Best Handheld Vacuums of 2025
The best ones clean well and are easy to carry, making them perfect for smaller cleaning jobs
When you shop through retailer links on our site, we may earn affiliate commissions. 100% of the fees we collect are used to support our nonprofit mission. Learn more.
If convenience is what you value in your vacuuming, you should consider a handheld vacuum. While they don’t possess the suction power of an upright, canister, or stick vac, they’re perfect for spot-cleaning. You can use a hand vac to clean the inside of your car or get into crevices such as the space in between your couch cushions. And if you’re a parent of young children, a light, convenient handheld vac will help you tackle spills quickly.
But which handheld vac should you go for? To find out which are the best, we put them through lab tests that evaluate their proficiency at cleaning up small messes like Cheerios strewn under and around a high chair or the mess that accumulates in the back seat of your SUV. The best handheld vacuums are able to pick up debris without scattering it and easily lift sand from a medium-pile carpet, among other tasks. What’s more, most weigh under 3 pounds, making them easy to handle and store.
All of the handheld vacuums in our ratings have longer-lasting lithium-ion batteries, and the run times for the models in our tests range from 9 to 23 minutes. (We calculate the run times by averaging how long the vacuum can run on one battery charge on its highest power setting.) A number of new models come with convenient attachments including tools for cleaning crevices.
Below, we’ve listed six of our top-rated handheld vacuums in alphabetical order. Scroll down to learn how we picked the best handheld vacuums and find out more details about how we test them. If you’re looking for a more powerful vacuum, consider our picks of the best stick vacuums or even trade up to a full-sized canister vacuum or upright vacuum.
If you’re looking for a handheld vacuum that isn’t screeching loud, the Dirt Devil Deep Clean+ BD30300V is the one. It’s one of the quietest models we’ve tested, and it does a very good job at suctioning up debris from carpets, tile floors, and tight spaces that are hard to reach. It has a motorized brush roll that’s easy to remove for cleaning, though we did notice that it can get clogged with bulkier debris, like cereal.
The inexpensive Black+Decker DustBuster CHV1410L picked up almost all the debris in our bare floor and carpet tests—no small feat for a handheld vacuum. The filter is snugly set inside the dustbin and is easy to remove and empty. This model doesn’t come with detachable tools but has a built-in slide-out crevice tool and a pop-out brush. It’s a little noisier than the competition, making a light whistling sound when you turn it on.
With a built-in hose, the compact, cord-free Black+Decker Flex BDH2020FL makes it easy to suction up debris in hard-to-reach places, like under a child car seat or behind your washer. It earns a stellar rating for cleaning edges and tight spaces. It also comes with a rubber pet-hair attachment that helps remove more hair without it getting stuck. Our testers liked how you can store all the vacuum’s attachments in the charging dock, making it a space-saver. One thing we did notice is that this vacuum sometimes shuts down when vacuuming large amounts of fine particles, though restarting it seems to remedy the situation.
Despite its impressive performance, the lack of an indicator light on the cordless Black+Decker DustBuster Ion HHVI315JO42 makes it difficult to know whether it’s fully charged when plugged in or about to die when you’re using it. That said, it’s top-notch at cleaning bare floors and pet hair and earns a respectable rating for vacuuming carpeted surfaces. It’s also the least expensive option among our top-rated handheld vacs. The crevice tool and dust brush are separate and not combination tools like those on other Black+Decker handhelds.
The Black+Decker Max+ DustBuster AdvancedClean+ HHVK515J00 is a good bet if you have bare floors, and it delivers solid results when cleaning the carpet. If pet hair is your nemesis, however, you should try another model on this list, such as the Shark Ion or Black+Decker Flex. This Black+Decker earns an excellent rating for cleaning edges and comes with attachments to help it reach into tighter spaces, such as the cushions of your car seats. It’s also one of the quieter handhelds in our tests.
It’s the highest-scoring handheld vac in our tests, and for good reason. Not all handheld vacuums can tackle pet hair well, but the Shark Ion aces that task. It’s also a champ at cleaning bare floors and getting into hard-to-reach places, and it’s not too shabby at cleaning carpet. The vacuum and all of its attachments can be stored on the charging base, making it a real space-saver. And at just 1.4 pounds, it’s one of the lightest hand vacs in our tests. The only downside to its small size is the small dustbin, which may have to be emptied more than once if you have a sizable spill.
How CR Tests Handheld Vacuums
To rate handheld vacuums, we test models on their ability to clean up debris on carpet, bare floors, and edges. For example, one of our tests for surface cleaning involves dispersing Cheerios and noting how long it takes the vacuum to pick them all up. We also examine their loudness, how long they run on a single charge, and how well they clean up pet hair, among other things
To learn more about how we rate and test handheld vacuums, check our vacuum cleaner buying guide, or take a peek into our labs to see our testing process.
How CR Picks the Best Handheld Vacuums
"To determine the best handheld vacuums, we filtered models based on their Overall Score, which is based on our rigorous lab tests.
In our ratings of handheld vacuums, you can find more details about how each model scored for cleaning ability, noise, and other criteria, as well as how other models fared.
BEST TIME TO BUY:
