If you're a pet owner, there's no doubt you've had to deal with the hassle of shedding from your pets. We all love our furry friends, but there's no denying that pet hair is a nuisance. It has a nasty tendency to get everywhere. The best vacuum cleaner for pet hair can clear this type of debris from bare floors, carpets, and furniture, helping keep your place clean. You'll also want to look for a vacuum that can keep pet hair and dander in check while you're vacuuming to avoid negatively impacting your home's air quality.
We've tested over 105 vacuum cleaners, and below are our recommendations for the best vacuum cleaners for pet hair. These recommendations are based not only on their pet hair cleaning performance on different surfaces but also on their air filtration and price. For more buying recommendations, make sure to check out the best handheld vacuums for pet hair, the best HEPA vacuums, the best apartment vacuums, and the best vacuums for high-pile carpet articles.
Quick Look
-
Best Vacuum For Pet Hair
Pet Hair Pickup9.5Pet Hair Furniture Performance8.0Air Quality8.1Particle Filtration9.9House7.4Small Apartment8.7See all our test resultsStairs8.5The Dyson V15 Detect is the best vacuum cleaner for pet hair we've tested. This high-end cordless stick vacuum has no problem dealing with pet hair on various surfaces. Using its Hair Screw turbo tool in handheld mode, you can easily pick up pet hair from furniture. It features an onboard HEPA filter, which is very effective at sealing in fine particles like pet dander, so it's an excellent choice for a small apartment. This vacuum is so light and easy to maneuver that it'll be a cinch to clean pet hair from your stairs, and the wide range of accessories makes it extremely versatile for any cleaning task.
While its filtration system seals in allergens, emptying the dustbin will release a cloud of dust and debris. This trait is common to nearly all bagless vacuums. You should empty this vacuum outdoors if possible, or at least away from any living areas. You'll also find the runtime too short to clean a large house or a particularly heavy mess, which requires maximum power.
-
Best Upper Mid-Range Vacuum For Pet Hair
The Dyson Ball Animal 3 Extra is the best upper mid-range vacuum for pet hair we've tested. This bagless upright is far more of a hassle to set up and use than a cordless stick model like the Dyson V15 Detect, but it's the best pet hair vacuum we've tested in terms of performance. It easily clears away pet hair on bare and carpeted floors, and its floorhead offers a set of built-in vanes that do a great job of preventing hair from getting tangled in the mechanism. The Extra variant comes with a dedicated pet-grooming tool to remove loose fur from long-haired pets and a miniature turbo brush attachment that does an exceptional job of clearing pet hair from furniture.
This vacuum has an onboard HEPA filter to limit the spread of fine allergens like pet dander as you clean, though shaking out its dustbin will still release a cloud of dust and debris. For stair cleaning, you'll find it hard to carry this bulky, heavy unit up and down each step, so it's best to keep it stationary and use the long hose with a handheld accessory.
-
Best Mid-Range Vacuum For Pet Hair
Pet Hair Pickup9.5Pet Hair Furniture Performance8.0Air Quality2.5Particle Filtration1.9House6.9Small Apartment6.6See all our test resultsStairs7.6The Shark Cordless Pet IX141 offers outstanding pet hair pickup performance in the mid-range class. Its brushroll is ideally suited to lifting pet hair off carpets, making it one of the best vacuums for dog hair. If you use it in handheld mode with its upholstery tool on furniture, it has no issue picking up every strand. It's a reasonable choice for a house or small apartment, and works especially well on bare floors, though it lacks the suction to pull debris out of cracks or fine material embedded in carpet.
Unfortunately, one trade-off this vacuum makes for its more affordable price point is its negative impact on air quality. Its filter blows dust out of the exhaust during operation, so it doesn't contain pet dander very well, making it a poor choice for allergy sufferers. And as with almost all bagless vacuums, emptying it releases even more dust, so you should empty this outdoors if you can. You'll also find it's a little sparse on included accessories compared to higher-end vacuums, since even the best variants only come with a crevice tool, upholstery nozzle, and dusting brush.
