Appointment No-Show Statistics 2026: Rates, Costs & What Works
Every no-show is a slot you held open, prepped for, and can’t sell twice. The best research on missed appointments comes from doctors’ offices and hospitals, and it puts the average no-show rate across published clinic studies at 23%. The good news: the same research shows what brings that number down.
If you run a salon, barbershop, spa, studio, or grooming business, these numbers give you a benchmark, a sense of what no-shows cost, and hard evidence on what actually works: reminders, clear cancellation policies, and deposits. One caution up front: most published no-show studies measure healthcare appointments. We label every clinic figure as healthcare, and we never present a clinic rate as a salon rate. Where we have data from beauty and personal-care businesses, we say so.
Key Appointment No-Show Statistics at a Glance
- The average no-show rate across 105 published healthcare studies was 23.0%, ranging from 4.0% at intravenous therapy clinics to 79.2% at physiotherapy clinics.
Source: Dantas et al., Health Policy, No-shows in Appointment Scheduling: A Systematic Literature Review, 2018 - Clinic studies from North America averaged a 23.5% no-show rate, compared with 19.3% in Europe and 13.2% in Oceania (healthcare).
Source: Dantas et al., Health Policy, 2018 - Physiotherapy had the highest median no-show rate of any medical specialty studied, at 57.3%, followed by endocrinology (36.0%) and cardiology (30.0%).
Source: Dantas et al., Health Policy, 2018 - Patients in England missed 16 million GP appointments in 2025, or 1 in 23 appointments (4.3%).
Source: NHS England, NHS urges “tap the app” as 1 in 4 miss appointments, 2026 - 8.2 million NHS hospital outpatient appointments in England were missed in 2025-26, about 5.5% of 150.3 million appointments.
Source: NHS England Digital, Hospital Outpatient Activity 2025-26, 2026 - Nearly 1 in 4 people in England have missed an NHS appointment because they forgot (12%) or arrived too late (11%).
Source: NHS England and Censuswide survey of 2,000 adults, 2026 - 32% of US medical groups say no-shows are higher in 2026 than in 2025, up from 27% who said so a year earlier.
Source: MGMA Stat poll, 2026 - 26% of Canadian adults missed a reservation or appointment in the past year, rising to 43% of those aged 18 to 34.
Source: Research Co., Canadians Ponder the Appropriateness of “No-Show Fees”, 2024 - 8% of Canadian adults missed a barber or hair salon appointment in the past year, close to the 9% who missed a restaurant reservation.
Source: Research Co., 2024 - Digital reminders cut healthcare no-shows from 21% to 15%, making patients 25% less likely to miss an appointment.
Source: Robotham et al., BMJ Open, Using digital notifications to improve attendance in clinic, 2016 - Sending more than one reminder raised attendance by 25%, compared with 6% for a single reminder (healthcare trials).
Source: Robotham et al., BMJ Open, 2016 - A reminder text that stated the cost of a missed appointment lowered the no-show rate from 11.1% to 8.4% in a UK hospital trial with 10,111 patients.
Source: Hallsworth et al., PLOS ONE, 2015 - 42% of US medical groups charge a no-show fee, and 25% of those practices reported fewer no-shows in 2024, compared with 16% of practices without a fee.
Source: MGMA Stat poll, 2025 - 53% of Canadians say a no-show fee is justified when someone misses a barber or hair salon appointment.
Source: Research Co., 2024 - Each no-show cost a large US veterans’ hospital an average of $196, while no-shows across all its clinics cost an estimated $28.66 million in fiscal year 2008.
Source: Kheirkhah et al., BMC Health Services Research, 2016
What Is the Average Appointment No-Show Rate?
There’s no single official no-show rate for all businesses, because no government agency tracks missed salon, spa, or studio bookings. The closest thing to a benchmark comes from healthcare, where missed appointments have been studied for decades. Rates depend heavily on how a business books, reminds, and charges, so look at the spread, not just one number.
| Setting (all healthcare) | No-show rate | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Average across 105 published clinic studies | 23.0% | Studies to 2017 |
| Large US veterans’ medical center, 10 main clinics | 18.8% | 1997–2008 |
| US single-specialty medical groups, MGMA median | 6.81% | 2023 |
| NHS hospital outpatients, England | 5.5% | 2025-26 |
| NHS GP practices, England | 4.3% | 2025 |
The 105-study review also split results by where each study took place. Look at where North America lands.
