These Are the Most Popular Dog Halloween Costumes in Each US State

Halloween 2023 is fast approaching, but pet owners still have time to pick out adorable—and safe—costumes for their fur babies.

Like costumes for adults and children, pet costumes can be homemade or purchased in stores and online, with costume intricacy varying widely from one participating pet owner to the next.

Data collected by the National Retail Federation (NRF) has found that pumpkin costumes are the most popular for pets across the U.S., with an estimated 11 percent of pets whose owners dress them in Halloween costumes donning them in pumpkin attire.

Pumpkins and Hot Dogs

At the state level, pumpkins are also the most popular dog Halloween costumes among pet owners who live in Alaska, California, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin, according to new polling results shared with Newsweek by the online gaming and entertainment site OnlineCasino.ca.

Pumpkin costumes were also tied for the most popular with devil costumes in Georgia, ghosts in Nevada and West Virginia, and hot dogs in New Jersey. Hot dog costumes, which NRF data shows are the second-most popular for pets at the national level, were also tied for most popular in Arizona (alongside ghost costumes) and in Indiana (alongside witch costumes). They also topped the list of most popular costumes for dogs in Kentucky, Maine and Oklahoma.

The OnlineCasino.ca poll, which was conducted on October 12, asked 3,000 Americans to identify their favorite Halloween costumes for themselves and their pets and broke that data down by state. Pollsters found that 47 percent of respondents who had pets said they intended to put them in Halloween costumes this year.

Bats and Bumblebees

After pumpkins and hot dogs, NRF data identified bats and bumblebees as the third- and fourth-most popular pet Halloween costumes nationwide, respectively. The OnlineCasino.ca data reviewed by Newsweek showed bat costumes are most popular for dogs in Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York and Pennsylvania. Bats were tied for the most popular costume with superheroes in Michigan, ghosts in Ohio and bumblebees in South Carolina. Bumblebees were also tied with dinosaurs in Missouri, and were most popular in Oregon and Utah.

Lions, Vampires and Dinosaurs

Poll respondents in Connecticut and Washington picked lion costumes as their favorite for dogs. Vampire costumes topped the list in Wyoming, while spiders were the leading costume picks in North Carolina and tied for first with dinosaurs in Kansas. Dinosaur costumes also tied with Chucky costumes in Illinois and were the top choice in Mississippi.

Ghosts and Devils

Florida respondents picked ghost dog costumes as their favorite. Ghosts also tied for the top pick in Alabama alongside a devil costume. While pollsters were able to clearly identify the top one or two dog costume picks for most states, they reported "insufficient data" in the following places: Arkansas, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island and Vermont.

Heading into this year's spooky season, the NRF has predicted Halloween spending will reach a new record amount of $12.2 billion this year. An estimated $700 million is expected to be spent on pet costumes.