Tuesday, August 11, 2026 from Floor Covering Weekly

Market decline slows, imports rebound & prices stabilize
By Kirk Hamlet

Laminate is emerging from a two-year correction that followed its pandemic-era boom. According to Catalina Research, laminate accounted for $878 million in sales in 2025 on volume of 734 million square feet, down 1.5 percent and 0.7 percent respectively from 2024. Laminate now occupies 2.8 percent of total floor covering dollar sales and 2.9 percent of square foot sales.

These declines mark a slowdown from the prior two years. Dollar sales peaked at $1.193 billion in 2022 before falling to $967 million in 2023 and $891 million in 2024, as elevated interest rates, slowed housing activity and reduced remodeling spending weighed on laminate. This year’s much smaller pullback suggests that the category is stabilizing.

“Last year, we saw the combination of high interest rates, rising inflation and eroding consumer confidence put pressure on the household budget,” noted Katie Szabo, director of product management, Tarkett Home. “The result was consumers being more cautious about discretionary spending, including remodel activity.”

Rather than a single category specific issue, said Rod MacLeod, resilient and laminate director at Shaw, “Laminate’s softness in 2025 was driven largely by the broader macro-environment.” Elevated rates, slower housing activity and cautious consumer spending pressured flooring purchases broadly in 2025, he added, and laminate’s share of total floor covering sales were stable despite the dropoff in dollar sales.

Michelle Dailey, product director at Mohawk, attributed the decline to a soft housing market, inflation-driven caution among consumers and rising cost pressures tied to tariffs on imports. Dailey said intense competition from resilient flooring and imported laminate products squeezed growth, but laminate is not losing relevance so much as struggling to expand within an overall constrained market, noting the 2025 decline was milder than the one recorded in 2024.

Relying on Replacement

Laminate depends overwhelmingly on homeowners replacing existing floors as opposed to new construction.

“Laminate continues to be a favorite among DIYers and families with kids and pets, and it’s easy to understand why,” said Szabo. “One of the biggest challenges facing the laminate category today is the outdated perception of this flooring category. Many people don’t realize how far this product has come. Today’s laminate offers impressive durability, stunning visuals and many products are even waterproof, all at a great value. To remain a core category, we have to get the homeowner to look past the stereotypes and see laminate as it is today — a modern, high-performance option, not a budget compromise.”

Al Boulogne, senior vice president of residential product and marketing at Mannington, said laminate’s fortunes track closely with the health of home centers and the builder channel because so much of category volume flows through them. Big production builders have been in a downturn for roughly four years, he said, while consumers with money to spend have gravitated toward higher-end categories like waterproof core products and hardwood, leaving value-tier products like laminate to absorb the slack among buyers hesitant to borrow at elevated rates.

Boulogne traced laminate’s pricing squeeze to the rise of luxury vinyl tile. “There were good, better, best, premium stories out there in terms of thickness, design features, etc.,” he said. “Then LVT came along and laminate was devalued and really consolidated around a single, more aggressive price point in the market. I think there is value in the market again for truly differentiated laminate, but the stories are different now: waterproofed, different construction types, style and design that is truly and meaningfully differentiated, etc. In the meantime, since so much of the laminate category goes through home centers, that low price point continues to get lower.” He sees room for differentiated laminate built around waterproofing and distinct construction types, though he noted that channel remains under pressure on price.

Imports & Pricing Power

After two years of steep pullback, import activity slightly rose in 2025. Import value rose about 7 percent to $406.3 million and volume climbed roughly 9 percent to 354.3 million square feet, following declines from $652.9 million and 489.6 million square feet in 2022 to $380.5 million and 324.4 million square feet in 2024. This rebound could suggest importers are cautiously rebuilding inventories or responding to higher demand.

Average manufacturer selling prices climbed rapidly, from 99 cents per square foot in 2020 to $1.27 in 2023, before slipping to $1.21 in 2024 and $1.20 in 2025. The retreat points to a more competitive market in which manufacturers are leaning less on price increases and more on holding share.

That $1.20 figure is the lowest average selling price of any hard surface flooring category, a fact several executives said reflects a perception problem more than a quality one. “The low average selling price doesn’t reflect the quality of today’s premium laminate products,” said Rotem Eylor, founder and CEO of Republic Floor. “It shows that consumers often still associate laminate with products from many years ago.”

MacLeod added that price point “reinforces laminate’s position as one of the most accessible hard-surface flooring options” but also signals that some buyers still view laminate through a value lens despite meaningful gains in durability and visual realism.

Suppliers credited pet-friendly performance, scratch resistance, wider and longer planks and improved surface textures as levers that could help shift the conversation from price to long-term value.

2026 Outlook

General sentiment for 2026 is a year of gradual, uneven improvement rather than a sharp rebound. Opinions ranged from cautious optimism — expecting recovery to hinge on easing interest rates and improving remodeling activity while laminate leans on its affordability — to stagnation, with laminate performing at or below the broader market. Flat if the market is flat, and down further if the market declines, as WPC and premium categories like hardwood and tile continue to draw buyers who are actively purchasing.
Dailey said Mohawk anticipates a choppier path shaped by tariffs and overseas conflict, with the company focused on clarifying its performance tiers to sharpen its value story in the marketplace.

Republic’s Eylor expects gradually improving housing activity to support demand and predicts artificial intelligence as an emerging tool for inventory forecasting, design trend identification and technical support.

After two years of contraction, it seems near-term growth will likely depend less on market expansion and more on manufacturers’ ability to differentiate through waterproof performance, realistic visuals, domestic manufacturing and premium features that persuade consumers to trade up rather than simply replace what they have.