The State of Web Vitals

Cookies per site

Cookies set during a cold visit: how many and their total size.

Field data PhoneDesktopAll Scope All sites Q1 2026 edition · All devices field outcomes
Metric LCP INP CLS
1

At a glance the headline numbers for Cookies per site

Cookies set during a cold visit: how many and their total size.

2
cookie count
on the typical page
0 KB
cookie size
on the typical page
0 KB
1 in 4 pages exceed this
cookie size
94,748
sites measured
all-device field data

The typical site sets 2 cookies.

The State of Web Vitals · Q1 2026 · 94,910 sites · all devices field datacorewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
2

Distribution & median CLS site count and median CLS at each level of cookies per site — n

0.00 0.04 0.08 0.11 0.15
0.1
0 14216 28431
0 1 2 3 4 5–6 7–8 9–11 12–15 16–20 >p98
Good (≤0.1) Needs improvement Poor (>0.25) Site count
The State of Web Vitals · Q1 2026 · 94,910 sites · all devices field datacorewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
3

Passing CLS by cookies per site — n which level passes the CLS most often

Cookies per site — nSitesPassing CLSCLS
0 28,431 90% 0.00
1 11,929 88% 0.00
2 10,351 88% 0.00
3 8,592 88% 0.00
4 6,588 88% 0.00
5–6 8,539 86% 0.01
7–8 6,996 88% 0.00
9–11 6,346 87% 0.01
12–15 3,760 86% 0.01
16–20 2,081 83% 0.01
>p98 1,135 77% 0.03
Good Needs Improvement Poor Faded rows: under 100 sites

Cookies per site — n 2. p75 6. p99 21. At the low end (0): CLS 0.00. At the high end (>p98): CLS 0.03. computed

The State of Web Vitals · Q1 2026 · 94,910 sites · all devices field datacorewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
4

Distribution & median CLS site count and median CLS at each level of cookies per site — size

0.00 0.04 0.08 0.11 0.15
0.1
0 18676 37351
0 0.1–0.132 0.132–0.174 0.174–0.23 0.23–0.303 0.303–0.4 0.4–0.528 0.528–0.696 0.696–0.919 0.919–1.21 1.21–1.6 >p98
Good (≤0.1) Needs improvement Poor (>0.25) Site count
The State of Web Vitals · Q1 2026 · 94,910 sites · all devices field datacorewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
5

Passing CLS by cookies per site — size which level passes the CLS most often

Cookies per site — sizeSitesPassing CLSCLS
0 37,351 90% 0.00
0.1–0.132 17,467 89% 0.00
0.174–0.23 12,509 88% 0.00
0.23–0.303 8,127 87% 0.01
0.4–0.528 7,338 85% 0.01
0.528–0.696 1,654 84% 0.01
0.696–0.919 2,691 83% 0.01
0.919–1.21 3,934 87% 0.01
1.21–1.6 2,225 85% 0.01
>p98 1,452 77% 0.02
Good Needs Improvement Poor Faded rows: under 100 sites

Cookies per site — size 0 KB. p75 0 KB. p99 2 KB. At the low end (0 KB): CLS 0.00. At the high end (>p98): CLS 0.02. computed

The State of Web Vitals · Q1 2026 · 94,910 sites · all devices field datacorewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
6

Why this matters for the Core Web Vitals, and where to start fixing it

The cookie count is a proxy. It tells you how many vendors run on the page. Most cookies exist for tracking and each tracker sets its own. The count grows with every tag the marketing stack adds. Cookies are also sent with every request to their domain, which adds header weight. That is rarely the real cost.

The real cost is what the cookies stand for. The vendors behind them run script on your main thread and delay every interaction (INP). They also inject banners, widgets and ads after the page looks settled (CLS). A rising cookie count means it is time to audit the tag manager, not to shrink cookies.

How does this affect the Core Web Vitals?

Cookie size correlates with the LCP. Where the cookie size is low, 86% of sites pass the LCP. Where it is high, 63% do. Cookie size has little causal relationship with the LCP. That makes a high cookie size more likely a result or an indication of a slow, heavily built site than a cause of a slow one. More cookies almost always means more trackers, more third parties and more script, and those do slow pages down.

Go fix it The case for limiting analytics and tracking scripts →
Related signals Responsive image markup → font-display strategy → Stylesheet origin (1P/3P) → Fonts per page → Chrome field data from 94,910 sites, representing millions of real page loads · How we measured