9 Best Toilets of 2026, Lab-Tested and Reviewed

The toilets below perform impressively in our tests, effectively flushing waste and cleaning the bowl well—with minimal noise. Most are single-flush models, though the Glacier Bay model near the top of our ratings is a dual-flush toilet, meaning you can use minimal water for most flushes and dial up the pressure for heavier needs. All of the models below are WaterSense certified by the Environmental Protection Agency, so they’re 20 percent more water-efficient than average products in this category and meet certain performance standards.

You’ll notice that two of the top five toilets in our ratings cost under $200. Those are exceptions to the rule that, generally, you will pay more for better toilets. If those two options don’t work for some reason, we’ve highlighted four more budget-friendly toilets recommended by CR that are nearly as good. Keep reading for single-flush and dual-flush toilets under $200, all of which are WaterSense certified.

It’s easy to overlook key considerations when buying a toilet, such as extra accessories or hardware needed for a complete assembly, or even regulations that may restrict which type of toilet you can buy, depending on where you live.

What’s Important to Us
State-level restrictions: A small number of the toilets tested by Consumer Reports aren’t available in a handful of states. California, Colorado, Georgia, New York, Texas, Washington, and others have banned the sale or installation of toilets that don’t meet the Environmental Protection Agency’s WaterSense standard of 1.28 gallons, on average, per flush. But don’t worry: Most toilets in our ratings (including all the top-rated toilets listed here) are WaterSense certified, exposing the myth that efficiency has to come at the cost of performance.

Variants: Double-check that you’re getting the specific model you want. Toilets with similar model names or numbers often come in multiple variants. For example, the Glacier Bay N2420 has an elongated bowl, while the Glacier Bay N2428R-DF has a round bowl.

Seats and hardware: Some toilets recommended by CR don’t come with a seat, a wax ring, or mounting hardware, so you may need to buy those separately. Expect to pay at least $40 more for the necessary accessories.

To develop our in-depth toilet ratings, Consumer Reports’ engineers put the fixtures through a battery of tests involving waste removal, bowl cleaning, and drain-line clogs. We also use a decibel meter to measure how loud a toilet’s flushes are. Based on performance in these tests, we give each toilet an Overall Score.

To test solid-waste removal, we dump marble-sized plastic beads, weighted sponges, and water-filled condoms into the bowl and measure how well each flush handles the simulated waste.

We use a combination of methods to assess how well a toilet cleans the entire bowl. First, we use water-based red paint to create a solid rectangular shape above the waterline in the front bottom of a clean bowl. We take a picture of the red rectangle, and then the toilet is flushed two times. After the second flush, we take a second picture to record how much of the paint has been removed.

A second way we test how well a toilet cleans waste: We let the bowl fill up, then draw a line using a water-soluble pen around the bowl about an inch under the rim. Next, we flush. We then measure how much of the pen marking is left. The better a toilet cleans, the less marking and paint are left. We repeat the pen test three times and calculate the average to arrive at a score.

To gauge soil and odor potential, we measure the length and width of the bowl, as well as the depth of water inside. The deeper and wider the bowl, the better solid-waste odors will be trapped by the water.

We also look at how well a toilet moves waste from bowl to sewer and whether there’s enough force to make sure the waste doesn’t get stuck, especially if waste travels a long way to the sewer.