U.S. Hardwood Market: Hardwood closed 2025 down 3%, after declining over 13% in 2024 – May 2026

By Jessica Chevalier

Sales of hardwood in the U.S. declined 3% to an estimated $2.065 billion, a significant improvement from 2024’s 13.4% drop. The success of the category last year can likely be attributed to two factors: the fact that the consumers who were spending last year were higher-end buyers with a preference for better goods like hardwood, and, for some purveyors, the implementation of price increases to combat the rising cost of goods sold.

That said, last year’s performance was hard fought. No one would classify it as an easy year by any stretch. The tariffs on imports to the U.S., instituted in 2025 and altered throughout the year, impacted hardwood players differently, based on their reliance on imported materials and products, but, regardless, they were a pain point and constant source of uncertainty for every operation, even those that produce primarily within the U.S. 

Another major pinch for hardwood players is the fact that the most desirable hardwood in the market, European white oak, has become increasingly difficult to source and is also desired by other industries, increasing demand for it.

All that said, looking ahead, the hardwood top five remain cautiously optimistic due to the fact that their category offers authenticity and desirability and is time-tested in the market, with current innovations addressing some of what consumers see as its shortcomings. 

“It’s the geopolitical piece that makes us cautious,” says Danielle Lancianese, Shaw’s director of product–hardwood and laminate. “We get in a flow and then something else is thrown in the mix.” She also notes that consumer sentiment is a factor that concerns the Shaw team but that the company’s hardwood division remains cautiously optimistic.

TARIFFS 

Tariffs were a major source of pain for hardwood producers in 2025. Part of that has to do with sentiment down the supply chain. When consumers tighten their purse strings, retailers are reluctant to take a chance on a new product line or program. 

Even more frustrating is the fact that essentially all the issues rocking the hardwood world right now are out of manufacturers’ control, so there is essentially no choice but to roll with the tide and reposition as efficiently as possible. 

With regard to how AHF is preparing for the what-comes-next of the geopolitical landscape, Milton Goodwin, vice president of the company, says, “We aren’t doing anything different. We have decided we aren’t smart enough to know how it will go. Like all of our peers, we passed along the tariffs, and we will react when and if that changes in July or whenever. If nothing is done, it goes to zero in July, but if we look at the last year as our guide, we expect Trump will do something.”

While President Trump announced his initial tariffs on Liberation Day 2025, April 2, fluctuations and lack of clarity since that time have left hardwood industry players frustrated. 

For manufacturers, each new cycle of tariffs creates more questions than answers and also impacts sentiment among the manufacturers’ customer base. Often, manufacturers try to standardize pricing as long as they can and add surcharges when doing so becomes untenable.

STRENGTHS

The higher end of the hardwood market performed better than the lower end in 2025, and players attribute this to the fact that well-off consumers, who were less impacted by the increase in pricing on groceries and other essentials, had more expendable income to replace their floors in 2025, and those consumers generally opt for better-end goods, such as hardwood. 

In addition, there is a general feeling among hardwood suppliers that consumers have an appetite for authenticity. This doesn’t apply only to flooring, but to contemporary culture’s general exhaustion with all things plastic-made-to-look-like-natural-materials. However, the rapid growth of LVT over the last decade or so and the sheer size of the LVT market means that many consumers have lived on nothing but vinyl for a long while and may be keen to upgrade to the real thing.

In recent years, hardwood players have worked diligently on innovation to position the category as more competitive with look-alike products in terms of dent- and scratch-resistance and performance in the presence of pooled liquid. While hardwood will always be a natural product with vulnerabilities, new formulations of finishes and technologies, such as AHF’s and Bjelin’s densification and hardening processes, have yielded products that are more suited to withstand what contemporary consumers—and their pets—throw at them. 

It’s also notable that AHF took its hardened wood products into the commercial market last year, which would, ultimately, give hardwood more opportunity in environments where it was previously viewed as too soft to hold up the foot traffic or other types of wear-and-tear. Bjelin has been selling its hardened wood into the commercial market for a few years. In 2023, the product won a silver Best of Neocon award in the hard surface flooring-natural materials category.

