Egg prices are projected to fall 30.8% in 2026, with USDA’s Economic Research Service forecasting a range between a 25.3% and 35.3% decline for the year, according to the agency’s Food Price Outlook. The turnaround follows two years of double-digit increases that hammered grocery budgets and comfort-food baking alike.
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Egg prices rose 8.5% in 2024 and another 21.9% in 2025 as highly pathogenic avian influenza tore through commercial flocks, according to the same USDA data. That capped a run that started with a 32.2% jump in 2022, the year outbreaks first forced mass culling of egg-laying hens across the country.
USDA’s outlook attributes the reversal to fewer new HPAI detections in the first quarter of 2026 compared with the same period in 2025, along with steadier supplies of replacement pullets, the young hens that restock laying flocks after a die-off. The agency says pullet availability has been “sufficient in 2026 to cover both regular flock turnover and unpredictable HPAI-related losses,” easing the bottleneck that kept production capped through 2025.
That capacity didn’t rebuild on its own. USDA rolled out a five-pronged strategy in early 2025 aimed at biosecurity, flock indemnification and streamlined depopulation-and-repopulation timelines, according to the department’s own press release on the plan’s progress. The goal was explicitly to shorten the gap between an outbreak and a flock’s return to full production, and the 2026 numbers suggest that gap has narrowed considerably faster than officials initially projected.
The relief is already showing up at the register. The average dozen of eggs cost about $3.59 in January 2026, down from a $4.71 peak during 2025, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. That’s roughly a 24% drop already banked before USDA’s full-year forecast plays out, suggesting the steepest part of the correction landed early in the year rather than trickling in gradually.
For anyone who put off baking projects during the worst of the shortage, cheaper eggs land right as fall comfort food season ramps up, when recipes calling for a dozen or more eggs at a time stop carrying the sticker shock they did the past two autumns.
Key Points
- USDA projects a 30.8% drop in egg prices for 2026, reversing two years of sharp increases.
- Prices rose 8.5% in 2024 and 21.9% in 2025 as bird flu cut into flocks.
- Fewer new HPAI detections and better pullet supply are driving the rebound, per USDA.
Grocery shoppers shouldn’t expect the relief to be uniform across every region or store, since local flock losses and distribution costs still shift prices at the register even as the national average heads down.
