Labrador Retriever Growth Chart: Weight by Age (Male and Female)
A male Labrador Retriever typically finishes at 65-80 lb29-36 kg and a female at 55-70 lb25-32 kg. Bodyweight growth is essentially done by around 11 months, earlier than most charts suggest. The tables below give the expected weight at every age for each sex, in pounds and kilograms, alongside the percentage of adult weight reached at that point.
Labrador Retriever adult size: what the breed standards actually say
The Labrador is one of the breeds whose standard does give weights, but it attaches a qualifier that almost every growth chart drops: those figures are for a dog "in working condition", meaning lean and fit. That qualifier is doing real work. A 90 lb Labrador is not automatically a big-framed Labrador, it is a Labrador above the standard's range, and the honest way to tell which you have is body condition rather than the number on the scale. The standards also disagree with each other on height in a way worth knowing about.
| Source | What it specifies |
|---|---|
| AKC breed standard | Dogs 65 to 80 lb, bitches 55 to 70 lb, in working condition. Height 22.5 to 24.5 inches for dogs, 21.5 to 23.5 inches for bitches. Approved 12 February 1994. A height variance of more than half an inch outside these limits is a disqualification, which is unusually strict. |
| FCI Standard 122 | Ideal height at withers 56 to 57 cm for males, 54 to 56 cm for females. No weight is given at all. Published 16 June 2022. Note the conflict: FCI's entire male ideal (22.0 to 22.4 in) sits at or below the AKC male minimum of 22.5 in, so a dog ideal under one standard can be disqualified under the other. |
Labrador Retriever growth chart by age
Weekly rows through 16 weeks, then monthly. Male and female bands are built from the sex-specific adult ranges above, scaled by the share of adult weight a large breed has typically reached at each age. These are bands, not targets: a healthy puppy tracking consistently near the bottom of its band is doing fine.
| Age | Male | Female | % of adult weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8 weeks | 9.9-12 lb4.5-5.6 kg | 8.4-11 lb3.8-4.9 kg | 15% |
| 9 weeks | 12-15 lb5.4-6.6 kg | 10-13 lb4.6-5.8 kg | 18% |
| 10 weeks | 14-17 lb6.3-7.7 kg | 12-15 lb5.3-6.8 kg | 21% |
| 11 weeks | 16-19 lb7.2-8.8 kg | 13-17 lb6.1-7.7 kg | 24% |
| 12 weeks | 18-22 lb8-9.9 kg | 15-19 lb6.8-8.7 kg | 27% |
| 13 weeks | 20-25 lb9-11 kg | 17-21 lb7.6-9.7 kg | 31% |
| 14 weeks | 22-27 lb10-12 kg | 19-24 lb8.5-11 kg | 34% |
| 15 weeks | 24-30 lb11-14 kg | 21-26 lb9.3-12 kg | 37% |
| 16 weeks | 26-33 lb12-15 kg | 22-28 lb10-13 kg | 41% |
| 5 months | 37-46 lb17-21 kg | 31-40 lb14-18 kg | 57% |
| 6 months | 44-54 lb20-25 kg | 37-48 lb17-22 kg | 68% |
| 7 months | 49-60 lb22-27 kg | 41-52 lb19-24 kg | 75% |
| 8 months | 53-65 lb24-29 kg | 45-57 lb20-26 kg | 81% |
| 9 months | 55-68 lb25-31 kg | 47-60 lb21-27 kg | 85% |
| 10 months | 57-70 lb26-32 kg | 48-61 lb22-28 kg | 87% |
| 12 months | 58-72 lb26-32 kg | 49-63 lb22-28 kg | 89% |
| 15 months | 63-77 lb29-35 kg | 53-68 lb24-31 kg | 97% |
| 18 months | 65-80 lb29-36 kg | 55-70 lb25-32 kg | 100% |
The shaded final row is the age at which the large size class is treated as full grown. Percentages are shared across the size class; the pounds and kilograms are specific to this breed's male and female adult ranges.
Male Labrador Retriever growth chart
Males run heavier throughout, finishing at 65-80 lb29-36 kg. The male and female bands on this page differ by about 16% at the midpoint. That figure comes from this breed's own sourced adult ranges rather than a size-class average, which matters because breeds in the same size class vary widely on it.
Female Labrador Retriever growth chart
Females finish at 55-70 lb25-32 kg and follow the same curve shape, reaching the same percentage of their own adult weight at the same ages. A female tracking below the male column is not behind; she is on a different scale.
When is a Labrador Retriever fully grown?
Labradors finish growing earlier than most charts imply. Peer-reviewed growth modelling puts female Labradors at mature bodyweight around 351 days, and a separate study puts the end of measurable growth at about 319 days for females with males roughly a week later, so a little under and a little over 11 months respectively. Height finishes sooner: in dogs of this size the last long-bone growth plate closes around 12 months, and most longitudinal bone growth is done between 12 and 26 weeks. Chest depth and muscle keep filling out after that, which owners read as "still growing", but the skeleton has largely finished.
This is one of the places where this page disagrees with most of the internet. The claim that large-breed growth plates stay open until 18 to 24 months appears on many Labrador Retriever pages. The only published closure table for dogs of this size puts the last physis at about 12 months. We have left the claim out rather than repeat it.
Growth and joint health in Labrador Retrievers
This breed has a real orthopedic burden and it is the main reason to care about growth rate rather than growth speed. Screening data from the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals records 11.3% dysplastic across 324,241 evaluations and 9.9% abnormal across 148,139 evaluations. That is markedly better than the German Shepherd, which runs 20.4% and 18.7%, though the Labrador has the larger screening dataset of any breed.