-
Best Budget Vacuum For Pet Hair
Pet Hair Pickup7.5Pet Hair Furniture Performance8.5Air Quality9.3Particle Filtration9.9House8.6Small Apartment8.6See all our test resultsStairs7.1If you're on a tight budget but are still looking to keep your home allergen-free, consider the Kenmore Intuition Bagged. It's rare to find a HEPA filter in a budget vacuum, and the Kenmore's HEPA filter performs remarkably well, on par with the best vacuum on our list, the Dyson V15. It keeps the air clear of pet hair and dander as you vacuum, and unlike bagless vacuums on the list, the self-sealing dirtbag prevents dust from escaping when you empty the vacuum. The Intuition does a good job of picking up pet hair from carpets, and its upholstery tool is especially effective at removing pet hair from furniture fabric. It's an excellent option for a house or a small apartment, as it can handle both bare floors and carpeting with ease, and it comes with a wide assortment of accessories.
However, users note that poor build quality is an issue for this vacuum, with reported failures caused by fragile internal components that fail over time. You'll also find that this isn't the ideal vacuum for stair cleaning due to its weight and short hose.
-
Best Cheap Vacuum For Pet Hair
If you have a pet but want to spend the least amount of money cleaning up pet hair, the Eureka Airspeed is worth a look. It does a good job removing pet hair from carpets, standing out at the lower end for its performance in this task. It's decent at picking up pet hair from furniture using its soft bristle brush as well. It only includes the bare minimum of accessories, just the soft bristle brush and a crevice tool, but you can store both these on the vacuum itself, keeping them within easy reach.
If above-average performance at these two pet hair cleaning jobs is all that you're looking for, this vacuum might be for you. But in many other respects, you may find this cheap vacuum lacking. Since you can't turn off its brushroll, it scatters debris on bare floors, and since you can't adjust the floorhead height, it pushes around large material on most floor types. It also doesn't filter very well at all, blowing dust right through its exhaust. And the build quality is about as poor as you might expect, with thin, flimsy plastic construction that feels like it won't hold together long.
Notable Mentions
-
SEBO Airbelt D4:
The SEBO Airbelt D4 delivers nearly identical pet hair pickup performance as the Dyson V15 Detect and offers mess-free emptying because it's bagged. However, it's difficult to justify the huge price premium given the similar pet hair performance.
See our review
Recent Updates
Jan 22, 2026:
Due to their better performance with pet hair, we replaced the Dyson V8 with the Dyson Ball Animal 3 Extra, the Wyze Cordless Vacuum S with the Shark Cordless Pet IX141, and the Eureka Mighty Mite with the Eureka Airspeed. We also removed all Notable Mentions and replaced them with the SEBO Airbelt D4.
Nov 14, 2025:
We've made minor updates to the text and checked that the products are in stock.
Jun 17, 2025:
We've verified our picks are available and represent the best choices.
Mar 24, 2025:
We replaced the discontinued Wyze Cordless Vacuum with the Wyze Cordless Vacuum S and edited the text for accuracy. We also replaced the Miele HX2 for the HX1 as a Notable Mention, the Shark Stratos Cordless with the Shark Vertex Pro Lightweight, and the BISSELL CleanView/CleanView Swivel Pet Rewind with the Shark Stratos Upright since all perform better on pet hair. We removed the Shark Cordless Pro as a Notable Mention and made some minor rewording for clarity.
Jan 23, 2025:
All picks are valid and available. No change in recommendations. Small text changes for conciseness and clarity.
All Reviews
Our recommendations are based on what we think are currently the best pet hair vacuums to buy. We factor in a fairly wide range of factors, including availability, price, and reader feedback.
If you would like to do the work of choosing yourself, here's the list of all our vacuum reviews, ranked by their pet-hair cleaning performance. Be careful not to get too caught up in the details. While no vacuum is perfect for every use, most are good enough to please almost everyone, and the differences are often not noticeable unless you really look for them.