Source: Dantas et al., Health Policy, No-shows in Appointment Scheduling: A Systematic Literature Review, April 2018. Healthcare studies only.
Published clinic studies from North America averaged a 23.5% no-show rate, close to the 23.0% global average. Large national datasets come in much lower: MGMA puts the median for US single-specialty medical groups at 6.81% in 2023, close to its pre-pandemic benchmark of about 7%, and England’s GP practices sit at 4.3%. The takeaway for a service business is that a no-show rate is not fixed. It moves with your systems. For a barber doing 40 cuts a week, every 5 points of no-shows is two empty chairs a week.
No-Show Rates by Setting: Which Appointments Get Missed Most?
The same review compared medical specialties. Some of them look a lot like service businesses: hands-on, recurring sessions that clients book weeks ahead. Watch the top of the chart.
Source: Dantas et al., Health Policy, April 2018. Median rates from healthcare studies; Selected specialties shown; “Other specialties” groups oncology, urology, ophthalmology, and several smaller fields.
Physiotherapy clinics had a median no-show rate of 57.3%, far above endocrinology (36.0%) and cardiology (30.0%). The review found that the main determinants of a no-show were a long lead time between booking and the appointment, and a history of past no-shows. That matters well beyond healthcare: massage therapists, trainers, and anyone selling a series of recurring sessions face the same pattern of clients booking far ahead and drifting away. Remember this is clinic data, not a massage or salon rate.
Missed Appointments Are Falling in England’s Hospitals
England publishes missed-appointment counts for every NHS hospital outpatient clinic each year, which makes it one of the few long-running national series. Compare the years before and after the pandemic.
Source: NHS England Digital, Hospital Outpatient Activity, 2019-20 to 2025-26 editions; 2025-26 released September 2026. The 2025-26 rate is calculated from 8.2 million missed out of 150.3 million appointments. Pandemic years 2020-21 and 2021-22 are omitted.
The share of missed outpatient appointments fell from 6.4% in 2022-23 to about 5.5% in 2025-26, even as total bookings rose to 150.3 million. The NHS has spent those years pushing app notifications and text reminders, and in March 2026 it launched a campaign asking patients to turn on NHS App alerts. Its own survey found 12% of adults had missed an appointment because they forgot and 11% because they arrived too late. Forgetting is the easiest cause to fix.
No-Show Trends in 2026: US Medical Groups Report More Missed Visits
MGMA, the US association for medical practice managers, regularly asks its members whether no-shows are going up or down. Follow the orange segment across the four polls.
Source: MGMA Stat polls, August 2023, January 2025, August 2025, and August 2026 (190 responses in August 2026). Each poll compares the current year with the year before; the January 2025 poll covers 2024.
In August 2026, 32% of US medical groups said no-shows were higher than in 2025, up from 27% a year earlier and 20% in the January 2025 poll. MGMA links the rise to patients facing higher out-of-pocket costs. When money gets tight, discretionary bookings tend to be the first to slip, and that pressure isn’t limited to doctors’ offices. If your no-show count has crept up this year, you’re not imagining it, and it’s a good moment to tighten your online scheduling with reminders and deposits.
How Often People Miss Salon, Barber, and Other Appointments
One of the few surveys outside healthcare comes from Canada. Research Co. asked 1,001 adults which kinds of bookings they had missed in the past year. These are shares of all adults, not no-show rates per appointment.
Source: Research Co., Canadians Ponder the Appropriateness of “No-Show Fees”, August 2024 (online survey of 1,001 Canadian adults, July 5–7, 2024, margin of error ±3.1 points).
8% of Canadian adults missed a barber or hair salon appointment in the past year, not far behind dentists (11%) and doctors (15%). Overall, 26% missed at least one booking, and younger clients are the biggest risk: 43% of 18- to 34-year-olds missed one, compared with 9% of people 55 and over. The top reasons were personal issues (40%), scheduling conflicts (27%), and transportation (26%). If your book skews young, plan your reminders and policy around that group.
