The 9 Best Vacuums for Pet Hair, With Real-World Results on Fur from Our Tests in a Busy Cat and Dog Shelter

To find the best vacuum for pet hair that pulls fur from carpets, rugs, upholstery, and hard floors, we have tested 99 vacuums in a busy fur-filled pet shelter as well as in our homes with pets.

Powerful suction, a bristled brushroll that digs into carpets and upholstery, and HEPA filtration to capture allergens and odors are essential to make cleaning up after your pets a breeze. And luckily, there are plenty to choose from.

That's why, as Homes & Gardens' resident vacuum tester, my team of dedicated product experts and I have spent 1,000+ hours testing the world's best vacuum cleaners to verify that these are the nine best-on-test vacuums for pet hair for every budget and household.

Our One-Minute Verdict

The best vacuum for pet hair is the Shark POWERDETECT, a powerhouse that excels on every floor type with every debris type, cleaning every visible strand of pet hair in a single pass, even on carpet.

The Miele Guard L1 Cat & Dog actually performs better with stronger suction, but it's twice the price of the Shark and occasionally wraps with hair. It's worth every cent if you're looking for the strongest performance, though (or if you live in the UK, where it's more affordable).

If you prefer lightweight cleaning and convenience, the Dyson V15 Detect is the best cordless vacuum for pet hair, matching the cleaning power and pet hair pickup of a big, corded vacuum. It also has a green laser that illuminates hidden hair and debris, adaptive suction power to preserve your battery, tight, anti-allergenic HEPA filtration, and an attachment that can deep clean pet beds and furniture.

If you're looking to save money, the upright Bissell SurfaceSense is our best budget pick, costing $260, and the Shark PowerPro Pet is the best value cordless, costing around $280-$330.

A common and effective solution from pet owners is to invest in a robot vacuum that'll regularly take care of all the fur on the floor without your time and effort, and the eufy S1 Pro Omni is the best we've ever tested, as it’s one of the only robots that can remove deeply embedded fur from carpets and keep up with daily automated cleaning with the least hands-on maintenance.

Take our 30-second quiz to find the best vacuum for pet hair for your home:

Our Top Nine Pet Hair Vacuums at a Glance

Here's a quick overview of our best vacuums for pet hair. If any stand out, click on the jump links to take you to the more in-depth details below.

In-Depth Reviews: The Best Vacuums for Pet Hair

Here are our detailed test results for the very best vacuums for pet hair. We've personally tested every single one to see how they fared with fur.

1. Shark POWERDETECT Upright: Best Overall

Best for: Deep cleaning large homes with a mix of flooring, with long-haired and short-haired cats and dogs. Great on upholstery, too.

Our tester James Holland found that Shark's latest upright vacuum, the accurately-named POWERDETECT, works like a dream on pet hair.

'With one pass, the Shark POWERDETECT had basically picked up every visible piece of hair (as well as litter near the litter box) from the carpet, filling the dust bin with an amount of hair equal to a second cat,' he shared after his cat went through a period of heavy shedding, leaving his carpet in need of a deep clean.

His cat's fine, long, and wispy hair was easily vacuumed from low-pile carpets, medium-pile carpets, and hard floors, even when it had clumped into tumbleweeds.

The POWERDETECT was just as efficient on other debris types, too. Seasoning powder, flour, sugar, and cereal were all vacuumed in one pass, alongside plenty of dust and dander. It's a strong choice for capturing allergenic particles, pet kibble, and dried muddy pawprints that your pets can leave behind.

It boasts a HEPA vacuum filter as part of its 'Anti-Allergen Complete Seal', and a wide 12-inch floorhead that covers a great deal of ground with each movement. 'On top of that, it’s good at getting edges even without the attachment tools as the brushrolls extend almost completely to the edges of the floorhead.'

This is helped by the vacuum's ability to detect edges, floor types, and dust volumes to adjust suction power when needed. Move from a wooden floor to carpet, and the vacuum will increase the power to get deeper into the carpet fibers. You can also use Shark's signature 'Lift-Away' feature for tricky cleaning tasks like stairs or under furniture. You can detach the pod and use the motorized nozzle for an easier and more lightweight clean.

