U.S. Beef Prices 2026: Ground Beef, Steak Prices, Deals & Where to Buy
- Ground beef averaged $6.88 per pound in July 2026, the US city average in the government’s own price survey. Sirloin steak averaged $14.59 and round steak $10.04.
- Every beef cut is up year on year, from +4.7% for lean ground beef to +15.5% for round steak. Ground beef itself is +10.1%.
- This is not general meat inflation. Over the same twelve months bacon fell 7.5% and whole chicken fell 3.5%.
- The ten-year numbers are the striking ones. Ground beef has gone from $3.69 to $6.88 — up 86.6% — while whole chicken rose 38.8% and bacon 20.7%.
- A national average is the only sensible yardstick for a ‘deal’. Our beef price checker compares a per-pound price you type against the published figure for that exact cut.
Ground beef averaged $6.88 a pound in July 2026. Sirloin steak averaged $14.59. Those are the US city averages from the government’s own price survey, and every beef cut in it is more expensive than a year ago.
What makes the numbers interesting is what sits beside them. Over the same twelve months, bacon got cheaper and so did chicken.
How much does ground beef cost in 2026?
$6.88 per pound for 100% ground beef, as of July 2026. Ground chuck is almost identical at $6.85, and lean or extra-lean ground beef is $8.41.
The gap between regular and lean is the one worth noticing: about $1.53 a pound, or roughly 22% more, for the leaner grind.
Within 2026 itself the price has been steadier than the annual figure suggests. The monthly averages have run $6.75, $6.74, $6.70, $6.90, $6.75, $6.83, $6.88 from January through July — a low of $6.70 in March and a high of $6.90 in April. The year-on-year jump is real, but most of it happened before this year started rather than during it.
How much are steak prices in 2026?
$14.59 a pound for boneless sirloin and $10.04 for boneless round, both USDA Choice. Sirloin is the most expensive item in this set by some distance — more than double the price of ground beef.
Round steak is the cut to watch, though, because it has moved fastest.
The sirloin-to-ground ratio is a useful piece of shorthand. Sirloin currently costs about 2.1 times what ground beef does. When you are deciding whether a steak night is worth it, that multiple is the actual trade-off — roughly 2.1 pounds of ground beef for every pound of sirloin, at the national average.
Is beef more expensive than a year ago?
Yes, in every cut. Round steak is up +15.5% on the year, ground beef +10.1%, ground chuck +8.1%, sirloin +7.7% and lean ground beef +4.7%.
| Cut | Jul 2026 | Year | 10 yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ground beef, 100% beef | $6.88 | +10.1% | +86.6% |
| Ground chuck | $6.85 | +8.1% | +79.9% |
| Ground beef, lean and extra lean | $8.41 | +4.7% | +43.5% |
| Steak, sirloin | $14.59 | +7.7% | +71.2% |
| Steak, round | $10.04 | +15.5% | +74.2% |
| Bacon | $6.58 | -7.5% | +20.7% |
| Chicken, fresh, whole | $2.00 | -3.5% | +38.8% |
Is this just general food inflation?
No, and the last two rows of that table are the evidence. Bacon is -7.5% over the same twelve months and whole chicken is -3.5%. Both are cheaper than they were a year ago while every beef cut is dearer.
That matters for how you read this. If your grocery bill has gone up and you assumed everything in the meat aisle moved together, it did not. Beef moved; its most obvious substitutes went the other way.
We are not going to tell you why. The survey records prices and not causes, and we have not verified an explanation first-party — so anything offered here about herds, feed or drought would be a story rather than a finding.
How much has beef risen over ten years?
Ground beef has nearly doubled: $3.69 in 2016-07 to $6.88 now, up 86.6%. Sirloin is up 71.2%, round steak 74.2% and ground chuck 79.9%.
Set that against the same decade for the alternatives: whole chicken +38.8% and bacon +20.7%. Beef has not just been rising — it has been rising faster than the things people buy instead of it, for years.
Ten years is long enough for the compounding to matter. A household buying two pounds of ground beef a week paid about $384 a year for it at 2016-07 prices and would pay about $716 now — a difference of roughly $332 a year on that one item alone. That is the arithmetic behind the feeling, and it is why beef shows up in grocery-bill complaints more than items that rose by more in percentage terms but cost less per pound.
What counts as a good beef price?
Anything meaningfully below the national average for that specific cut — and the second half of that sentence is where most “deals” advice falls down. A sirloin at $6.88 would be extraordinary; ground beef at $6.88 is simply average.
That is what our beef price checker is for. Choose the cut, type the per-pound price on the label, and it tells you how far above or below the published national figure it sits. It uses the same government data as this article.
Two things will make a shelf price look better or worse than it is, and neither is a bargain. The first is the lean ratio: 73/27 grind is cheaper per pound than 90/10 and they are not the same product, so compare like with like. The second is pack size, because family packs are usually priced lower per pound than single-pound trays — which means a per-pound comparison against a family pack flatters the store. If the label gives you a package price, divide it by the weight before comparing anything.
Where should you buy beef in 2026?
Wherever beats the benchmark, which you now have. To put one real store against it: on Walmart’s site, with a Sacramento ZIP set, ground beef listings ran from about $6.76 to $8.47 a pound when we looked — straddling the $6.88 national average rather than sitting under it.
That is the honest shape of grocery shopping advice. There is no single cheapest retailer nationally, prices are set locally, and the useful thing is not a shop name but a number to measure shops against. Warehouse clubs and butcher counters are worth checking precisely because you can now tell whether their price is genuinely good.
Three habits get more out of the benchmark than any shop recommendation would. Check the per-pound figure rather than the sticker, because pack weights differ and the shelf label always carries both. Compare the same grind or grade, since a lean ground beef price measured against the regular benchmark will look bad when it is not. And treat a price well under the average as a question rather than a win — a large gap usually has a reason, whether that is a near-date pack, a higher fat ratio or a smaller cut than the survey’s item.
Where do these numbers come from?
The BLS Average Price survey, which publishes a US city average for named grocery items every month. Each series here was pulled from its own page on the BLS site, which carries the official title alongside the monthly table.
One quirk is worth knowing if you go looking yourself: October 2025 is missing from every one of these series, footnoted by BLS as unavailable because of the 2025 lapse in appropriations. It is a real hole in the data rather than a zero, and any year-on-year figure that ignores it will be a month out.
The survey is also more specific than it looks. Each series names an exact item — “Ground beef, 100% beef, per lb.” is a different series from “Ground chuck, 100% beef, per lb.” and from “Ground beef, lean and extra lean” — and the numbers are only comparable within a series. That precision is the reason the figures on this page are worth something, and it is also the reason a headline like “beef is up X%” without a named cut tells you very little.