Aiming for the top of the chart is the wrong instinct, and in this breed there is unusually direct evidence for that.
The lifetime study that was run on Labradors
Most advice about growing puppies slowly is extrapolated. For this breed it is not. A 14-year controlled study followed 48 Labradors from 8 weeks of age, feeding half of them 25% less than their littermates ate. The restricted dogs lived a median of 13.0 years against 11.2, a difference of about 1.8 years. Hip dysplasia appeared in 7 of 24 restricted dogs against 16 of 24 in the control group. Median onset of hip osteoarthritis was 12 years against 6. Same breed, same kennel, same genetics pool, and the only variable was how much they ate. If your Labrador puppy is tracking the lower half of the bands on this page while staying in good body condition, that is the half the evidence favours.
Neutering age and joint disorders
The association between early neutering and joint disease is real in Labradors but milder than in some other large breeds. In a study of 1,933 Labradors, joint disorders affected about 6% of intact dogs of both sexes. For males neutered before 6 months the rate roughly doubled to 13%, and for females spayed before 12 months it sat around 11 to 12%. The effect is smaller than the same study found in German Shepherds. Timing is a discussion for you and your vet, not something to settle from a chart.
English and American type
You will see Labradors described as "English" or "show" type, typically stockier with a blockier head, and "American" or "field" type, typically lighter and rangier. The distinction is real and breeders use it consistently, but no breed standard recognises it and we have found no primary source giving separate weight ranges by type and sex. So this page does not publish separate charts for them. If your puppy comes from a known line, the parents' adult weights will tell you more than any type label, and the calculator will use them if you enter them.
Labrador Retriever growth FAQ
How can you tell how big a Lab puppy will get?
Current weight and age get you most of the way, and the parents' adult weights get you the rest. A Labrador is about halfway to its adult weight at roughly 19 weeks, so doubling the weight around that point is a fair first pass. After four months the table above is more reliable than any doubling rule, because the curve is flattening by then and a fixed multiplier drifts.
How big is a Labrador puppy at 4 months?
Around 26-33 lb (12-15 kg) for a male and 22-28 lb (10-13 kg) for a female, which is about 41% of adult weight. Four months sits in the fastest part of the curve, so a fortnight either way makes a visible difference and a single reading tells you less than a trend does.
How big is a 12 week old Labrador?
About 18-22 lb (8-9.9 kg) for a male and 15-19 lb (6.8-8.7 kg) for a female, roughly 27% of adult weight. This is the age where weekly weighing is worth doing, because the week-to-week change is large enough to be informative.
How much should my Labrador weigh?
The AKC standard says 65-80 lb for males and 55-70 lb for females, in working condition, which means lean. Body condition is a better test than the scale: you should be able to feel the ribs easily under a thin layer of fat and see a waist from above. Two Labradors at the same weight can be in very different shape.
Can a Labrador weigh 100 pounds? Is 90 lbs big for a Lab?
Some do, and a few are genuinely large-framed, but 90 to 100 lb is above the breed standard's range for a dog in working condition and in most cases the extra is body fat rather than frame. The distinction matters for this breed more than most: the lifetime study on Labradors found leaner dogs lived a median of 1.8 years longer and developed hip arthritis six years later. If your Labrador is at 90 lb, the useful question is not whether that is normal but what its body condition score is.
At what age is a Labrador fully grown?
Bodyweight growth is essentially finished around 11 months on the published growth curves, and our model treats the large size class as full grown by about 18 months to allow for slow final filling out. Height finishes earlier, near 12 months. The claim that large-breed growth plates stay open until 18 to 24 months is common online and is not supported by the published closure data.
Sources
- Official AKC breed standard for the Labrador Retriever, approved 12 February 1994. Weights given "in working condition".
- FCI Standard 122 (Labrador Retriever), published 16 June 2022. Height only; no weight given.
- Orthopedic Foundation for Animals, hip and elbow dysplasia statistics, retrieved 28 July 2026.
- Kealy RD, et al. (2002). "Effects of diet restriction on life span and age-related changes in dogs." JAVMA 220(9):1315-20.
- Kealy RD, et al. (1992). "Effects of limited food consumption on the incidence of hip dysplasia in growing dogs." JAVMA 201(6):857-863.
- Smith GK, et al. (2006). "Lifelong diet restriction and radiographic evidence of osteoarthritis of the hip joint in dogs." JAVMA 229(5):690-3.
- Hart BL, et al. (2020). "Assisting Decision-Making on Age of Neutering for 35 Breeds of Dogs." Frontiers in Veterinary Science 7:388.
- Trangerud C, et al. (2007). "A longitudinal study on growth and growth variables in dogs of four large breeds raised in domestic environments." Journal of Animal Science 85(1):76-83.
- Helmink SK, et al. (2000). "Investigation of breed and sex differences in the growth of dogs." Journal of Animal Science 78(1):27-32.
- Balsa IM, Robinson DA (2016). Growth plate closure timing, Today's Veterinary Practice, May/June 2016.
These are estimates for healthy puppies and are not veterinary advice. The growth percentages come from our size-class model, which is fitted to roughly 9.8 million veterinary weight records. The methodology page publishes the full curve, the dataset behind it and what remains unmeasured.
Estimate your Labrador Retriever's adult weight
See also the full puppy growth chart covering all five size classes from toy to giant.