At the time of writing, it retails for $399.99 by itself, or $499.99 with the TruePet upgrade that comes with a self-cleaning pet power brush. It might seem a little steep compared to some of the more modest vacuums, but it's the most affordable and best value out of our top three picks, which all work flawlessly on pet hair.

Read more in our full Shark POWERDETECT review.

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2. Miele Guard L1 Cat & Dog: Best Canister

Best for: Deep cleaning large homes, short and long pet hair (but hair wrap when vacuuming longer hair), and odor retention.

For a versatile and high-performing pet hair cleaner, the Miele Guard L1 Cat & Dog is a stand-out choice. It boasts the strongest suction (and all-round best performance) out of every vacuum we've tested at Homes & Gardens.

When I tested the Guard L1 Cat & Dog at a pet shelter, it outperformed every other vacuum I'd used at the Bristol Animal Rescue Centre. This suction, paired with the specialized Miele TurboTeQ floorhead, allows the vacuum to pick up fur from both long and short-haired dogs, scraping stiff, needle-like hairs and the long, tumbleweed hairs left behind by Golden Retrievers.

This performance was consistent across bumpy entrance mats, low-pile carpet, thick rugs, and hard floors – although its main downside is that long hairs will wrap around the brushroll. This can be solved with a quick snip from a pair of scissors, though, or by using a $4 seam ripper set at Amazon, which gives you more precision.

It's easier to maneuver than the Shark POWERDETECT, as you're only carrying the handle while you clean, rather than pushing around a heavy vacuum. This means it's easier to do stairs, tight spaces, and under furniture – places where pet hair tends to build up.

It also has incredibly tight filtration, using vacuum bags that seal all hairs, dust, and allergens, and an activated charcoal air filter that traps odors, releasing air that was cleaner than before. It's the ideal choice if you or your family suffers from common household allergens like pet dander, and if your pets often leave lingering odors around the house. Its odor retention is more effective than every other vacuum in this guide.

Pet hair aside, the Guard L1 performed brilliantly in every vacuum test, demonstrating top-level cleaning power across fine, medium, and large debris:

It's also much more expensive in the US than it is in the UK (just £399 at Miele UK), but even at the US' $899 retail price, I'd say it's worth every cent, especially as it will last years and work out cheaper in the long term for cost per use than a budget alternative you will have to replace more often.

Read more in my full Miele Guard L1 Cat & Dog review.

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3. Dyson V15 Detect: Best Cordless Stick

Best for: Small to medium homes, short to long pet hair, no hair wrap, and quick clean-ups on carpets, hard floors, and upholstery.

If you prefer a more convenient vacuum – one that is lightweight, takes up hardly any space, and can be grabbed at a moment's notice – the Dyson V15 Detect is for you. It's the best cordless vacuum for pet hair we've tested, and one of the best in the world on every surface, and importantly, it never wraps with hair.

It boasts unparalleled suction and exceptional pet hair performance that you never find in a cordless stick, especially when using Dyson's dedicated Dyson Motorbar floorhead and hair screw tool.

Our expert tester Jaclyn Turner saw this first-hand when she tried the hair screw tool on her dog's lounge mat. She said, 'It is one of the only vacuum tools I've tried that not only revived the faux-sherpa bottom that is an absolute magnet for dirt but brightened the fleece top from a dusty blue back to its original turquoise.'

I have since retested the V15 Detect at a local pet shelter where the floors were absolutely full of dog and cat hair of all kinds. From fine cat hair to short, needle-like dog hair, the V15 Detect swiftly and effortlessly vacuumed it all from every surface.

Thick rugs, low-pile carpets, hard floors, stairs – it had no issue whatsoever vacuuming pet hair, and after spending hours there, not a single hair wrapped around the brushroll:

The Dyson V15 Detect, along with the newer (and more expensive) Dyson Gen5detect, leads our lineup of the best vacuums in the world. This is in part thanks to the green diode laser (see Glossary) which illuminates hair, dust and particles that the naked eye can't see:

If the vacuum gets to a particularly dusty part of the floor, or moves onto a rug or carpet, the V15 Detect will up the suction in a fraction of a second thanks to a particle sensor that measures microscopic dust particles in real-time.

But like most Dyson products, this quality comes at a cost. As it's one of the only cordless sticks that can match the cleaning power of a corded vacuum, it will cost $800+ outside of sale periods (but it can be discounted to as low as $599.99 during Black Friday, for example).

Read more in my full Dyson V15 Detect review.

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4. Bissell SurfaceSense Allergen Pet Lift-Off: Best Budget

Best for: Medium to large homes, short and long pet hair, no hair wrap, affordability.

Seasoned tester Camryn Rabideau has reviewed more than 50 vacuums across all types, brands, and budgets, and even she was impressed by how well the Bissell SurfaceSense Allergen Pet Lift-Off performs at this low price point. And between her and her three pets, there's short, medium, and long pet hair to be vacuumed.

It's hard to find an upright vacuum below $260, let alone one that can do a decent job of cleaning your floors, but as one of the most affordable picks in this guide, this model from Bissell might surprise you.

The Bissell SurfaceSense Upright did a fantastic job of vacuuming pet hair from rugs and carpets, even in the spots where Camryn's dogs hang out all day and collect hair.

Camryn's pets' hair has previously been challenging to clean because her cats and dogs shed different kinds of fur, from long and coarse strands, to short and stiff. This Bissell cleared the different strands almost as well as some vacuums that cost twice as much.

On hard floors, it was able to pull fur from a few inches away, showing that the 1000W motor, which is less powerful than other upright vacuums we've tested, can still create strong suction.

After a week of use, there wasn't any hair wrapped around the brushroll. The vacuum also comes with a motorized mini brush, one of the best vacuum attachments for pet hair when it comes to cleaning fur from furniture. Camryn used it to vacuum fur from her sofa and it managed it easily with its spinning rubber fins.

Pet hair performance aside, this is a nifty vacuum. It boasts the floor detection tech we love in premium models from Dyson and Shark, automatically adjusting its suction power as it passes from hard floors to carpets, or when it senses a particularly dirty area.

As one of the best multi-surface vacuums, it can clean general dirt and dust from any surface with ease. It might not do so as efficiently as the more expensive vacuums in this guide, but if you're on a budget, this cleaning power is more than plenty.

Read more in our full Bissell SurfaceSense Allergen Pet Lift-Off review.

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5. Shark PowerPro Pet: Best Value Cordless

Best for: Long pet hair, hard floors and low-pile carpet.

It may not clean as well as the top three in this guide, but if you'd prefer not to spend $400+ and want a cordless stick that can confidently handle pet hair, this is your best choice.

For its low price, it has surprisingly strong suction and is packed full of features that pet owners will love. It's HEPA-certified, has a completely anti-tangle floorhead, and a light that helps to illuminate hidden hairs, especially on low-pile carpet.

Cordless sticks aren't generally the best for cleaning pet hair, but after testing the Shark PowerPro Pet alongside the corded Dyson Big Ball Turbinehead, the Shark had vacuumed up more fur and didn't once wrap with hair.

It performed better on long, coarse fur than it did on short, pointy hair, as the shorter fur tended to remain stuck within the carpet fibers, but the long hair was easier to extract.

However, when vacuuming a thick rug, all visible strands of hair were vacuumed in around four passes in each spot. And for all other types of mess – dust, dirt, food, pet kibble, large debris – the PowerPro Pet does a great job, although its best performance is on hard floors:

Generally, this is one of the most intuitive vacuums I've used, and it's super easy to use with one hand. It automatically adjusts the power by sensing whether you're cleaning bare floors or carpets, and there's a toggle right by the handle if you need to activate 'max' mode, which is great for stubborn hairs.

The upholstery tool works well, too, and if you do repeated forward passes on sofas, car seats, or other soft surfaces, you'll be able to vacuum most (if not all) of the hairs.

And as it's a cordless stick, it takes up very little space in storage, but it frustratingly can't lean without rolling down, so you'll have to store the vacuum under a bed or in a closet.

Read more in my full Shark PowerPro Pet review.

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6. Black+Decker dustbuster furbster: Best Handheld

Best for: Quick clean-ups when pet hair appears, to prevent build-up, and make weekly cleans easier. It isn't HEPA-certified, and won't replace your vacuum cleaner.

Keeping a handheld vacuum nearby is a tip repeatedly recommended to us by professional cleaners to stay on top of pet hair at home. The Black+Decker dustbuster furbuster is the perfect choice for this, and it even comes with a handy charging station so that it's always ready when you need it.

Not only is this our best handheld vacuum for pet hair, but it's also the best handheld vacuum we've ever tested at Homes & Gardens. I was genuinely surprised that such a tiny vacuum could clean so well, and actually pull pet hair from carpets and furniture.

I tested the dustbuster furbuster in a local pet shelter full of cat and dog fur. I vacuumed thick rugs, low-pile carpet, hard floors, and furniture with it, and it cleans almost as well as one of the best cordless vacuums. This is rare for a handheld vacuum, especially for less than $100, and it's mostly owed to the motorized attachment that's an essential vacuum attachment for pet hair.

I was able to deep clean a rug that hadn't been vacuumed in weeks and was covered in dog hair. It was clean after just a few passes, and I didn't need to use the power boost, the higher suction mode that cleans even more comprehensively at the sacrifice of battery life.

The dustbuster furbuster's strong cleaning performance is so obvious that, each time I use it, the dustbin is more full of hair than I expected. When I tested it alongside the Black+Decker 12V MAX, the dustbin was almost empty in comparison. It's super easy to empty too, and you can pull out the filter to shake any stubborn dust loose, which helps to prevent your vacuum from losing suction power.

Read more in my full Black+Decker dustbuster furbuster AdvanceClean+ Cordless Pet review.

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7. Dyson V12 Detect Slim: Best for Small Homes

Best for: Quick daily cleaning of small homes with long pet hair, low-to-medium-pile carpet, hard floors, and upholstery, with no hair wrap.

The V12 Detect Slim is Dyson's smaller, lighter, and more affordable alternative to their market-leading Dyson V15 Detect and Dyson Gen5detect, which top many of our vacuum guides.

It carries the same features; the laser that illuminates hidden dust, the accurate particle sensors, and the automatic power adjustment are still just as useful. More importantly, it's still a high-performer when picking up hair, even if not quite as speedy as the Dyson V15 Detect.

Unlike the Dyson V15 Detect, the V12 Detect Slim also has a single power button, creating less of a strain on your hands while vacuuming. This goes well with the lighter weight: The cordless vacuum is agile, smooth and easy to use.

For some, the smaller size brings downsides such as a smaller dustbin, shorter battery life, and lesser suction power (150 air watts compared to the V15 Detect's 250).

This lesser suction power means that the V12 Detect Slim is better-suited to longer pet hair, as the brushroll is still just as effective at pulling up fur that it can touch, but not shorter hairs that can be trapped too deeply within the fibers.

But for those living in small homes, particularly those with hard floors, this is the perfect vacuum as you don't need such a large dustbin, and the battery will be ample to clean the whole apartment. And it still demonstrated strong cleaning power on low and medium-pile carpet, often pulling up every visible strand of hair.

In the dustbin, hair can occasionally wrap around the filter, but once again, this is super easy to remove. Even when it comes to stubborn dirt and dust, tapping the dustbin or moving the opener back and forth removes anything that's lodged.

Read more in my full Dyson V12 Detect Slim review.

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8. Shark CarpetXpert & Bissell Revolution: Best Carpet Cleaners for Pet Stains

Best for: Washing muddy pawprints and stains out of carpets and rugs.

Living with pets brings muddy paw prints and stains that can permanently damage or discolor your carpets, and investing in a carpet cleaner is the single most effective way to deep clean your carpets and remove stains as and when they appear.

