vaccination status.

Common misconceptions

A few things are worth clearing up, given how often this topic gets misreported:

• "There are more cats than dogs in the UK." This is not consistently true. Recent PDSA and Cats Protection figures put both populations in a similar range (roughly 10–11 million each), with dogs slightly ahead in most recent reports, though the ranking has flipped in some individual survey years.
• "Every stray cat is feral." Not so — a stray cat is usually a previously owned (or descended-from-owned) cat that can often still be socialised and rehomed, whereas a feral cat has had little or no human contact and is unlikely to adapt to living as a pet.
• "The population is exploding." The long-run PDSA trend data actually shows relative stability over 15 years, with modest rises and falls rather than a runaway increase.

A practical takeaway for owners

If this article has you thinking about your own cat's place in the national picture, it's worth checking the basics that the PDSA and Cats Protection data flags as commonly missed: neutering, microchip registration (and keeping your details updated on the database), and appropriate litter tray provision if you have more than one cat. If you are still deciding whether cat ownership is right for your household, our Pet Ownership Quiz can help you weigh up the commitment realistically before you bring a cat home.

*This is general guidance, not a substitute for advice from your vet, who can assess your individual pet.*

Sources

• PDSA — UK pet populations of dogs, cats and rabbits (pdsa.org.uk).
• PDSA — PAW Report 2024, cat population and welfare statistics (pdsa.org.uk).
• Cats Protection — CATS Report 2025, key findings (cats.org.uk).
• Cats Protection — Landmark scientific review on cat overpopulation in the UK (cats.org.uk).
• University of Bristol — Unowned cats research study, with Cats Protection (bristol.ac.uk).
• Cats Protection — Facts and figures (cats.org.uk).