Do you know how old your cat is? Perhaps they’re a rescue so you only have a rough idea of their age, or perhaps you’ve had them since they were a kitten so you can keep track of their birthdays! But what about their age in cat years?

Knowing your cat’s age in cat years can help you to better understand what life stage they’re at - and also it’s just pretty fun to work out if you’re about the same age as your cat!

So how do cat years compare to human years? And just how old is your cat in cat years? We’re going to take a look at how cat years work, so you can find out exactly how old your cat is in cat years!

What are cat years?

Cats, on average, live to be around 12-14 years of age - but they can live much longer than this! But of course, 14 for a cat is very different to 14 for a human, so cat years let us calculate a cat’s age to a more equivalent human age. One cat year is equal to several human years, but this changes as our cats grow.

How cat years work

As our cats age, the correlation between cat years and human years changes. Cats mature and develop so much in their first year that this is actually equivalent to 15 human years! That’s a big jump in those first 12 months.

Their second year, as cats continue to mature into adolescence and adulthood, equals around 9 human years, meaning that a two year old cat is roughly 24 in human years!

Things even out once cats reach their third year of life, when one cat year equals approximately four human years, and it continues like this for the rest of their lives.

How old is my cat?

1 human year = 15 cat years

2 human years = 24 cat years

3 human years = 28 cat years

4 human years = 32 cat years

5 human years = 36 cat years

6 human years = 40 cat years

 …and then continue to add 4 years for every additional year!

So a 14 year old cat is around 72 years old in human years. And some cats can live to be around 20 years old, which would make them an impressive 96 in cat years!

The holder of the record for oldest living cat is currently Flossie, who is 27 years old (in human years!) and lives in the UK.