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The Cost of No-Shows
Healthcare systems are the only places that publish a price tag per missed appointment. In England, the Nottingham and Nottinghamshire health board counted 308,538 missed GP appointments between October 2024 and September 2025 and put the cost at more than £9.25 million, or about £30 per missed slot. In the US, a study of a large veterans’ medical center in Houston estimated the cost at $196 per no-show and $28.66 million across all clinics for fiscal year 2008 (healthcare, 2008 dollars).
For a service business the math is simpler: the cost of a no-show is the price of the service plus any add-ons, and the slot rarely gets refilled at short notice. A stylist booking 30 appointments a week at $60 who cuts no-shows by 3 percentage points keeps roughly one more appointment a week, or about $54 weekly. That’s an illustration, not measured data, but it shows why small percentage changes matter. Knowing what to say to no-show clients helps you recover some of that revenue without losing the client.
Do Appointment Reminders Reduce No-Shows?
This is the best-studied question in the whole field. A 2016 review in BMJ Open pooled 21 trials covering more than 16,000 patients that compared text, voice, and app reminders against no reminder at all. Compare the two bar pairs.
Source: Robotham et al., BMJ Open, Using digital notifications to improve attendance in clinic: systematic review and meta-analysis, October 2016. Healthcare trials only.
With a reminder, the no-show rate fell from 21% to 15%, and patients were 23% more likely to attend. More than one reminder worked better: multiple notifications raised attendance by 25%, compared with 6% for a single one. Most trials that reported timing sent the notification within 48 hours of the visit. If you only send one reminder today, adding a second is the cheapest fix on this page. Our appointment reminder templates give you wording you can copy.
Reminder Wording Matters: What a UK Hospital Trial Found
The content of a reminder matters too. A UK randomized trial tested four versions of the same text message across 10,111 hospital outpatients. Look at which wording came out on top.
Source: Hallsworth et al., PLOS ONE, Stating Appointment Costs in SMS Reminders Reduces Missed Hospital Appointments, September 2015. Healthcare trial.
Telling patients what a missed appointment costs the health service cut the no-show rate from 11.1% to 8.4%, a 24% relative drop, with no change in the cost of sending the message. Messages that made it easy to cancel (9.8%) or mentioned that most people attend (10.0%) did not differ significantly from the standard reminder. For a small business, the lesson is to make the stakes concrete: name the slot you’re holding for the client, and say that late cancellations keep someone else from booking it.
Do Deposits and Cancellation Fees Reduce No-Shows?
Fees are more common than you might think, even in healthcare. MGMA asked 622 US medical group leaders whether their practice charges patients who don’t show.
Source: MGMA Stat poll, No-show fees in medical practices on the rise, January 2025. Healthcare.
42% of US medical groups charge a no-show fee, and those practices were more likely to report fewer no-shows in 2024 (25%) than practices without one (16%). MGMA suggests $25 to $50 for primary care, with 24 to 48 hours’ notice. The research on fees is mixed, though. A 2023 review in the Israel Journal of Health Policy Research found a $30 fee cut no-shows from 20.1% to 9.27% among repeat no-show patients at a mental health clinic, while a Danish orthopedic trial found no difference (both groups near 5%) and 79% of the 130 fines went unpaid. Fees seem to work best when they’re collected up front, which is exactly what a deposit at booking does.
Do Clients Accept No-Show Fees?
A policy only works if clients see it as fair. Research Co. asked Canadians whether a no-show fee is justified, business by business. Find where barbers and salons land.
Source: Research Co., Canadians Ponder the Appropriateness of “No-Show Fees”, August 2024 (1,001 Canadian adults).
53% of Canadians say a no-show fee is justified for a missed barber or hair salon appointment, about the same as for pet grooming (51%) and not far behind dentists (59%). Restaurants are the exception: only 44% back a fee and 48% oppose it. Among the Canadians who had missed a booking, 4% said they paid a no-show fee to a barber or hair salon. A US survey of healthcare patients by Tebra found a similar split: 59% called cancellation fees unfair, yet 30% said they had kept an appointment they no longer wanted because of a fee. Clients grumble, but fees change behavior. See how much to charge for a cancellation fee before you set yours.
