Cat Food Calculator
Find out how many calories your cat needs and how much wet and dry food that means at each meal.
That is 0.65 cups of dry food a day, or 0.33 cups dry at each of 2 meals. Weigh your cat every few weeks and change the portion by about 10% if the weight drifts.
A starting point from AAHA guidelines. Your vet's advice comes first, especially for kittens, older cats and cats with a health condition.
Calories by body weight
Drag the brass point to change the weightCalories rise more slowly than weight: a cat twice as heavy needs about 1.7 times as much. At 10 lb your neutered or spayed adult needs 261 kcal a day; at half that weight it would need 155 kcal.
Wet and dry
- Dry food
- 261 kcal
- Wet food
- 0 kcal
- Whole day
- 261 kcal
The split is by calories, not by volume: wet food has far fewer calories per bite, so half the calories is much more than half the food in the bowl.
Each meal
| Meal | kcal | Dry |
|---|---|---|
| Meal 1 | 131 | 0.33 cups |
| Meal 2 | 131 | 0.33 cups |
Treats
Turn this on to take treat calories off the meals, so the day stays the same.
Every life stage at 10 lb
| Life stage | Factor | Dry cups | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neutered or spayed adult | × 1.2 | 261 | 0.65 |
| Intact adult | × 1.4 | 305 | 0.76 |
| Inactive or prone to gain | × 1 | 218 | 0.54 |
| Weight loss, at target weight | × 0.8 | 174 | 0.44 |
| Kitten | × 2.5 | 544 | 1.36 |
Factors from the AAHA 2021 guidelines, at the low end of each range. Indoor and less active cats often need less.
Guidelines
- Treats (WSAVA)
- under 10% of calories
- Weight loss (AAHA)
- 0.5% to 2% a week
- Ideal body condition
- 5 on a 9-point scale
For a 10 lb cat, 0.5% to 2% is 0.05 to 0.2 lb a week. Faster loss can cause a dangerous fatty liver.
How it's worked out
The tool starts from the resting energy requirement (RER), the calories a cat burns lying still in a comfortable room. Vets work it out from body weight in kilograms with the formula in the 2021 AAHA nutrition guidelines, which comes from the National Research Council's work on cat and dog nutrition.
The power of 0.75 means calories rise more slowly than weight. A 4 kg cat needs about 238 kcal a day and an 8 kg cat about 400, not twice as much.
The life stage factor covers activity, growth and neutering. The tool uses 1.2 for a neutered adult, 1.4 for an intact adult, 1 for an inactive cat, 0.8 for weight loss and 2.5 for a kitten. These are the low ends of the AAHA ranges, because AAHA notes that indoor cats often need less.
Then it turns calories into food. It takes treat calories off first, splits the rest between wet and dry food by the share you pick, and divides by the calories on each label: kcal per cup or per kg for dry food, kcal per can for wet food.
Worked examples
Mochi, a 10 lb indoor cat
Mochi is neutered, lives indoors and eats dry food with 400 kcal per cup. Her RER is 218 kcal, and times 1.2 that makes 261 kcal a day. That is 0.65 cups of kibble, or 0.33 cups at each of two meals. Open this example in the tool
Half wet, half dry, with treats
A 4.5 kg cat needs 260 kcal. Her owner gives 20 kcal of treats, 8% of the day, which leaves 240 kcal for meals. Half of that from 80 kcal cans is 1.5 cans a day, and the other half is 0.3 cups of dry food. Open this example in the tool
A diet to 5 kg
Leo weighs 6.2 kg and his vet sets a target of 5 kg. For weight loss the tool feeds 0.8 times the RER of the target weight: 187 kcal a day, or 0.53 cups of a 350 kcal food. At his current weight he would maintain on about 330 kcal. A safe pace for him is 0.03 to 0.12 kg a week. Open this example in the tool
Reading your result
The big number is the calories your cat needs in a day. Under it are the portions. Cups assume a level standard measuring cup, so use the same cup every time or, better, weigh the food on a kitchen scale.
Treat it as a starting point. Cats of the same weight can need quite different amounts. Weigh your cat every 2 to 4 weeks and change the portion by about 10% if the weight moves the wrong way. Your vet's advice comes before any calculator, especially for kittens, seniors and cats with kidney disease, diabetes or other conditions.
Vets judge weight with a body condition score. On the WSAVA 9-point scale, 5 is ideal: you can feel the ribs under a thin layer of fat and see a waist from above. For weight loss, AAHA and the Tufts veterinary nutrition team suggest losing 0.5% to 2% of body weight a week. Faster loss can trigger hepatic lipidosis, a dangerous fatty liver disease. WSAVA advises keeping treats under 10% of daily calories.
Common mistakes
- Using the bag's feeding chart as the amount. Bag charts cover a wide range of cats and are often generous. Calories from your cat's weight are more precise.
- Splitting wet and dry by volume. A can of wet food has far fewer calories than a cup of kibble. Split by calories, as the tool does, or the cat ends up overfed.
- Feeding a dieting cat for its current weight. For weight loss, enter the target weight and pick Weight loss.
- Forgetting the extras. Treats, dental chews and bits from your plate all count. Turn on Count treats so they come out of the meals.
- Heaped scoops. A heaped cup holds noticeably more than a level one. Weigh the food once to learn what a level portion looks like.
Questions people ask
Sources
- Baldwin, K. et al. (2010). AAHA Nutritional Assessment Guidelines for Dogs and Cats. Journal of the American Animal Hospital Association 46, 285-296
- Cline, M. G. et al. (2021). AAHA Nutrition and Weight Management Guidelines for Dogs and Cats
- WSAVA Global Nutrition Committee, Global Nutrition Guidelines
- National Research Council (2006). Nutrient Requirements of Dogs and Cats. National Academies Press
Maintained by Anil ShahUpdated October 28, 2026Checked against 15 reference values