RAW MATERIALS

Sourcing clean-grade European white oak is a significant challenge that many manufacturers face currently. The material is desired by consumers, both here and abroad, and demand is high. Yet, much of the material is sourced near Ukraine, and Russia’s enduring war on the country has complicated channels.

This follows years of similar upheaval around access to the woods used as cores for engineered wood flooring. However, because these are unseen materials, shortages of these generally created hardship for manufacturers around sourcing, process and formulations—all of which mean little to customers. 

The fact the demand for European white oak is consumer-driven makes it trickier for manufacturers, which have taken to innovating around de-pinking red oak to satisfy consumer tastes with a more available product.

THE TOP FIVE

Despite the challenges of the market, AHF Products moved ahead with major changes to its offering in 2025—launching a host of new products, entering the commercial hardwood market with participation at NeoCon and also, in late 2024, entering the unfinished engineered market. The company was able to finish the year with above-market success, closing up 3% to $332 million, and Goodwin believes this is because his team listened to customers, did their research, established successful to-market strategies and launched products that resonated well with the market. “There were no strike-outs,” he says. In addition, he points to the company’s stable of well-established brands as a boon that helps it weather instability.

AHF closed its Somerset, Kentucky engineered hardwood factory last year, shifting that production to its Tennessee and Cambodia facilities.  In total, the company has eight U.S. manufacturing facilities producing its hardwood and vinyl flooring products and a single, company-owned facility in Cambodia. AHF passed price increases down the line in 2025. 

Shaw Industries’ hardwood business declined 17.2% to $207 million in 2025. Shaw utilizes a made-and-imported mix approach. With domestic operations in Tennessee and South Carolina, the company was able to flex as needed and establish a long-term plan amid the tariffs. Another advantage against the tariff headwinds, the company believes was its varied sourcing footprint.

In August, Shaw named Danielle Lancianese director of product–hardwood and laminate. Lancianese previously worked on the manufacturing side of the hardwood business, serving as technical manager–hardwood division from 2016 to 2020, so she knows the category well. 

Shaw noted a bit of pre-buy in the hardwood category in Q4 2025, but not like it witnessed in other categories. It continues to see good traction at the mid to high end. “The consumers willing to spend are hardwood consumers,” Lancianese notes. 

Shaw’s hardwood products go to market under its Shaw Floors and Anderson Tuftex brands, which, combined, span a good-better-best offering. 

Johnson City, Tennessee-based Mullican reports that 2025 started strong, with activity outpacing 2024 for the first four months, but the second half was weaker. “I don’t know if it was a short-lived Trump-bump and then the reality of things hit,” says Pat Oakley, president of Mullican. 

Mullican produces both solid and engineered product at facilities in Holland, New York; Ronceverte, West Virginia; Norton, Virginia; and Johnson City, Tennessee. Early this year, the company completed a new finishing line to create greater capacity for dual-stain products. 

In the second half of 2026, the company will introduce 3/4” solid products in both white oak and hickory. The company serves the market from the entry level to the upper end. 

Mullican closed 2025 flat at $145 million.

Mirage closed 2025 slightly up at $143 million. The company underwent a change at the highest level last year when Pierre Thabet handed leadership over to his son Jean-Pierre after 40 years at the helm.

Mirage manufactures its hardwood flooring in St-Georges, Canada and Virginia. The products go to market under the Mirage, Vintage, Alexandra and Ten Oaks brands.

The company sells direct, through distribution and to the builder channel. It focuses on retailers that have a strong business with interior designers. 

Mirage is based in Saint-Georges, Québec and offers hardwood only.

Because Mohawk now imports its entire hardwood portfolio, 2025 was a year of staying alert and pivoting as needed. In spite of all the upheaval due to tariffs, Mohawk made no major changes to its sourcing footprint last year. 

The company’s hardwood products, engineered only, go to market direct to serve the residential retail, builder and multifamily segments. Mohawk didn’t introduce any new products to the market last year, choosing instead to focus on strategy among the chaos of the geopolitical environment. 

In 2025, the company closed up 1% to $108 million.