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To find out how Americans are planning on celebrating Halloween this year, AP-NORC polled 1,289 adults from October 9-13, 2025. What they found: two-thirds of adults plan to celebrate in some way this year, similar to 2021 levels but a drop from the three-quarters of adults who had Halloween plans in 2019.
The most popular activities this year are giving out candy to trick-or-treaters (33% of adults said they planned to do so), displaying Halloween decorations (32%), and watching a scary movie (31%). These numbers, similar to 2021, are down from 2019, where nearly half (42%) said they’d pass out candy and more than a third said they would put up decorations (36%).
Predictably, parents of children under 18 are much more likely to do Halloween activities. Parents of young kids are way more likely to take children trick-or-treating (55% compared to 7% of those who aren’t parents of young kids), carve a pumpkin (40% / 29%), and wear a costume (35% / 19%). Similar shares of parents of children younger than 18 and those who don’t have children under 18 plan to pass out candy to children trick-or-treating (33% among both groups), attend a Halloween party (26% / 18%), and dress up a pet in a costume (10% / 8%). Passing out healthy snacks instead of candy to kids was similarly unpopular among both groups – just 7% of parents and 5% of non-parents said they would.
However you celebrate Halloween, we hope it’s safe and fun!
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