Record Share of US Kindergartners Are Skipping Required Vaccines as Measles Surges

A Record That Nobody Wanted to Break

For the fourth consecutive year, the national average kindergarten vaccine exemption rate has reached a new record — and the vast majority of parents withholding shots are doing so for nonmedical reasons. Vaccine exemptions among U.S. kindergarteners hit a new high in the 2025-2026 school year, rising to 4.2% — a jump from 3.6% the previous year that translates to roughly 155,000 children with exemptions from one or more required vaccines.

Just five years ago, during the 2020-21 school year, the exemption rate stood at 2.2%. The near-doubling of that figure in half a decade tells a story about shifting public trust in childhood immunization — and it's unfolding at a dangerous moment. The United States has confirmed 2,566 measles infections this year, the highest annual total in more than three decades.

Coverage Is Slipping Across the Board

During the 2025-2026 school year, vaccination coverage among kindergartners decreased for all reported vaccines from the year before, ranging from 92.0% for the diphtheria, tetanus, and acellular pertussis vaccine (DTaP) to 92.4% for the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) and polio vaccines. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the vaccination rate was 95% — the level that makes it unlikely that a single infection will spark a disease cluster or outbreak.

The figures translate to roughly 155,000 children starting kindergarten with an exemption from at least one required vaccine, and about 280,000 attending school without documentation of completing the two-dose MMR series. The first group covers children whose families filed paperwork; the second is larger and includes children whose records are simply incomplete. Either way, the result is the same: more unprotected children sitting in classrooms together.

The increase was widespread — exemption rates rose in 41 states and Washington, D.C., up from 36 states the previous year — and 24 states now report exemption rates exceeding 5%. When exemptions become concentrated geographically, larger outbreaks may ignite, and school vaccination policies that vary from state to state — including whether nonmedical exemptions are even permitted — make the patchwork of protection uneven.

The Political Climate Is Fueling Hesitancy

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was a leading voice in the antivaccine movement before President Trump put him in charge of federal health agencies. During his second term, Trump has urged Kennedy to investigate further research on vaccines. The vaccine exemption report arrives on the heels of an executive order issued by President Trump that suggests splitting the MMR vaccine into separate shots.

The Pan American Health Organization declared in late 2025 that the Americas region as a whole had lost its measles elimination status after sustained transmission in Canada, and a review of whether the United States still meets the elimination criteria it has held since 2000 is scheduled for November. That review now looms larger than ever, given that the U.S. is in the middle of its worst measles year since 1991 and its kindergarten vaccination rates are trending in the wrong direction.

What This Means for the Coming School Year

More than 94% of measles cases this year were associated with outbreaks, and more than half of all cases have occurred in children ages 19 and younger. The children entering kindergarten classrooms right now are among the most vulnerable — and the data suggests that in many schools, the protective buffer that keeps a single case from becoming an outbreak has already eroded.

Coverage for the major vaccines required for kindergarten — MMR, DTaP, polio, and varicella — decreased in more than half of states for the second year in a row. Public health experts warn that without a reversal in these trends, the U.S. faces not just continued measles outbreaks but renewed vulnerability to other diseases that were once considered well under control. The numbers are clear: the longer exemptions rise and coverage falls, the harder it becomes to protect every child in the room — vaccinated or not.