What These Numbers Mean for Your Business
- Track your own rate. Published healthcare rates run from about 4% (NHS GP practices) to 23% (the clinic-study average), and there’s no official salon benchmark. Count no-shows divided by booked appointments every month so you know where you stand.
- Send two reminders, not one. Multiple reminders beat a single one by a wide margin in healthcare trials. A reminder a day or two ahead plus a same-day nudge covers most forgetting.
- Make the stakes clear in the message. Naming what a missed slot costs cut no-shows by about a quarter in the UK trial. Keep it friendly and specific.
- Take a deposit for long or high-value services. Fees collected after the fact often go unpaid. A deposit at booking gets the commitment up front, and most Canadians see salon fees as fair.
- Watch lead time and repeat offenders. Bookings made far in advance and clients with a no-show history are the two main risk factors in the research. Reconfirm those bookings first.
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References and Sources
- Dantas LF, Fleck JL, Cyrino Oliveira FL, Hamacher S. No-shows in Appointment Scheduling: A Systematic Literature Review. Health Policy, vol. 122, no. 4, April 2018.
- NHS England. NHS urges “tap the app” as 1 in 4 miss appointments. March 2026 (includes Censuswide survey of 2,000 adults and 2025 GP appointment statistics).
- NHS England Digital. Hospital Outpatient Activity 2025-26. September 24, 2026; earlier editions via the Hospital Outpatient Activity series.
- MGMA. About 1 in 3 medical groups see higher no-shows in 2026 as patients face higher costs. MGMA Stat, August 2026.
- MGMA. Patient no-shows in 2025: What’s changing and what to do about it. MGMA Stat, August 2025.
- MGMA. No-show fees in medical practices on the rise to balance bumpy attendance rates. MGMA Stat, January 8, 2025.
- MGMA. Patient no-shows holding steady at medical groups in 2023. MGMA Stat, August 2023.
- Research Co. Canadians Ponder the Appropriateness of “No-Show Fees”. August 7, 2024.
- Robotham D, Satkunanathan S, Reynolds J, Stahl D, Wykes T. Using digital notifications to improve attendance in clinic: systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ Open, October 2016.
- Hallsworth M, Berry D, Sanders M, et al. Stating Appointment Costs in SMS Reminders Reduces Missed Hospital Appointments: Findings from Two Randomised Controlled Trials. PLOS ONE, September 14, 2015.
- Kheirkhah P, Feng Q, Travis LM, Tavakoli-Tabasi S, Sharafkhaneh A. Prevalence, predictors and economic consequences of no-shows. BMC Health Services Research, January 14, 2016.
- NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICB. £9.25m: the annual cost of missed GP appointments. November 26, 2025.
- Leibner G, Brammli-Greenberg S, Mendlovic J, Israeli A. To charge or not to charge: reducing patient no-show. Israel Journal of Health Policy Research, August 8, 2023.
- Tebra. Patient no-show statistics: Data every practice needs in 2026. The Intake, August 2026.
Methodology Note
This page compiles published research as of September 2026. No government agency measures no-show rates for salons, barbershops, spas, or other personal-care businesses, so most rates here come from healthcare: a 105-study systematic review (Dantas et al., 2018), NHS England appointment statistics, MGMA member polls, and randomized trials of reminders and fees. Every healthcare figure is labeled as such and should be read as a reference point, not as a salon or studio rate. The only non-healthcare consumer data is the Research Co. survey of 1,001 Canadian adults (July 2024), which measures the share of adults who missed a booking, not a per-appointment no-show rate. The NHS outpatient rate for 2025-26 was calculated by dividing 8.2 million missed appointments by 150.3 million booked and rounded to one decimal. MGMA poll results reflect members who chose to respond and compare each year with the one before. Costs are shown in their original currency and year (2008 US dollars for the veterans’ hospital study) and were not converted or adjusted for inflation. The salon revenue example is an illustration, not measured data. Bookedin platform data was not used.
About the Author
With over a decade of experience across startups, online publications, and agencies, Marcy is all about delivering content that connects brands with the audiences they're trying to reach.
