San Diego,Unleashed

Licenses issued,
year over year.

Dog licenses issued each year in San Diego County, split into new licenses and renewals.

Issued January 1 to July 14, 2026

Down 0.9% from the same window in 2025. 111,471 dogs held a license at some point in 2026.

36,635

Licenses issued each year

Every year counts the licenses that started between January 1 and July 14, so the partial 2026 sits beside full years without being annualized.

Dog licenses issued from January 1 through July 14 of each year
YearLicenses issued
2020 (Migrated records)18,834
2021 (Migrated records)27,718
2022 (Migrated records)33,537
202338,450
202437,749
202536,981
202636,635

2020 through 2022 are reconstructed. The county backfilled 125,887 license records in August 2022, when it changed records systems. 2023 onward was recorded as it happened.

New licenses and renewals

Since 2023, new licenses are down 15.4% and renewals are up 2.8%. Both series use the same January 1 to July 14 window.

  • New licenses
  • Renewals
New dog licenses and renewals from January 1 through July 14 of each year
YearNew licensesRenewals
2020 (Migrated records)18,711123
2021 (Migrated records)27,511207
2022 (Migrated records)25,4388,099
202315,85222,598
202415,57722,172
202512,99823,983
202613,40423,231

A renewal keeps an existing dog licensed. A new license adds a dog the program had not licensed before.

Year by year

Licenses issued from January 1 through July 14 in each year the county recorded directly.

04
  1. 01
    202315,852 new · 22,598 renewals
    38,450
  2. 02
    202415,577 new · 22,172 renewals · down 1.8%
    37,749
  3. 03
    202512,998 new · 23,983 renewals · down 2.0%
    36,981
  4. 04
    202613,404 new · 23,231 renewals · down 0.9%
    36,635

City by city

The 14 jurisdictions this county program licenses, ranked by their 2026 window.

14
  1. 01
    San Diego7,656 new · 12,597 renewals · down 1.3% from 2025
    20,253
  2. 02
    Oceanside1,184 new · 1,965 renewals · up 3.8% from 2025
    3,149
  3. 03
    Carlsbad731 new · 1,501 renewals · up 4.9% from 2025
    2,232
  4. 04
    Escondido680 new · 1,192 renewals · down 5.4% from 2025
    1,872
  5. 05
    Vista534 new · 852 renewals · up 6.5% from 2025
    1,386
  6. 06
    San Marcos485 new · 839 renewals · up 2.7% from 2025
    1,324
  7. 07
    Encinitas387 new · 912 renewals · down 3.1% from 2025
    1,299
  8. 08
    Santee364 new · 836 renewals · down 3.8% from 2025
    1,200
  9. 09
    El Cajon500 new · 687 renewals · down 0.6% from 2025
    1,187
  10. 10
    Poway240 new · 809 renewals · down 13.3% from 2025
    1,049
  11. 11
    La Mesa373 new · 535 renewals · down 4.1% from 2025
    908
  12. 12
    Imperial Beach134 new · 137 renewals · up 2.3% from 2025
    271
  13. 13
    Del Mar64 new · 192 renewals · held flat from 2025
    256
  14. 14
    Solana Beach72 new · 177 renewals · down 7.1% from 2025
    249