From our extensive tests in our homes and a local pet shelter, these are the two best carpet cleaners for pets (but for different reasons):

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9. eufy S1 Pro Omni: Best Robot for Pet Hair

Best for: Hands-off daily pet hair cleaning, mopping pawprints and stains, and reducing the intensity of weekly cleans. For medium to large homes, on carpets and hard floors.

I've spoken with dozens of consumers about the struggles of how to vacuum pet hair, and one solution stood out the most: Invest in a robot vacuum. It's the most effective way to stay on top of the frequent cleaning without having to dedicate hours of the day to it, as a robot vacuum can clean your floors as often as multiple times a day.

The eufy S1 Pro Omni is the best robot vacuum for pet hair that we've tested. Many of the robot vacuums we test can do a decent job of vacuuming the floors but struggle to pull hair from carpets (and the hair that does get vacuums gets wrapped around the roller).

But the eufy S1 Pro Omni didn't get a single hair tangled during a whole month of testing. Homes & Gardens' Head of Solved, Punteha van Terheyden, has kept the robot vacuum since, and it continues to be a savior from pet hair, reducing how often she uses her canister vacuum by about 90%. She has not had to remove hair from the rollers once in more than a year of daily use.

The robot leaves 'nothing on hard floors when it comes to pet hair and dust, and picks up much more than any canister vacuum I've owned on carpet,' Punteha says. This level of cleaning is almost unheard of in a robot vacuum; the only other we've tested with similar performance is the iRobot Roomba Combo j9+, but it's still not as thorough as the eufy.

It's also an impressive mop, using a cleaning solution (rather than just water) to sanitize your floors regularly. Punteha said after testing: 'It tackled sticky, sugary liquid spills with ease, sensing the spill and adjusting how many times it needed to go over the area without my input.

'Much like the tests available to view on the manufacturer’s website, this robot vacuum also easily cleared through coffee, milk and ketchup stains with zero issues, residue, or spread.' Punteha has tested two other eufy robot vacuums as well as SwitchBots, and they do not cope with the ketchup. With the S1 Omni Pro, you can confidently say goodbye to muddy paw prints.

Its only downside is the price. It costs $1,500 at full price (and around $200-400 less if on sale), making it one of the most expensive options available.

The eufy X10 Pro Omni is a great alternative if you're on a budget, but we learned that you need to buy a separate rubber-only eufy roller to be able to deal with pet hair. Otherwise, you'll be cutting out hair from the bristle brush roll after every vacuuming session.

Read more in our full eufy S1 Pro Omni review.

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More Pet Hair Vacuums We Tested and Recommend

So there you have it. Those are the very best nine vacuums for pet hair, and in my professional opinion, the only ones that are truly worth considering for any home.

That being said, we've tested some other worthy contenders that didn't quite make the cut. They may have some unique features that your household would benefit from, so I've included the highlights below.

• As I mentioned above, the Dyson Gen5detect is actually the best cordless vacuum for pet hair out of all the models we've tested, but it's $100s more expensive than the Dyson V15 Detect with only a slight increase in suction.
• The Shark Cordless PowerDetect, Tineco Pure One Station and Samsung Bespoke Jet all have cleaning stations that store weeks' worth of dust and hair, minimizing how often you're coming into contact with allergens. Of the three, the Shark cleaned the best on test.
• The Miele Complete C3 Cat & Dog is an excellent canister vacuum that's one of the best we've tested on pet hair, but it's also the most expensive at over $1,200. Like the Miele Guard L1 in this guide, it's a bagged vacuum, making it great for capturing allergens.
• The Miele Triflex HX2 is almost as strong at picking up pet hair as Dyson's cordless vacuums, but it's heavier and bulkier. It does have a more customizable design, however, and is able to be configured as a top-heavy or flexible cordless stick.
• If you only have hard floors, the Ultenic U16 Flex may very well be all you need, costing $100s less than most of the vacuums in this guide. It's cheap and therefore not the most durable, but it does have a green dust- and hair-revealing laser like the Dysons.

How to Choose the Best Vacuum for Pet Hair

One of the things I've learned from testing at a pet shelter is that pet hair is one of the vacuum cleaner's biggest challenges, as it clings to carpet fibers while generating static to stubbornly grip surfaces. It can also easily wrap around ineffective brushrolls, causing a loss in suction and more appliance maintenance over time.

And because pet hair is a common household allergen, you also need to contain fur and dander to prevent symptoms. You need a strong suction that can pick up all pet hair without any shaking loose, and a HEPA filter to contain the fine particles inside the vacuum's dust container.

Suction is often measured in air watts, but can be difficult to accurately quantify as it's influenced by other factors such as motor type, airflow design, and brushroll efficacy. This is why it's important to read reviews for real-world analysis of how they perform.

For hard floors, having pure suction flow through the cleaner makes more sense for hair, but look out for a cleaner that has a soft brush, designed to pick up pet dander and microscopic bits of dust first.

Otherwise, look out for regular accessories (dusting brushes, crevice tools and so on) for getting into those hard-to-reach areas and removing all traces of pet hair from your home.

You can find more insight in our guide on how to choose the best vacuum cleaner for your home. Factors like having young children, different flooring types, the size of your home and how many levels there are should all be considered when choosing the right one.

Motorized Brushrolls vs. Standard Heads

When dealing with carpets or rugs, look for a motorized brushroll with rigid bristles to agitate and loosen hair so that it can be sucked up from deep within the carpet fibers.

Tools for dealing with pet hair around the house are just as important. A mini motorized brush can be your best friend, giving you the same qualities as a floor brush in a smaller package that can help clean up pet beds and upholstery with ease, while avoiding hair wrap.

Any motorized tool with tangle-free technology is worth looking for, as you won’t have to worry about cleaning stuck hair so often (see our favorites in the best vacuum attachments for pet hair section).

Why HEPA Filtration is Non-Negotiable for Pet Owners

Ensuring you choose a vacuum with the right filter type is essential. A HEPA filter (or better) is a must for trapping microscopic particles like pet dander and dust that can trigger allergies. Filters have to meet rigorous testing standards to be able to be labeled HEPA, as it must be able to trap at least 99.97% of airborne particles that are 0.3 microns in size.

Be careful of brands that state 'HEPA-style' or 'HEPA-like' filters, as these won't have met the standard.

Pet Vacuums vs. Regular Vacuums

When we think about 'pet' vacuums, you might imagine special vacuum attachments for pet hair, HEPA filtration, powerful suction and bristled brushrolls to dig stubborn fur out of carpet. These are the essentials for pet owners.

Each brand produces their own unique product lines, so 'pet vacuum' can mean different things, even if they all share these features:

• Some pet vacuums are an upgrade from their 'regular' counterparts, with additional attachments.
• Some pet vacuums are specially designed as a pet vacuum, without any alternative non-pet model.
• Some pet vacuums aren't labeled as such, but have all the features of a pet vacuum.

Ultimately, as long as the vacuum has the essential features for cleaning pet hair, it doesn't make a huge difference whether the vacuum is labelled as a 'pet' vacuum or not.

Tick off this three-point checklist to make sure the vacuum will work well on pet hair: HEPA filtration, motorized and anti-tangle brushroll, and powerful suction to help deal with shorter fur.

What Are the Best Vacuum Attachments for Pet Hair?

After spending hundreds of hours testing vacuums for pet hair, both in our homes with pets and in a local pet shelter that's riddled with cat and dog fur, we've learned exactly which attachments are essential when keeping a home clean with pets.

These are: A motorized anti-tangle brushroll, a small hair tool, and a grooming attachment if you want to clean pet hair before it hits the floor:

How We Test Vacuum Cleaners for Pet Hair

(Image credit: Future)

We have an in-depth guide detailing our vacuum testing methodology, but briefly, when it comes to pet hair vacuums, we test them in our homes, in our test center, and in a local pet shelter for high-volume pet hair and mess testing.

It's important to us that we test these appliances on actual pet hair. That's why we test vacuums in a local pet shelter (Bristol ARC) that is absolutely full of cat and dog hair, on carpets, thick rugs, entrance mats, hard floors, and soft furniture.

