Pick a restaurant, book the reservation, get a haircut, factor in the rideshare, then hand over your card at the end of the night.
That full sequence has a price most people have never actually added up. A fresh national survey did the math.
The number is higher than most daters expect, and it is rising faster than almost any other household expense. So what is actually driving a single date past the $189 mark?
Why every night out carries an invisible tab before you leave the house
The mechanism behind rising date costs is layered spending, not a single big ticket. When surveyors ask people what a date costs, most think of dinner and drinks. But the real bill starts earlier: a haircut or salon visit, a new outfit or dry cleaning, gas or a rideshare, parking, then the meal itself.
The average all-in spend on a date in America, including pre-date grooming and transport, has reached $189, up 12.5% from $168 in 2025. Over the same period, broader consumer prices rose at a fraction of that pace. That jump far outpaced the broader cost of living.
Even a dater who felt careful about money watched the real cost of a night out climb at more than four times the rate of everything else in the economy. The grooming and transport line items are exactly the part most people forget to count.
Twelve dates a year and the $2,323 annual bill hiding in plain sight
Those per-date costs compound quickly. Americans who dated went out about 12 times in the past year, down from around 14 in 2025. Yet the total annual bill still rose, landing at $2,323 on average.
The generational split inside that average is striking. The average date for a millennial now costs $252, a 32% jump from the previous year. Gen Z spends $205 on average. Both figures rival a night in a mid-range hotel, for a single evening with someone they may never see again.
And then there are the apps underneath all of it. The global online dating market has grown into roughly a $12 billion industry, supported by more than 350 million users worldwide. The typical paying subscriber spends well above the headline average on monthly fees and premium features, a cost that sits entirely outside the $2,323 annual tab. Both bills run simultaneously, and most people track neither.
Where the data comes from and what the methodology captured
The research was conducted by Ipsos in the US on behalf of the BMO Real Financial Progress Index, drawing on a sample of 2,501 adults ages 18 and older, with quotas and weighting applied to reflect census parameters, giving the survey demographic breadth across age groups and income bands.
The survey is a primary financial-behavior tracker, not a dating-industry product. Its all-in methodology captures grooming, the journey there, and the outing itself, surfacing costs that apps and restaurants never publish. Respondents were asked to include every dollar spent getting ready for and traveling to the date, not just the bill at the table. That framing explains why the number is higher than most people’s instinctive guess.
Nearly half of single Americans, 47%, now say dating is no longer financially worth it. It is also a signal worth watching for anyone tracking how Americans form long-term partnerships under elevated costs.
Where date-flation hits hardest and who absorbs the most
The cost burden is not distributed evenly across a table for two. Nearly three in four men, 71%, say they expect to pay for everything on a date early in a relationship. That asymmetry means the $189 all-in average is not the lived experience for everyone in the same outing.
Financial honesty has a measurable dollar value inside relationships. Two in three Americans (66%) say they are always financially forthcoming with their romantic partners. Those who report being financially honest spend an average of $182 per date, compared to nearly $195 among those who say they are not. Openness about money correlates with slightly lower spending, possibly because honest couples negotiate plans rather than defaulting to the most expensive option.
Among people in serious relationships, 58% say they are financially dependent on their partner, up from 40% just a year ago. That 18-point jump in a single year suggests economic pressure inside relationships is rising sharply, not only in the search phase.
What daters are changing and where the behavior goes next
Half of Americans who date say they have gone on fewer dates or chosen less expensive activities because of the high cost of living. Some are moving toward free or low-cost alternatives: walks, home cooking, free museum days.
The restaurant industry, where drinks and dining out are already under pressure from shifting consumer priorities, is one of the first places that adjustment shows up.
BMO’s Paul Dilda, Head of U.S. Consumer Strategy, described the result as a K-shaped dating economy: “At one end, people are slashing dating expenses entirely, either by skipping date night or by swapping the restaurant for a home-cooked meal and the movie tickets for popcorn on the couch. On the other, some are deciding an expensive date is worth the dent in their wallets.” Both trends are accelerating at the same time, which is what makes the $189 average somewhat misleading as a single summary number.
Dating has joined the list of everyday American activities where the full, all-in cost turns out to be considerably higher than people assumed. The $2,323 annual figure is real, confirmed, and growing. Whether it plateaus as broader inflation moderates, or whether counting every dollar changes how people approach romance long-term, is the question the next survey will have to answer.
