Updated July 6, 2026 · 8 min read
The short answer
The 2025 Cost vs. Value data shows a midrange bathroom remodel recouping about 80% of its cost nationally, beating an upscale remodel at roughly 42%. Idaho is absent from the city-level dataset; the Mountain region's 69–71% is the closest honest proxy. And the percentage only measures resale, not the years of daily use you get first.
Key takeaways
- Remodeling magazine's 2025 Cost vs. Value Report puts a midrange bathroom remodel's resale recovery at about 80% (79.9%) nationally — the highest since 2007 — while an Upscale remodel recovers only about 42.2% and a Universal Design remodel about 64.1%.
- Midrange beating upscale is not a fluke of one year's data — it reflects that a resale estimate is capped by what comparable buyers in the market will actually pay more for, not by how much was spent.
- The NAR 2025 Remodeling Impact Report puts bathroom ROI closer to 50% — a real second number, not a contradiction, because it measures Realtors' perceived value rather than Cost vs. Value's estimated sale-price recovery.
- Idaho was excluded from the 2025 Cost vs. Value city-level dataset entirely. There is no published Boise-specific ROI figure for any bathroom remodel tier. The Mountain region's midrange figure (roughly 69–71%) is the closest published proxy, and even that is a regional average, not a Boise number.
- A resale percentage only measures the sale-day outcome. It says nothing about the years of daily use, comfort, and enjoyment a remodel delivers before that day ever arrives — which is a separate, legitimate reason to remodel that the percentage was never designed to capture.
The short answer
The number everyone quotes — "a bathroom remodel recoups X% of its cost" — comes from Remodeling magazine's annual Cost vs. Value Report, and the 2025 edition puts a midrange bathroom remodel at about 80% nationally. That headline number is real, but it hides three things worth understanding before you use it to decide anything: which tier it applies to, what it does and doesn't measure, and the fact that Idaho isn't even in the underlying dataset.
This is the data-explainer, not the cost guide
Our bathroom remodel cost guide has the full sourced price ranges and the complete ROI table. This post is about what that data actually means — the methodology, the midrange-vs-upscale gap, and the honesty caveats — not a restatement of the numbers themselves.
What Cost vs. Value actually measures
Cost vs. Value is not a receipt-vs-appraisal comparison on any single real house. It is an annual estimate, built from surveyed real-estate professionals, of how much a specific project (a midrange bathroom remodel, built to a defined spec) would add to a home's resale value in a given market, compared to what it cost to build. The 2025 report puts that midrange bathroom figure at roughly 80% (79.9%) nationally — up from 73.7% the year before, and the highest recorded since 2007.
The NAR 2025 Remodeling Impact Report asks a different question of a different audience: it surveys Realtors on their perception of how much value a bathroom renovation adds, and lands at roughly 50%. Neither number is wrong. Cost vs. Value is modeling an estimated sale-price outcome for a defined project; NAR is capturing professional sentiment about value in general. Quoting one without the other, or treating them as competing claims about the same thing, is where most of the confusion about bathroom ROI comes from.
Why midrange beats upscale — and what that means for your choices
The detail that surprises people most is that the 2025 data doesn't reward spending more. A midrange bathroom remodel recovers about 80% of its cost; an Upscale remodel recovers only about 42.2%, and even a Universal Design (accessible) remodel — a project with real functional and livability value — comes in at about 64.1%. Upscale isn't a bad project; it's just a project whose resale value is capped by what comparable buyers in a given market will actually pay more for a bathroom, which does not scale linearly with what you spent on it.
The practical takeaway isn't "never go upscale" — it's that resale recovery and personal enjoyment are two different reasons to spend more, and the data only speaks clearly to the first one. If resale recovery is the primary goal, the data points toward a well-executed midrange remodel over a maximalist one. If the goal is a bathroom you'll use and enjoy for years regardless of what a future buyer pays for it, that's a legitimate reason to go further — just don't expect the percentage to follow you there. Our bathroom upgrades that add value roundup goes deep on which specific upgrades tend to earn their keep either way; this post is about what the top-line percentage itself is and isn't telling you.
Idaho is missing from the data — here is the honest proxy
This is the caveat that matters most for a Boise reader: Idaho was excluded from the 2025 Cost vs. Value report's city-level dataset entirely. There is no published Boise-specific ROI figure for a bathroom remodel at any tier — midrange, upscale, or Universal Design. Any number presented as "Boise's bathroom remodel ROI" is not coming from this report, because this report has no Idaho row.
