Average NPS by Industry in 2026

There is no universal “good” Net Promoter Score. A score that looks strong in one industry may be ordinary in another. In some sectors, an NPS of 30 puts a company ahead of the market. Elsewhere, it signals a meaningful gap.

This report compares current benchmarks across 20 industries using standardized customer experience data derived from public reviews.

Reference period: July 2026

Coverage: 20 industries, 12 countries and 174 cities

History: Up to 31 monthly periods

Update frequency: Monthly

Methodology: Read how npsBench builds its benchmarks

The history is not identical across all 12 countries. Canada and the United States have been tracked since January 2024. France, Spain, Italy and Germany were added in September 2025. Six more markets joined in June 2026.

That difference matters. Current scores can be compared across all covered markets, but annual trends are only available where a full twelve-month history exists.

NPS Benchmarks by Industry: 2026 Comparison

Hotels and Resorts leads the current comparison. Energy and Utilities sits at the other end.

The distance between them is close to 30 points.

That is the clearest reason not to use a generic NPS target. The sectors are not being judged under the same conditions, by customers with the same expectations, or through the same type of relationship.

Current benchmark values refer to July 2026. Changes are expressed in NPS points. A dash indicates that the corresponding comparison was not available in the synchronized extract.

The table is a starting point. It tells you where the sector sits. It does not tell you whether a particular company is performing well.

For that, the comparison needs another layer: country, city and direction over time.

There Is No Useful Universal Average

A cross-industry average looks precise. Its meaning is less certain.

The 20 benchmarks do not necessarily represent equal review volumes, equal numbers of businesses or identical geographic coverage. Averaging the scores without accounting for those differences can produce a number that is mathematically correct but operationally weak.

The median is safer as a description of the published industry distribution. Even then, it should not be treated as a target.

The range tells the more useful story. Current industry benchmarks run from the mid-teens to the mid-40s. A score near 30 can therefore mean very different things depending on the market.

The Highest Current Benchmarks

Hotels and Resorts remains at the top of the dataset. Hospitality can create strong recommendation intent, but the category also varies by destination, segment and property type. The global figure should always be checked against the markets in which a hotel group operates.

Luxury Goods is close behind. High service attention and strong product attachment can support recommendation, but customer expectations are also unusually high. A positive score is not automatically a competitive one.

Fintech and Digital Banking stands above 40. Its annual increase is modest rather than dramatic. The more notable signal is geographic dispersion: the difference between the highest and lowest represented country benchmarks is 17.6 points.

B2B SaaS also remains above 40, although it is slightly below its level twelve months earlier. That is a movement to monitor, not a sector crisis.

Car Manufacturers completes the top five. Its benchmark is above most retail and infrastructure sectors, and 0.5 points higher than a year earlier.

The Lowest Current Benchmarks

Energy and Utilities records the lowest current sector benchmark.

That does not mean every utility provides a weak experience. It means recommendation is structurally harder to earn in this category than it is in hospitality or luxury. Limited provider choice, billing sensitivity and problem-led interactions may all contribute, although the benchmark itself does not establish causation.

Internet Service Providers also sits near the bottom. An ISP with an NPS in the mid-20s may therefore be outperforming its direct market even though the same score would look weak elsewhere.

Packaged Food and Beverage remains in the low 20s. Its annual movement is positive but small, while the 14-point country spread shows why the global figure should not stand alone.

Consumer Electronics and Quick Service Restaurants complete the lower group. Both need to be compared with their own operating context, not with unrelated high-scoring sectors.

“Lower benchmark” is the useful description. “Worst industry” is not.

Improvement Is Gradual, Not Dramatic

Most one-month changes in July were negligible.

Several industries were unchanged. Others moved by one or two-tenths of a point. The current data does not show a broad customer loyalty surge or collapse.

General Retail has one of the larger confirmed annual gains at 0.9 points. Car Manufacturers and Packaged Food and Beverage are up 0.5. Fintech, Sports and Grocery are up 0.4.

Those are real movements, but they remain measured.

The same restraint applies to declines. B2B SaaS is 0.9 points below its year-earlier benchmark. Automotive Dealers and Service is down 0.3. Apparel is down 0.2.

None of these figures supports a dramatic explanation on its own.

Geography Can Matter as Much as Industry

The General Retail benchmark is 29.8. The leading country in the current report reaches 42.5.

Supermarkets and Grocery shows a 13.7-point spread between its highest and lowest country benchmarks. Packaged Food and Beverage shows a 14-point spread. Fintech reaches 17.6 points.

These gaps are too large to ignore.

A multinational operator should not assign the same NPS target to every country simply because the business model is consistent. Local expectations and market composition are not.

City data adds another layer, particularly for hotels, restaurants, dealerships and physical retail. A national benchmark can hide local markets that behave very differently.

How to Use the Benchmark

Start with the same industry.

Check the reference month.

Add the country.

Add the city where the business is local.

Then compare direction, not just the latest point.

An organization at 35 and rising may be in a healthier position than one at 38 and falling. The answer becomes clearer when the external sector trend is placed beside the internal score.

External benchmarks should also sit alongside internal NPS surveys. They answer different questions.

Your survey measures your own customers. npsBench shows the wider market context.

Methodology and Limits

npsBench aggregates publicly available ratings and reviews from supported platforms, including Google, Tripadvisor and Yelp.

The data is organized by business, location and industry, then cleaned and standardized. A proprietary normalization methodology converts heterogeneous review signals into an external recommendation benchmark.

Results are published monthly where market coverage is sufficient.

The report should not be described as a traditional survey NPS study. Public-review benchmarks and internal NPS surveys are related but different forms of evidence. The external benchmark adds market context; it does not replace a company’s Voice of the Customer program.

Coverage also varies by market. Newer countries do not yet support long-term comparisons, and city-level outliers need to be interpreted with appropriate caution.

Final Word

The central finding is not that one industry wins and another loses.

It is that NPS expectations remain structurally different across sectors—and often across countries within the same sector.

A score becomes useful only after the comparison is narrowed.

Industry first. Geography second. Trend third.