doxoINSIGHTS » 2025 U.S. Household Bill Pay Report

2025 U.S. Household Bill Pay Report

The 2025 U.S. Household Bill Pay Report found that the typical consumer spends $24,695 per year on household bills. In total, The Bill Pay Economy™ of 2025 amounts to $4.55 trillion, of which $3.45 trillion are the thirteen most essential household bills. The report found that the typical U.S. household spends $2,058 per month, or 31% of income on the most essential household bills, and also breaks out the household spending market size for each of these bill categories, percentage of households that pay each bill, and median monthly and annual bill pay costs by state.

Methodology update for 2025: doxo’s proprietary dataset generates the industry’s most accurate statistics

doxo’s bill pay service enables all-in-one bill pay to more than 120,000 providers across the country in 45 different service categories. By incorporating tens of millions of bill payments across 97% of U.S. zip codes and all U.S. income and regional demographic segments, the 2025 U.S. Household Bill Pay Report directly represents what Americans actually pay on their bills. 

Updated to represent 2025 consumer spending, this proprietary dataset provides the foundation for doxo’s bottom-up market sizing of the thirteen most common bills and makes category size and median spend transparent at the national, state, county and city levels. In contrast to other industry data sources – which often mix household recurring bill expenses with employer-paid or withheld expenditures (e.g. health insurance and taxes), and retail and discretionary spending (i.e. credit card balances) – doxo’s unique, nation-wide household bill pay data specifically quantifies the actual consumer portion of total recurring bill spend and household penetration rate for each category.

Updated for 2025, to better represent what the typical household can expect to spend, doxo has refined its methodology by utilizing the median expenditure (rather than average) on a given service type when calculating monthly costs. Additionally, to improve transparency and granularity, doxoINSIGHTS has broken out the Utilities category into four distinct categories: Gas, Electric, Waste & Recycling, and Water & Sewer. These refinements offer a more precise understanding of household spending patterns within the Bill Pay Economy at large.

Key Findings from 2025 U.S. Household Bill Pay Report include:

• Total Market Size: $3.45 trillion spent per year on the thirteen most essential household bills; $4.55 trillion when including all household bills
• Median Yearly Cost: $24,695 spent annually per household on the thirteen most essential household bills
• Percent of Annual Income: 31% of consumers’ income per year

According to The U.S. Census Bureau, the median household income in the U.S. is $80,610. Based on this, U.S. households are spending nearly a third of income on essential household bills.

$3.45 trillion total spent across these thirteen most common household bills:

• $935B Mortgage 
• $713B Rent
• $478B Auto Loan
• $239B Auto Insurance
• $217B Electric
• $166B Mobile Phone
• $167B Health Insurance (consumer-direct portion)
• $164B Cable & Internet
• $129B Water & Sewer
• $110B Gas
• $75B Waste & Recycling
• $35B Life Insurance
• $23B Alarm & Security

The average U.S. household spends $24,695 per year on the most common bills

While housing continues to be the highest U.S. household expense by a longshot, the report reveals that the typical household is paying more out-of-pocket per month for Auto Loans and Cable & Internet than essential costs like Health or Life Insurance, which are frequently covered by their employer or automatically deducted from paychecks. The median monthly amount of each bill paid in each category is: