#Most Durable Kitchen Flooring

Floors that stand up to dropped pots, spilled food, and other abuse

Think of it as the fifth wall. Kitchen flooring has a huge impact on the overall look of the whole room. And whatever material you choose—wood planks, ceramic tiles, vinyl, linoleum, or laminate—is a chance to make a statement. Thanks to technological improvements, faux finishes are more convincing than ever, and Consumer Reports' flooring Ratings now list available shades for each product.

Of course, all kitchen flooring looks great out of the box, but the true test is what happens once real life takes over. The results of our latest tests show that resistance even to stains such as ink, asphalt sealant, and crayon has gotten better among the newest floors we’ve seen. And one vinyl we had previously tested showed improvement against scratching as well as staining.

For many shoppers of kitchen flooring, there’s no substitute for the warmth of wood. But in an active kitchen, both solid- and engineered-wood floors are especially prone to denting from dropped items. A great upside to solid hardwood and bamboo, however, is that many can be refinished multiple times to get rid of the scratches and dings of normal use. If a wood you choose has a rustic, distressed appearance like the Armstrong American Scrape Oak Brown Bear, $7 per square foot, you probably won’t even notice small scratches.

Pay less for a wood look

The better laminates we tested performed about as well as solid wood. And they can be floated: installed right over your old floor with no need for glues or fasteners. For an even tougher kitchen flooring product, our top-performing “luxury” vinyls come in a variety of wood looks and offer better dent resistance. Both types are also available in realistic stone and slate designs.

But we often got mixed results from the effects of frequent walking, spilled food, dragged and dropped objects, and sunlight in our tough tests. The Project Source Winchester Oak 2765 laminate, just $1 per square foot, used to be a CR Best Buy, but the latest version proved too prone to wear for it to rank even close to our recommended floors. But some gained ground. The Mohawk Pastoria Red Oak Natural HCC27-10. $4.30 per square foot, improved at how well it resisted wear, though not enough to be one of our picks.