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About 1 in 7 US adults — 35.5 million people — has chronic kidney disease, and most don't know it. Nearly 810,000 have kidney failure, with 560,000 on dialysis. Diabetes and hypertension cause two-thirds of cases.
CDC surveillance data: approximately 35.5 million US adults (about 14%) have chronic kidney disease — and an estimated 9 in 10 people with CKD don't know they have it. Most cases are early (stage G3), where treatment works best.
Kidney failure (ESRD): nearly 810,000 Americans are living with kidney failure — about 560,000 on dialysis and 250,000+ living with a functioning transplant. About 125,000 people start dialysis each year, and roughly 25,000 receive transplants.
The causes are concentrated: diabetes contributes to about 40% of new kidney failure cases, hypertension about 25% — together, two-thirds. This is why the same prevention messages (blood pressure, blood sugar, sodium) dominate kidney care.
Cost: Medicare spends over $50 billion yearly on ESRD — about 7% of the Medicare budget for 1% of beneficiaries. Per dialysis patient, that's roughly $100,000 per year.
The good news: CKD awareness is rising, and the modern treatment toolkit (SGLT2 inhibitors, GLP-1s, finerenone, better BP targets) has genuinely bent the curve — progression to kidney failure is no longer assumed for most diabetic kidney disease patients.
The bad news: most people still discover CKD late, at stage G4-G5, when prevention options have narrowed. The fix is not medical — it's the simple annual screen (blood creatinine + urine albumin) for everyone with diabetes, hypertension, or age 60+.
If you have risk factors and haven't been screened in the past year, this statistic page is your prompt: the test takes minutes, and every stage of CKD is more manageable the earlier it's found.
Updated August 2026. Figures from federal registries (USRDS, CDC, CMS) — the authoritative sources for US kidney statistics.
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This content is a general reference, not medical advice, a diagnosis, or a treatment plan. Do not change your diet, fluids, medicines, or dialysis plan without your nephrologist or renal dietitian. Individual recommendations depend on your labs, medications, conditions, and care plan.