The 7 Most Durable Flooring Options for Your Home

Looking for the most durable flooring? We hear you.

While you might not think about it too often, your floors are subjected to a lot of abuse. Pet claws, muddy shoes, running kids, even the natural shift of furniture over time—all of it does a number on your floors. 

Below, we’ll dive into the 7 most durable flooring options you can get for your home—including what they’re made of, why they’re so resilient, and the spots in your home they’re perfect for.

As a bonus, we’ve included some of our favorite durable flooring brands to get you started. 

#1: Vinyl Plank (aka Luxury Vinyl)

Vinyl plank, luxury vinyl, LVT, LVP—whatever you call it, this type of flooring has become extremely popular in recent years, largely because of its durability. 

Vinyl plank is ideal for basements, kitchens, playrooms, or even mudroom flooring—wherever you can expect a mess since vinyl plank is also waterproof! 

Rigid core luxury vinyl flooring specifically is extremely durable—it can stand up to heavy furniture and high heels with no problem. Plus, protective finishes and wear layers make vinyl plank extraordinarily scuff-resistant.

For one, LVP’s cost (and the cost to install vinyl plank flooring) are both quite affordable. And if you’re looking for a do-it-yourself flooring option, it doesn’t get much better than vinyl—it’s some of the easiest flooring to install!

We should mention: that vinyl plank isn’t the most environmentally friendly flooring option—it is mostly plastic, after all. But some brands, like Proximity Mills, are making an effort to change that with LVP that’s recyclable at the end of its lifespan. 

#2: Porcelain Tile

Tile is some of the most durable flooring around. Porcelain’s density makes it one of the best scratch-resistant flooring options. That makes it some of the best flooring for dogs, cats, and other pets.

Concerned about water damage? 

Porcelain tile has a water absorption rate of less than 0.5 percent (read: waterproof). This makes porcelain tile a great choice for moisture-prone areas. It can even be installed outdoors!

Porcelain tile is some of the best flooring for bathrooms, laundry rooms, entryways, outdoor areas, and even a great kitchen flooring option.

#3: Hardwood

When you’re shopping for wood flooring, you have two main choices: solid wood or engineered wood. Solid wood is exactly what it sounds like: a plank that’s a solid, single piece of wood. Engineered wood, on the other hand, is composed of a plywood or OSB core layer with a thin wood veneer layer.

Both solid and engineered hardwood are excellent durable wood flooring options, but they both have different strengths and weaknesses.

Because solid wood is… well, solid, it’s often a better scratch-resistant flooring option than engineered wood. If solid hardwood does scratch, you can always sand it down and refinish it if needed, which isn’t always true for engineered wood.

With that being said, engineered wood is a better option than its solid wood counterpart in moisture-prone areas. Its core layer is more dimensionally stable than solid hardwood, meaning even the best solid hardwood flooring will warp more than decent engineered hardwood.

All of this is to say: think about where you want to install your new hardwood floor before deciding between solid and engineered hardwood.

#4: Laminate

A budget-friendly alternative to hardwood, laminate flooring continues to be popular because of its durability. Made of a high-density fiberboard or plywood core, a realistic image layer, and a protective wear layer, laminate mimics the look of hardwood or stone while also offering stain, scratch, and scuff resistance.

If you want to compare vinyl plank and laminate flooring, you’ll notice a lot of similarities. 

Because of their realistic design layers, they’re two of the best wood floor alternatives out there. The cost to install laminate flooring is often the least expensive of all types of flooring—sometimes even lower than vinyl.

But unlike LVP, not all laminate flooring is waterproof. You’ll need to do a little extra research (or check out our guide to waterproof laminate flooring) if you’re looking for water resistance. 

Because of its durability and cost, laminate is a perfect floor for bedrooms, hallways, kitchens, laundry rooms, or anywhere else you want the look of hardwood. 

If you’re looking for the most durable flooring, check out Newton, our top overall laminate flooring brand (which offers several waterproof options).

#5: Carpet

You might not expect it, but modern carpet is some of the most durable flooring out there. We should caveat this with an obvious statement: you get what you pay for with carpet (just like all other types of flooring). 

Cheap carpet can be disappointingly easy to destroy, but if you stick with the best carpet brands, it’s a perfectly solid option for almost any space!

If you’re choosing between cut and loop pile carpet and want to focus on durability, we recommend going with loop carpet. Loop carpet fibers are threaded back into the carpet’s base in loops, which makes it more durable.

#6: Bamboo

It might sound strange that flooring that’s technically made from grass would be durable, but bamboo floors are even harder than some types of hardwoods.

For example, strand-woven bamboo flooring—made of shredded bamboo fibers mixed with resins and formed into planks—is nearly twice as hard as oak flooring. However, it can be damaged by water or excess moisture and isn’t always the best choice for humid climates.

That said, bamboo is one of the most beloved types of flooring for kitchens, hallways, and dining rooms. Bamboo flooring is harder to find, so feel free to check out our bamboo products for high-quality, durable bamboo flooring.

#7: Sheet Vinyl

Often overlooked as an unfashionable or outdated product, sheet vinyl boasts many of the same performance attributes as the luxury vinyl plank. 

In addition to being waterproof, many sheet vinyl products feature thicker wear layers and protective coatings that boost their stain and scratch resistance. Some of the sheet vinyl products of today even have fiberglass backings.

Sheet vinyl is one of the best flooring options for bathrooms and kitchens (where you’ve probably seen it a million times), but it’s also great for mudrooms, kitchens, and basements.