Restaurant dining habits in the United States vary from occasional full-service meals to frequent limited-service purchases. Recent measures show changes in household spending, the mix of restaurant formats, and the share of daily calories supplied by fast food. Together, these statistics describe spending and reported intake; they do not count every restaurant visit.
Table of contents
- U.S. spending on food away from home
- Restaurant formats and dining-out spending
- Fast-food and full-service reporting patterns
- Same-day fast-food participation
- Fast-food calories by age and sex
- Fast-food calories by education and weight status
U.S. spending on food away from home
The Bureau of Labor Statistics measures annual average spending by consumer unit. A consumer unit can be a household or another spending unit defined by the survey, so these figures describe average spending rather than the behavior of every individual diner. Dollar values in this section are nominal unless identified as inflation-adjusted.
Average consumer-unit spending on food away from home was $3,526 in 2019, according to Consumer expenditures in 2023. The average fell to $2,375 in 2020, then rose to $3,030 in 2021, $3,639 in 2022, and $3,933 in 2023. The sequence shows a lower 2020 spending level followed by increases in each of the next three reported years.
| Year | Average consumer-unit spending on food away from home |
|---|---|
| 2019 | $3,526 |
| 2020 | $2,375 |
| 2021 | $3,030 |
| 2022 | $3,639 |
| 2023 | $3,933 |
A separate USDA Economic Research Service measure uses spending per person across U.S. consumers, businesses, and government entities. In 2023, spending on all food reached $7,672 per person. Food-away-from-home spending accounted for $4,485 per person, while food-at-home spending was $3,187 per person, according to U.S. Consumers Increased Spending on Food Away From Home in 2023, Driving Overall Food Spending Growth.
These USDA figures use a different unit and coverage from the BLS consumer-unit averages, so they should not be treated as interchangeable. USDA food-away-from-home measures include prepared meals and snacks intended for immediate consumption and can include non-restaurant outlets.
Longer-term USDA data provide an inflation-adjusted comparison. Inflation-adjusted food-away-from-home spending reached $1.41 trillion in 2025, compared with $818 billion in 1997. Food away from home represented 4.9% of consumers’ disposable personal income in 2025, versus 4.3% in 1997, according to Ag and Food Statistics: Charting the Essentials - Food Prices and Spending. The comparison is explicitly inflation-adjusted for the dollar totals and covers the two stated years.
Restaurant formats and dining-out spending
Restaurant format matters because food-away-from-home spending includes more than one kind of purchase. In 2023, full-service and limited-service restaurants together accounted for more than two-thirds of U.S. food-away-from-home spending. Other food-away-from-home outlets accounted for nearly the remaining one-third, according to the USDA ERS chart Limited-service restaurants captured the largest share of food-away-from-home spending from 2019 to 2023.
The same source gives selected format shares across different years. Full-service restaurants received 35.9% of U.S. food-away-from-home spending in 1997. Limited-service restaurants received 34.6% in 2010 and 37.6% in 2020. These are shares of spending, not shares of visits or the percentage of consumers who used a format.
The distinction is important when interpreting dining habits. A higher spending share can reflect the amount spent in a format, while a reporting rate describes whether a consumer unit recorded spending in a category. Neither measure alone establishes how many occasions people dined out, how many people were present, or how much food each person ate.
The USDA categories also do not make every food-away-from-home purchase a restaurant purchase. Prepared meals and snacks for immediate consumption may come from non-restaurant outlets. The format-specific facts above identify restaurant formats where stated, while the broader food-away-from-home totals cover the wider category.
Fast-food and full-service reporting patterns
The BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey reports the share of U.S. consumer units recording spending in fast-food and full-service restaurant categories. These are reporting and expenditure categories, not counts of visits.
The share reporting fast-food restaurant spending was 64.10% in 2019. It was 51.50% in 2020, 55.57% in 2021, 55.77% in 2022, and 58.44% in 2023, according to Consumer expenditures in 2023.