The closest published regional proxy is the Mountain region figure, where a midrange bathroom remodel's ROI runs roughly 69–71% — meaningfully lower than the 80% national number. For contrast, the Pacific region comes in around 91%, the highest of any region in the report. That spread on its own is worth noting: national averages can mask real regional variation, and the Mountain region's number, while the closest honest proxy available, is still a regional average across multiple states, not a Boise-specific figure.
| Figure | What it measures | Number |
|---|---|---|
| Cost vs. Value — midrange (national) | Estimated resale recovery | ~80% (79.9%) |
| Cost vs. Value — Upscale (national) | Estimated resale recovery | ~42.2% |
| Cost vs. Value — Universal Design (national) | Estimated resale recovery | ~64.1% |
| Cost vs. Value — Mountain region (midrange) | Regional proxy; Idaho excluded from city-level data | ~69–71% |
| NAR 2025 Remodeling Impact Report | Realtors' perceived value (different method) | ~50% |
Sources: Remodeling 2025 Cost vs. Value Report (via CustomCraft DBR and Fixr summaries), NAR 2025 Remodeling Impact Report (via Qualified Remodeler). No Idaho- or Boise-specific figure exists in the underlying dataset.
Why the percentage isn't the whole story
Every one of these figures measures the same narrow moment: what happens to resale value on the day you sell. None of them measure what happens in all the years between the remodel and that sale — the daily convenience of a working double vanity, the difference a walk-in shower makes to an aging household, the simple fact that you stop dreading using your own bathroom. That value is real, it just isn't denominated in a resale percentage, and Cost vs. Value was never built to capture it.
There is also a selling-friction angle the recovery percentage doesn't touch. A dated, worn bathroom can slow a sale down or invite lower offers even when the seller has no plans to remodel it purely for resale — the cost of not addressing it shows up as friction rather than as a line item. We cover exactly what buyers notice, and which of it is a staging fix versus a real remodel, in our bathroom features buyers notice list.
None of this is an argument to ignore the data — it's an argument to use it for what it actually measures. If you're remodeling primarily to sell within the next year or two, the Cost vs. Value figures are the right lens, and midrange is where the data says to aim. If you're remodeling to live in the space for the next decade, the resale percentage is one input among several, not the deciding one.
The bottom line
The 80% national midrange figure is real, but it comes with three honesty caveats worth carrying into any planning conversation: it's a national average that a genuinely upscale spend does not beat, it has no Idaho-specific version, and it measures resale on a single day rather than the years of use most homeowners actually get out of the room. Understanding what the number is actually measuring is more useful than the number itself.
Want to see where your own project lands on cost, independent of the ROI question? Try our bathroom remodel cost calculator to get a planning-level range for your specific scope.
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Frequently asked questions
- Does a midrange or upscale bathroom remodel have better ROI?
- Midrange, according to the 2025 Cost vs. Value data — it recovers about 80% of its cost at resale nationally, versus roughly 42.2% for an Upscale remodel. Resale value is capped by what comparable buyers in a market will pay more for, which does not scale linearly with higher-end spending — a real reason to remodel further, but a different one than resale ROI.
- Is there Boise- or Idaho-specific bathroom remodel ROI data?
- No. Idaho was excluded from the 2025 Cost vs. Value report's city-level dataset entirely, so there is no published Boise-specific ROI figure for any bathroom remodel tier. The closest honest proxy is the Mountain region's midrange figure, roughly 69–71% — a regional average, not a Boise number.
- If bathroom remodel ROI is only 50-80%, is it still worth doing?
- That depends on the reason. If the goal is pure resale recovery within a year or two of selling, the data (roughly 80% for midrange, per Cost vs. Value, or about 50% per NAR's Realtor-perception survey) is the right lens. If the goal is years of daily comfort and use before any eventual sale, the resale percentage is only one input — it was never designed to capture the value of simply enjoying a better bathroom.
Sources
- CustomCraft DBR — 2025 Cost vs. Value Report Summary
- Fixr — Bathroom Remodel ROI (2025/2026)
- Qualified Remodeler — NAR 2025 Remodeling Impact Report Summary
Claims and figures are drawn from the sources above and provided for general guidance; your project may vary. Photography is illustrative of design concepts. For a fixed price on your specific bathroom, request a free estimate.
