As the tile category heads into 2026, manufacturers are navigating a landscape shaped as much by economic conditions as by design trends. A slow housing market—pressured by high interest rates and elevated building costs—continues to influence demand patterns across both residential and commercial projects. Yet within that constraint, opportunity remains.
Scott Maslowski
executive vice president of SSC sales & operations, Dal-Tile
What is your projection for the category in 2026?
Overall, we believe that the industry will be slightly down in 2026, primarily driven from new residential or the builder business. We don’t anticipate getting a lift in that until the back half of the year.
What will be some of the biggest challenges facing the category in 2026?
We believe the new residential business both in single-family and multi family is going to be slow at least for the first half of the year. We need interest rates to come down in order to drive some builder confidence and consumer confidence.
How do you think those challenges need to be addressed?
We need to continue to sell the benefits of tile in regards to its visual, its technology, its sustainability, its waterproof story and really just all the great life-cycle benefits of using tile.
What will be the biggest opportunities for 2026?
For us in 2026, the biggest opportunities as there’s still a lot of tariff uncertainty in the marketplace is to sell our USA story. Eighty percent of the tiles that we deliver into the marketplace under our three brands are produced here in the United States. So we think that’s a significant opportunity for us to tell the American-made story.
What are your biggest initiatives for 2026?
Our biggest initiative in 2026 is continuing to sell the USA story. No. 2 is to continue to bring technology into our business and make it easier for our customers to do business with us through customer automation, and continuing to go out into the marketplace and work for customer diversification.
Jim Parello
EVP, Emser
What is your projection for the category in 2026?
We’re planning on modest growth—low single digits, probably in that 2% to 4% range. We’ve got some segments that are doing well, given the circumstances. Our remodeling segment is solid. I think first quarter is going to be dicey for everybody.
What will be some of the biggest challenges facing the category in 2026?
First: Interest rates will always be a problem. We need to see multiple decreases in order to spur activity around single-family construction. Second: I’ll say qualified labor. It’s definitely a challenge. You’ve got a lot of crackdowns going around in the country right now that’s impacting business.
How do you think those challenges need to be addressed?
We’re certainly involved with [industry organizations] more so than we have in the last three to four years as far as labor, and we’ll be hosting events next year, which we’re looking forward to. Part of it is really about our plans should things pick up—trying to reduce risk, create a buffer with our inventory, minimizing any disruptions we can.
What will be the biggest opportunities for 2026?
I do think we’ll see those interest rate drops. I do think our builder partners will continue to bring things out of the ground. We’ll continue to see people spending a lot of money to be outside at their properties and investing in them with the low interest rates that they do have. Then product. Market-driven products, continuously updating market trends and really a push toward some of the larger-format tile as well.
What are your biggest initiatives for 2026?
Product is always a piece of it, but for us, our digital platforms are a huge initiative. We’ve rolled out a new B2B site for our customers. It’s best in class. We also rolled out ebyemser.com, which is fantastic. And then for us as a business, part of that digital transformation is upgrading our CRM system, our internal platforms. It’s certainly needed as we progress forward.
Larry Browder
executive vice president, Crossville
What is your projection for the category in 2026?
You’re probably going to see the market enter slow recovery in this category. I would say the category will be up single digits.
What will be some of the biggest challenges facing the category in 2026?
First of all, the tariff and the trade situation in the market is substantial, and we continue to see that affecting import products. Now being a U.S.-based manufacturer, we’re uniquely positioned to provide stability. Then you’re going to continue to see the pressures from competitive products like LVT. The biggest challenge is always instability.
How do you think those challenges need to be addressed?
The thing we can provide is domestic manufacturing—short lead times, reduced environmental footprint vs. imports. We’re also seeing customers come back to porcelain—to more natural products. I think we’ll continue to see a bounce back from that. So it’s about being prepared for that turn.
What will be the biggest opportunities for 2026?
We have this unique benefit that we service the market through many different channels. We are a direct-to-market organization. Plus, we sell through distribution and we have our own company distributor called Studios. That’s a huge benefit for us. Studios is really a supply chain and logistical asset for AHF, and you’re going to see us start to pivot the business more to talk about Studios in that fashion.
What are your biggest initiatives for 2026?
We have to keep innovating. We made a massive investment in service and doubled the headcount. We’ve got to make sure they’re all going in the right direction. On the Studio side, it’s really about fully aligning our Studios business with the entire AHF portfolio to create one unified selling system and one unified service proposition for our customers.
Raj Shah
CEO, MSI
What is your projection for the category in 2026?
We expect the ceramic tile industry to grow in low single digits in 2026 while the economy continues to recover.
What will be some of the biggest challenges facing the category in 2026?
We expect a slow start during the first semester, which will directly impact small to mid-size distributors and offer opportunities for large-scale distribution companies to capture market share.
How do you think those challenges need to be addressed?
The industry should continue to focus on the versatility of ceramic tile products versus other floor, wall and countertop alternatives. Ceramic tile offers a competitive advantage not only in terms of looks, but also performance in demanding installation projects such as in wet, freeze, high traffic and UV-exposed conditions.
What will be the biggest opportunities for 2026?
Given the challenging economic times and customers becoming more discerning in their spending, it is more important than ever to have a supplier who offers a curated set of products that help dealers win in this market. Dealers have very limited leeway when it comes to inventory and merchandising risk, and MSI offers the best curation of products that help dealers close deals easier and with higher rates.
What are your biggest initiatives for 2026?
We continue to expand our footprint and introduce trendy product lines that will enable us to capture market share in the tile segment when demand increases sometime in 2026.
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