Ripping out a tub for a walk-in shower is one of the most common bathroom renovation requests we get, and one of the easiest to regret if it's decided on looks alone. The right answer depends on things that have nothing to do with which one photographs better: how many other tubs are in the house, who's actually using this bathroom in five years, and whether the room is even wide enough to make a walk-in shower feel like an upgrade instead of a squeeze. Here's how to think through it properly.
Key Takeaways
- If this is the only tub in the house, keep it or replace it with another tub. Removing the last one narrows your buyer pool at resale, according to real estate professionals interviewed by the National Association of Realtors.
- A walk-in shower typically runs $4,000 to $20,000 installed, averaging about $12,000; a standard tub replacement averages about $2,100, per This Old House's 2026 cost data.
- Water use favours the shower in daily use, but only because most people don't fill a tub to the brim every time. A full tub averages 36 gallons (U.S. Geological Survey); a low-flow shower uses about that much in 18 minutes.
- Small bathrooms often gain the most usable floor space by converting, but a walk-in shower needs roughly 36 by 36 inches clear to avoid feeling like a phone booth.
- Aging-in-place and surround material are real factors in this decision but deserve their own deeper look; we cover both separately below.
| Walk-in shower | Tub | |
|---|---|---|
| Installed cost | $4,000-$20,000 (avg. ~$12,000) | ~$2,100 alone; ~$3,200-$4,200 with a new surround |
| Water per use | ~10 to 36 gal, depending on shower length | ~36 gal for a full fill |
| Minimum footprint | ~36 by 36 in. clear for real elbow room | Standard alcove tub, roughly 30 by 60 in. |
| Best for | Aging-in-place, primary ensuites, small bathrooms with enough wall run | The only tub in the house, bathrooms young kids use daily |
| Resale risk | None, if at least one tub remains elsewhere in the house | None, unless it's replacing the home's last remaining tub |
How many tubs does the rest of the house already have?
This is the question that should get asked before any other, and it's the one most homeowners skip. If the bathroom in question is the only one in the house with a tub, converting it to a shower is a resale gamble regardless of how the rest of the renovation turns out.
Appraiser Jonathan J. Miller told the National Association of Realtors that a tub "falls into the category of another commodity in a house," and that sellers with more amenities win because their homes appeal to a wider pool of buyers (NAR). Designer Kristie Barnett went further in the same piece, saying flatly that "there absolutely has to be at least one bathtub in any condo or home," because a listing with zero tubs turns away buyers who bathe, have young kids, or are just planning ahead for resale themselves. Neither expert says every bathroom needs a tub. The rule is narrower and more useful: keep at least one somewhere in the house.
A four-bathroom home in Oakville with three tubs already installed can convert its primary ensuite to a walk-in shower without touching that resale math at all. A three-bedroom bungalow in Cambridge with one four-piece bathroom and no other tub anywhere is a different conversation entirely, and it's the one where we push back hardest on a full conversion.
Do young kids change the answer?
Usually, yes, and it's less about age and more about how long the household plans to have young kids in it. The same NAR piece cited above points to families with children as one of the two groups most likely to need a tub, alongside larger households with multiple full bathrooms. A real estate agent quoted there noted that many parents consider a traditional tub genuinely safer for bathing small kids than a walk-in shower.
That doesn't mean a family with young kids can't have a walk-in shower anywhere in the house. It means the bathroom those kids actually bathe in, usually the main family bathroom, is the wrong one to convert first. We've walked more than one bathroom renovation in Toronto where the plan was originally "shower everywhere," and the finished scope kept one tub specifically for a toddler or two, with the walk-in shower going into the primary ensuite instead, where the adults actually wanted it.
Which one actually uses less water?
Neither option wins by default; it comes down to habits. A full tub averages about 36 gallons, per the U.S. Geological Survey's water use data (USGS), and that same source puts an old showerhead at up to 5 gallons per minute. A showerhead carrying the WaterSense label, the EPA's efficiency certification, is capped at 2.0 gallons per minute, down from the 2.5 gpm baseline for standard fixtures (EPA WaterSense).
Run the numbers and a WaterSense shower has to run for roughly 18 minutes to use as much water as one full tub. Most people don't shower that long, which is why switching from baths to showers is a genuine water-saving move for daily use, not just a marketing line. It flips the other direction the moment someone runs the shower long, or fills the tub only partway; a quick five-minute rinse in a tub with a couple inches of water can easily use less than either kind of shower. If water use is the deciding factor for your household, it's really a question about how the people using that bathroom actually bathe, not which fixture is inherently more efficient.
Does a walk-in shower actually make a small bathroom feel bigger?
Often, yes, but only past a specific size threshold. Removing a bulky alcove tub and its surround frees up real floor area, and a glass-walled walk-in shower reads visually larger than a curtained tub-shower combo because sightlines carry through it instead of stopping at a curtain. That's the upside small bathrooms are chasing when they ask for this conversion.
