Karel Busta

Fact

Americans spend more time asleep than they did 20 years ago, not less

In the American Time Use Survey, the average American aged 15+ spent 9.03 hours a day sleeping in 2025, up from 8.57 hours in 2003, about 28 minutes more. The rise was steady before the pandemic too (8.84 hours in 2019).

Confidence: SolidReplicated or measured directly in a large, well-designed sample.
Average time spent sleeping per day, Americans 15+, 2003–2025Hours per day (h)
Show the data as a table
yearHours per day
20038.57 h
20048.55 h
20058.62 h
20068.63 h
20078.57 h
20088.6 h
20098.67 h
20108.67 h
20118.71 h
20128.73 h
20138.74 h
20148.8 h
20158.83 h
20168.79 h
20178.8 h
20188.82 h
20198.84 h
20209 h
20218.95 h
20229.02 h
20239.07 h
20249.04 h
20259.03 h

atus-sleep dataset, trend table. 2020 is a partial year (COVID-19 suspension of data collection) and not an official annual estimate.

This is self-reported time in a diary, and ATUS "sleeping" includes naps, dozing and lying awake trying to sleep, so the level (about 9 hours) is higher than sleep measured by a device. The trend is the interesting part: the same survey, asked the same way every year, shows time spent sleeping going up, not down: slowly from 2003 to 2019, then a step up in the pandemic years that has not reversed. It fits with the lack of clear evidence for a decline in objectively measured sleep.

Source and method

  1. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2026). American Time Use Survey 2003–2025 multi-year microdata. U.S. Bureau of Labor StatisticsSample: 258,954 respondents, one diary day each, 2003–2025
  2. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics American Time Use Survey, Table A-1 (published annual estimates). U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Weighted average of minutes per day coded as sleeping (ATUS codes 0101: sleeping, sleeplessness, sleeping n.e.c.), using BLS final weights (TUFNWGTP; TU20FWGT for 2020). Computed by this site from the microdata and checked against BLS's published 'Sleeping' estimates, which match to two decimals in all 22 published years. 2020 is a partial year (no diaries for Mar 18–May 9) and BLS published no annual figure for it.

Published October 14, 2026.

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