And crucially, we work with expert vacuum testers who have pets in their homes and can commit to prolonged testing for real-world results.

We also assess how well each vacuum can capture odors, so that our furry friends' smells aren't re-released back into our homes. We evaluate HEPA filter performance and test each vacuum attachment to see how well it can pick up fur from furniture.

For more general household messes, we test each vacuum in our test center on carpet, linoleum, and wood flooring. Our pantry tests include vacuuming set amounts of flour and sugar, which is a common kitchen spill, but also substitutes well for dust and dead skin. We also test our vacuums on cereal and lentils, which shows how well the appliances pick up, crush, or ping away larger debris.

We test the vacuum cleaners for a number of weeks (sometimes months) so we get a feel for the longevity and durability of each model. In some instances, we are also fortunate enough to keep the vacuum cleaners after writing up the review, so we can continue to learn about them and share our findings with you by updating our reviews and buying guides, such as this.

In every test, we look out for factors such as maneuverability, run-time, smart features, emptying of the dust bin (or bag), and general controls so you know exactly what you are getting for your money. We compare the vacuums we test against predecessors, and assess their test results against the price to see if it's worth the spend.

We also take into account how heavy they are and note physical fatigue or discomfort from using them.

Meet Our Expert Testers

FAQs

What's the Best Cordless Vacuum for Pet Hair?

The Dyson V15 Detect is one of the best cordless vacuum cleaners on the market, and it's particularly adept at picking up pet hair, dust and dander. The V15 Detect comes equipped with a Piezo sensor, which is powerful enough to locate and capture particles and pathogens as small as 10 microns for a quick deep clean. There's also an anti-tangle conical bar brush to save you from picking out the pet hairs with your fingers. Retailing for around $800, the V15 Detect is expensive, but it's the best in the business.

What is the Best Shark Pet Vacuum?

The Shark POWERDETECT Upright is the best Shark pet vacuum by miles, and also one of the top two most effective vacuum cleaners we've ever tested on pet hair. As outlined above, it pulls fur (and all other household messes) from the thickest of carpets in a single sweep, thanks to its relentlessly powerful suction and carpet-agitating brushroll.

The Shark Cordless PowerDetect is a great pick if you're looking for a cordless model and it confidently cleaned up after a heavy shedding cat, but it isn't as capable as the POWERDETECT Upright. Still, its lightweight design provides more flexible and convenient cleaning, and in smaller homes it takes up less storage space.

What's the Best Robot Vacuum for Pet Hair?

The best robot vacuum for pet hair is without a doubt the eufy S1 Pro Omni as delved into above. But a cheaper alternative is the iRobot Roomba j9+ [at Amazon], which not only has good pickup performance, an auto-emptying bin so you can basically set it and forget it, and amazing navigating skills, but it also has features designed specifically for pet parents, including the ability to avoid pet accidents, pet toys, food bowls, cords, and many others.

What's the Best Vacuum for Picking Up Pet Hair on a Couch?

For removing pet hair from a couch or other upholstery, you're looking for either a handheld vacuum like the Black+Decker dustbuster furbuster AdvanceClean+ Pet [at Amazon] in this guide, or a vacuum with a mini upholstery tool that makes it easy to vacuum across delicate fabrics.

The best Dyson vacuums, like the V15 Detect, V12 Detect Slim and Ball Animal 2, tend to come with these attachments. Most cordless and handheld vacuum styles will be sufficient for removing pet hair and dander from upholstery.

Do HEPA Filters Help to Pick Up Pet Hair and Dander?

When sucking up dust and pet hair, it’s often not what you can see that causes irritation and allergic reactions, but the microscopic dust that you can’t.

Pet dander, for example, are microscopic skin cells shed from animals that cause reactions in people with allergies.

The best HEPA vacuums are designed and certified to prevent these particles from escaping the vacuum cleaner, sealing in the dirt that’s collected. This is very important in a pet vacuum cleaner, particularly if anyone in the house (or a regular visitor) has sensitivities to your animals.

Is a Bagless or Bagged Vacuum Better for Picking Up Pet Hair?

