Bordetella Shot Cost in 2026: $15 to $56 a Dose

A bordetella (kennel cough) vaccine costs $15 to $56 in the United States, and $39 is the typical price. Regionally the typical price runs from $25 in Municipal and nonprofit clinics (Montgomery County MD, Humane Animal Partners DE, Haven Humane CA) to $47 in the Northeast — a 1.9x spread for the same procedure.

The price you are quoted is one dose, and one route needs two

Published per-dose prices run from $15 at Montgomery County, Maryland's wellness clinics to $56 at Tractor Supply's PetVet clinics in Tennessee and California. The typical figure is $39.

None of that is the number that matters if your dog has never had the vaccine before, because the vaccine is sold in three routes and they are not schedule-equivalent.

The 2022 AAHA canine vaccination guidelines specify a single intranasal dose, or a single oral dose, or two parenteral doses 2 to 4 weeks apart for a previously unvaccinated dog.

So one of the three prices on a clinic's menu is a half-price. That is the whole of this page.

The route choice is worth $56 to $72, not $8

Across ten PetVet locations, intranasal Bordetella ran $40 to $50 and injectable ran $48 to $56. Read as a menu, the injectable looks like an $8 premium.

Read against AAHA's Table 2, a naive dog on the injectable pays that $48 to $56 twice, and makes a second trip 2 to 4 weeks later. Against a single $40 to $50 intranasal dose, the real first-year gap is $56 to $72.

That is a larger sum than the entire headline range of this page, and it is created by a checkbox rather than by geography or venue.

There are legitimate reasons to choose the injectable — a dog that will not tolerate a nasal dose, a practice that stocks only the parenteral product. Choosing it without being told about the second dose is a different matter, and it is the single most useful question to ask before the appointment: is this route one dose or two, and is the second one included in what I am paying today?

The kennel sets the timing, not your vet

Bordetella is noncore under AAHA — recommended for dogs at risk of exposure rather than for every dog. In practice the requirement comes from boarding kennels, groomers, daycares and training classes, which generally demand proof and often demand it several months old at most.

This inverts the usual planning problem. Most vaccines are scheduled by the animal's medical calendar; this one is scheduled by a facility's admission policy, and the policy is frequently stricter than the guideline.

The practical consequence is that a dog can be current under AAHA and still be turned away, or be asked to revaccinate early before a trip.

Ask the facility for its exact interval before you book the vaccine, not after. A dose bought too early is a dose bought twice.

It is the vaccine you buy most often

AAHA requires annual revaccination for all three Bordetella routes. The core DHPP combination drops to a three-year interval after the one-year booster; this one never does.

At $39 to $56 a dose, a boarding dog's ten-year Bordetella spend is $150 to $560 — more than any other vaccine on its record, including rabies.

Which reverses the intuition most owners have about vaccine costs. The expensive-sounding shots are the infrequent ones. The cheap-sounding annual is the one that compounds.

If the dog boards twice a year, that spend is straightforwardly worth it. If the dog boarded once, four years ago, the annual recall is a charge worth questioning.

Bordetella on its own is not what the guidelines recommend

AAHA notes that dogs at risk of Bordetella exposure are also at risk of canine parainfluenza and canine adenovirus-2, and should be protected against all three — and that only the combination intranasal and injectable products contain them.

So a single-antigen oral or injectable Bordetella dose given by itself is not the recommended product, even though it is often the cheapest line on the menu.

Tequesta Veterinary Clinic in Florida publishes $47 for an oral or intranasal dose that includes parainfluenza, which is what the combination looks like when a practice prices it transparently.

When comparing two clinic prices, check what is in the vial before concluding one is cheaper. A $36 single-antigen dose and a $47 combination dose are not the same purchase.

Where the cheap doses are, and why there are so few

Three published municipal or nonprofit prices were found in this entire survey: $15 at Montgomery County, Maryland, $25 at Humane Animal Partners in Delaware and $30 at Haven Humane in Redding, California.

That scarcity is the point. Because Bordetella is noncore and carries no public-health mandate, far fewer government clinics stock it than stock rabies — so the cheap end of this range is genuinely hard to reach, in a way the cheap rabies shot is not.

Private practices sit in the middle and publish more often: $36 at Dallas Veterinary Clinic in Texas, $39 at Midvalley Animal Clinic in Utah, $41 at Covina Animal Hospital in California and $45 at Love City Vet in Philadelphia.

Retail chains are the most expensive published option here, at $45 to $56. Petco's Vetco publishes $52 à la carte in Chicago and $47 as a package add-on, so bundling it with the vaccines a dog needs anyway is worth $5. Our low-cost vet directory is the shortcut to the reduced-fee end.

Is the bordetella vaccine required?

Not by law anywhere in this dataset — unlike rabies, Bordetella carries no legal mandate. It is required by facilities: boarding kennels, groomers, daycares and group training classes, which set their own intervals and enforce them at the door.

AAHA classifies it as noncore, meaning it is recommended based on the dog's exposure risk rather than given to every dog.

A dog that never boards, never attends daycare, is groomed at home and does not go to classes has a real case for skipping it, and that case is a guideline position rather than a corner cut.

The exception is a puppy in a vaccination series headed for training classes, where the class will require it and the timing needs to be worked backwards from the start date.

Do cats need a bordetella vaccine?

Rarely. Feline Bordetella is noncore and is seldom stocked outside shelter and cattery settings, where dense multi-cat housing changes the exposure picture.

Pricing it honestly is difficult, and this is the weakest figure on the page: CareCredit's 2025-2026 ASQ360 study puts the average feline Bordetella vaccine at $34, and no municipal, retail or private clinic in this entire survey published a separate cat price to check it against.

One national average with zero corroboration is a data point, not a range. Treat the $34 as indicative and ask your own clinic.

If a shelter or breeder has asked for it, they will usually also name the product and the interval, which is more reliable than any published price.

How thin is the rest of this data?

Every non-feline row on this page is a fee read off the provider's own website, so nothing is indexed or estimated. Two coverage gaps are worth stating plainly.

No Northeast municipal or nonprofit clinic was found publishing a Bordetella price, so that region's figures rest entirely on retail and private-practice pricing and its low end is not a true floor.

And the headline range is per dose rather than per course, which for a naive dog on the injectable route understates the first year by one full dose. The itemized invoice below breaks that second dose out as its own line rather than folding it in. The rest of the routine bills are priced the same way on our vet cost index.

Bordetella (Kennel Cough) Vaccine cost by region

These are the prices behind the range at the top of the page, one row per geography we could source. The basis column says how each row was arrived at.

What changes the price

Two invoices for the same procedure diverge for a small number of reasons. These are the ones that move the total most.

Intranasal or oral single dose versus injectable two-dose series

The buried cost of this vaccine. AAHA's Table 2 specifies a single intranasal dose or a single oral dose, but two parenteral doses 2-4 weeks apart for a previously unvaccinated dog. At Tractor Supply PetVet that turns a nominal $8 per-dose premium into $56-$72 of extra first-year cost

It is an annual vaccine, every year, for life

AAHA requires annual boosters for all Bordetella routes, unlike the core DHPP which drops to a three-year interval. At $39-$56 that is the most frequently repeated vaccine charge on a boarding dog's record

It is a facility requirement, not a legal one

Bordetella is noncore under AAHA - recommended only for dogs at risk of exposure - but boarding kennels, groomers, daycares and training classes generally require proof, and often demand it several months before admission, so the timing is set by the facility rather than the vet

Where you buy it

$15 at Montgomery County, Maryland's wellness clinic against $56 at a Tennessee or California retail clinic - a 3.7x spread. Because it is noncore, far fewer government clinics offer it than offer rabies, so the cheap end is genuinely hard to reach

Whether it comes bundled with parainfluenza

Tequesta Veterinary Clinic's $47 oral or intranasal dose includes parainfluenza. AAHA notes dogs at risk of Bordetella are also at risk of canine parainfluenza and adenovirus-2 and should be covered for all three, and that only the combination intranasal and injectable products contain them - so a single-antigen oral or injectable Bordetella given alone is not recommended

Whether an exam is required first

Vaccination clinics charge none; a private practice that requires a current exam adds $56-$130

What the itemized invoice looks like

Clinics quote a bundled number and itemize afterwards. This is the decomposition, so you can read a real estimate line by line before you sign it.

Does pet insurance cover bordetella (kennel cough) vaccine?

Bordetella (Kennel Cough) Vaccine is normally not covered by a standard accident-and-illness policy. Bordetella is preventive care and is excluded from every standard accident-and-illness policy. It is reimbursed only under an optional preventive-care or wellness add-on. Because it is the one vaccine that genuinely recurs every year, it is also the one where a routine-care allowance is most likely to be used - but a $39 annual charge is far below any rider premium on its own.

What you would get back: Nothing under a base plan. Preventive-care add-ons reimburse actual cost against a fixed annual routine-care allowance.

Coverage rules differ enough between carriers that the only useful answer is a side-by-side: our pet insurance comparison for bordetella (kennel cough) vaccine shows which policies pay for it, what the waiting period is, and what counts as pre-existing.

Common questions

Why a pet needs bordetella (kennel cough) vaccine

The pages below are the reasons this bill happens. Each one carries the same price data you are reading, in the context of the problem that produces it.

Conditions treated with bordetella (kennel cough) vaccine

• dog coughing Can be an emergency — A cough is a sign, not a diagnosis, and the same dry hack can come from an infection that clears itself in two weeks or from a failing heart valve.
• kennel cough in dogs Can be an emergency — A contagious inflammation of the windpipe and airways caused by a mix of viruses and bacteria, not by one organism.

Preventive care that avoids this bill

• bordetella vaccine dog — Choosing the injectable route without being told a naive dog needs two doses: A second appointment and a second dose 2 to 4 weeks later, often discovered at the boarding kennel's door

More vaccines & shots costs

• cheap rabies shot for dogs — A cheap rabies shot for a dog costs $2 to $43.
• how much shots for puppies — Puppy shots cost $40 to $475 for the whole series — three visits, not three shots.
• low cost rabies shots for cats — A low cost rabies shot for a cat runs $2 to $109.
• how much are cat shots — Cat shots cost $40 to $502 for the full kitten series, and the indoor-or-outdoor decision swings it 117% at one clinic.
• dhpp vaccine cost — A DHPP vaccine costs $10 to $60 per dose, and a puppy needs at least three of them.

Every procedure we have priced is listed on the vet cost index.

Sources

1. 2022 AAHA Canine Vaccination Guidelines (JAAHA 2022;58:1-19) — American Animal Hospital Association, PDF hosted by Merck Animal Health, 2022.
2. PetVet Vaccination Clinic Pricing, York, Pennsylvania — PetVet by VIP Petcare at Tractor Supply, 2026.
3. PetVet Vaccination Clinic Pricing, East Ellijay, Georgia — PetVet by VIP Petcare at Tractor Supply, 2026.
4. PetVet Vaccination Clinic Pricing, Oak Ridge, Tennessee — PetVet by VIP Petcare at Tractor Supply, 2026.
5. Vaccination Packages and Prices, Chicago, Illinois — Vetco Vaccination Clinics (Petco), 2026.
6. Wellness Vaccine Clinics — Montgomery County, Maryland Animal Services, 2026.
7. Vaccination Clinic Pricing — Humane Animal Partners, Delaware, 2026.
8. Vaccine Clinics — Haven Humane Society, Redding, California, 2026.
9. Pricing and Transparency — Dallas Veterinary Clinic, Dallas, Texas, 2025.
10. Veterinary Clinic Price List — Tequesta Veterinary Clinic, Florida, 2026.
11. Service Pricing — Covina Animal Hospital, Covina, California, 2026.
12. Price List — Midvalley Animal Clinic, Taylorsville, Utah, 2026.
13. Philadelphia Pricing — Love City Vet, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2026.
14. Veterinary Exam and Procedure Costs — CareCredit (Synchrony), 2025-2026 Synchrony Average Procedural Cost Study conducted by ASQ360 Market Research, 2026.