Full-service reporting was lower in each of those five years: 42.70% in 2019, 27.09% in 2020, 32.54% in 2021, 33.54% in 2022, and 34.36% in 2023. The pattern indicates that the share of consumer units reporting spending in both categories was lower in 2020 than in 2019, with partial increases through 2023.
| Year | Fast-food spending reported | Full-service spending reported |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 64.10% | 42.70% |
| 2020 | 51.50% | 27.09% |
| 2021 | 55.57% | 32.54% |
| 2022 | 55.77% | 33.54% |
| 2023 | 58.44% | 34.36% |
The figures do not mean that the remaining consumer units never ate restaurant food. They mean they did not report spending in the specified category during the survey measurement. They also do not show whether a reported purchase was one meal, several meals, takeout, delivery, or another spending occasion.
Same-day fast-food participation
The National Center for Health Statistics uses a different measure: a 24-hour dietary recall. Among U.S. adults age 20 and older, 68.0% reported no fast-food calories on a given day during August 2021–August 2023. The CDC/NCHS brief defines fast food as food reported from restaurant fast food or pizza sources.
On that same given-day basis, 11.4% consumed fast food supplying more than 0% but less than 25% of daily calories. Another 12.0% consumed fast food supplying 25% to 50% of daily calories, while 8.6% consumed fast food supplying more than 50% of daily calories. These figures come from Fast-food Intake Among Adults in the United States, August 2021–August 2023.
The measure describes calories consumed on a given day, not visit frequency. A person can have no fast-food calories on the recall day and still eat fast food on other days. Conversely, a single reported meal can supply a substantial share of that day’s calories. The survey population is the U.S. civilian noninstitutionalized adult population age 20 and older.
Fast-food calories by age and sex
Across U.S. adults age 20 and older, fast food supplied a mean 11.7% of calories consumed on a given day during August 2021–August 2023. The mean was 12.1% for men and 11.3% for women, according to the CDC/NCHS brief.
Age differences were more pronounced in the reported estimates. Fast food supplied a mean 15.2% of calories for adults ages 20–39 and 11.9% for adults ages 40–59. For adults age 60 and older, the mean was 7.6%.
Among adults ages 20–39, fast food supplied a mean 15.3% of calories for men and 15.0% for women. For adults age 60 and older, the corresponding means were 8.1% for men and 7.2% for women. These are age- and sex-specific calorie shares, not estimates of how often people visited restaurants.
The age pattern should be read together with the recall period. Each percentage describes the mean share of calories on a given day during August 2021–August 2023. It does not forecast future intake or describe a person’s usual diet across an entire year.
Fast-food calories by education and weight status
Education categories in the CDC/NCHS estimates also show different mean calorie shares. Fast food supplied a mean 11.2% of calories consumed by adults with a high school diploma or less during August 2021–August 2023. The mean was 13.4% for adults with some college education.
The supplied education categories do not include a separate estimate here for every educational attainment level, so the two reported figures should be read only as the categories defined by the source. They do not establish that education causes a particular dining pattern.
By weight status, fast food supplied a mean 9.8% of calories for adults with underweight or normal weight, 10.8% for adults with overweight, and 13.7% for adults with obesity during August 2021–August 2023.
The age-specific estimates add detail to that comparison. Among adults ages 20–39, fast food supplied a mean 14.0% of calories for those with underweight or normal weight, 13.2% for those with overweight, and 18.1% for those with obesity. Among adults ages 40–59, the means were 8.0%, 12.2%, and 13.3%, respectively, for the same three weight-status categories.
Among adults age 60 and older, fast food supplied a mean 5.1% of calories for those with underweight or normal weight, 6.9% for those with overweight, and 9.8% for those with obesity. These estimates describe associations within the CDC/NCHS dietary-recall data; they do not identify causes, and they measure calorie share on a given day rather than the number of restaurant visits.