As discussed above, a vacuum cleaner with HEPA filters is what you need if you suffer from allergies, keeping the microscopic irritants sealed inside the dust bin.

When it comes to picking up pet hair, both bagged and bagless vacuums can do the trick if the vacuum is well-designed. However, the big issue is what happens when you empty a vacuum.

For bagless cleaners, emptying has to be done with care, as opening the bin can create a cloud of dust, releasing smaller particles back into the air, causing issues for those with allergies.

Bagged vacuum cleaners have an extra level of protection, as the bags act as additional filters to prevent particle escape, but you also remove and throw away the dirt without exposing it to fresh air. Look for a cleaner that has self-sealing bags for the best results.

As such, bagged vacuum cleaners are often easier to deal with for households where members are very sensitive to allergens., but don't forget that there'll be recurring costs as you'll have to continue to buy vacuum bags.

That doesn’t make bagless cleaners a poor choice, though – just be careful how and where you empty the vacuum’s bin. To prevent the spreading of allergens, a vacuum bin should be ejected either down, directly into a larger internal bin or, for additional safety, emptied in the same way into an outside bin.

Best Vacuum for Pet Hair – Glossary

Here are some helpful terms to know for pet hair vacuums:

• Floorhead: The main vacuum cleaner attachment for floor cleaning (i.e. not the crevice tool, dusting brush etc). Some vacuums have separate floorheads for hard floors and carpets.
• Brushroll: Rotating cylinders within the floorhead (and occasionally in smaller, motorized attachments). They can be soft, fluffy rollers for hard floors or bristled to dig deep into carpets. Many vacuums from brands like Shark and Dyson will have two brushrolls in their main floorhead.
• Wand/hose: Long tube connecting the vacuum cleaner to the floorhead (or any attachments).
• Filter: Responsible for trapping the debris and particles as air passes through. Vacuums can have pre-motor filters and post-motor filters, to trap debris of different sizes at different points along the airflow.
• HEPA filter: Filter type that's able to capture at least 99.97% of particles as small as 0.3 microns. It's a necessity in a pet hair vacuum as it's able to trap allergenic particles like pet dander (and household allergens like dust and pollen).
• Motor: The core component of a vacuum cleaner (it's also referred to as a suction motor). This is what converts the electrical power into mechanical power to create suction and airflow.
• Bagged/bagless: Some vacuums, typically older ones, use vacuum bags that you dispose of once full. Most vacuums are now bagless and have a dustbin that you conveniently empty when needed, without the need to buy additional bags. Bagged vacuums still have their advantages however, like dust-free emptying, complete odor and particle capture, and less filter maintenance.
• Detection: Some vacuums are able to 'detect' the type of flooring, how dusty/dirty the floor is, whether you're vacuuming edges, or which direction you're vacuuming. They can then automatically adjust suction power, as vacuuming carpet, edges and dust-heavy floors requires extra power, while vacuuming a fairly clean wooden floor doesn't require as much – saving energy or battery life.
• Power/air watts: A vacuum cleaner's power is best measured via air watts, reflecting the airflow and suction power in real terms. It's calculated by multiplying the airflow (in cubic metres per second) by the suction pressure (in pascals), accounting for variables like blockages or different-sized openings (from different vacuum attachments, for example).
• FluffyOptic (Dyson): The most advanced floorhead in Dyson's latest vacuums (the Gen5detect, V15 Detect and V12 Detect Slim) designed primarily for hard floors. It features a green laser that reveals hidden dust that the naked eye can't see.
• DuoClean PowerFins (Shark): Floorhead featured in many of Shark's vacuums. 'While a soft front roller pulls in particles, PowerFins deliver nonstop contact to pick up more in every pass.'
• QuadClean (Shark): Shark floorhead that can adapt to different floor types and dust levels.

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It's crucial to bear in mind that these are just the best vacuums for pet hair; other vacuums have different qualities that are worth considering.

We've also covered the best Dyson alternatives for affordable quality without compromising on performance, and the best robot vacuums for hands-off cleaning.