The catch is that a walk-in shower needs its own minimum footprint to deliver that payoff. Most building codes only require 30 by 30 inches of clear interior shower space, but bathroom designers generally recommend at least 36 by 36 inches for real elbow room (Ranney Blair). Squeeze a walk-in shower into less than that and it feels cramped in a way a tub-shower combo, which borrows the tub's length for elbow room, usually doesn't. Before committing, measure the actual available wall run, not just the current tub's footprint; a lot of powder-room-adjacent primary bathrooms don't have the width to gain anything from the swap.
What's the actual cost gap?
It's wider than most homeowners expect going in. A walk-in shower installation runs $4,000 to $20,000 overall, averaging about $12,000, with midrange tiled builds landing around $8,000 to $13,000 and high-end custom builds, larger footprints, frameless glass, built-in benches, running $14,000 to $20,000 or more (This Old House). A standard tub replacement, by contrast, averages about $2,100 installed on its own; add a new surround, which This Old House prices separately at $1,100 to $2,100, and a full tub-and-surround swap typically lands around $3,200 to $4,200 total (This Old House).
The gap comes almost entirely from labour, not material. A prefabricated shower base cuts the low end down to roughly $4,000 to $7,000. A genuinely curbless entry, the kind that reads as a real upgrade rather than a shower stall, is what pushes the price up: the subfloor has to be built out or recessed at framing stage, and that's carpentry a tub swap never requires. If budget is the constraint, that's the line item worth asking about directly before signing off on a full conversion; it's often the difference between a project that fits the number you had in mind and one that doesn't. A bathroom renovation in St. Catharines with a curbless shower and a tub swap priced side by side usually makes this gap concrete faster than any national average does.
Aging-in-place and surround material: real factors, not this article's job
Two more considerations belong in this decision and deserve more room than a comparison post can give them. A curbless walk-in shower is the safer long-term choice for anyone planning to stay in a home into their later years, since it removes the trip hazard a tub's high side wall creates. We cover that decision in full, including grab bar placement, bench height, and code-adjacent clearances, in our guide to designing an accessible, aging-in-place bathroom.
Once you've decided on a shower, the surround material, tile versus a one-piece acrylic surround, changes the cost and maintenance picture again, mostly around grout upkeep versus a slicker but less customizable finish. That's its own tradeoff, not a subset of the tub-versus-shower question.
Who should choose which
Households where this is the only tub in the house: Keep a tub here, even if it's not the primary ensuite. Move the walk-in shower ambition to a second bathroom if one exists.
Families with kids under about 8: Keep the tub in whichever bathroom the kids actually bathe in, and put the walk-in shower in the primary ensuite if you want one somewhere.
Empty nesters or households planning to stay long-term: A curbless walk-in shower is usually the right call, especially in the primary ensuite, and it pairs well with the aging-in-place details linked above.
Small bathrooms under about 36 square feet: Measure before deciding. A walk-in shower can genuinely open the room up, but only if there's enough wall run to give it a real footprint; otherwise a tub-shower combo remains the more space-efficient choice.
Tight budgets: A tub swap is the cheaper renovation by a wide margin. If a walk-in shower is the goal, a prefabricated base narrows that gap considerably versus a fully custom tiled build.
Frequently asked questions
Does removing a tub always hurt resale value?
No. It hurts resale value specifically when it leaves the house with zero tubs. A home with two or more bathrooms can typically convert one to a walk-in shower and keep a tub elsewhere without any resale downside.
Is a walk-in shower actually more water-efficient than a bath?
In practice, usually, because most people don't shower for 18 minutes and don't fill a tub to the brim every time. On paper, a full tub and a long low-flow shower use roughly the same amount of water; it comes down to household habits more than the fixture itself.
How small is too small for a walk-in shower?
Under roughly 36 by 36 inches of clear interior space, a walk-in shower starts to feel cramped rather than spacious. Measure the actual available wall run before committing, not just the current tub's footprint.
Can I convert a tub to a walk-in shower without opening the subfloor?
Yes, if you're not going fully curbless. A shower with a standard low curb can usually sit on the existing floor structure. A true curbless entry, where the floor is flush from bathroom to shower, needs the subfloor recessed or built out at framing stage, which is the main reason curbless costs more than a curbed conversion.
Where this decision fits in the bigger renovation
Shower versus tub is one decision inside a much larger bathroom renovation, alongside waterproofing, ventilation, layout, and plumbing rough-in. For how those pieces fit together start to finish, see our complete guide to bathroom renovation in Ontario. And if you're weighing this decision for a specific project, we can walk your bathroom in person and tell you honestly whether a walk-in shower earns its cost in your layout, or whether the tub is worth keeping.