Cat taurine requirements: why canned food needs more
Cats require preformed dietary taurine — an essential amino acid they cannot make in sufficient quantity. Dogs synthesize taurine, so taurine minimums apply to cats only, and no standard sets a dog taurine minimum. Minimums are also form-dependent: wet/canned foods require a higher taurine minimum than dry extruded foods, because heat processing reduces taurine bioavailability.
All values are dry-matter % (DM %) and verbatim from the cited topics.
Cat taurine minimums by standard (% DM)
| Standard | Dry extruded (min) | Canned / wet (min) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| FEDIAF 2025 | 0.20 | 0.27 |
| AAFCO 2026 | 0.10 | 0.20 |
| NIAS 2024 (KR) | 0.10 | 0.20 |
| GB/T 31217-2014 (CN) | ≥0.1 (dry food) | ≥0.2 (wet food) |
A unit flag worth knowing
The repository's parsed cross-standard index records AAFCO's canonical cat taurine as 0.1 / 0.2 in a g_per_kg_dm field — an order of magnitude lower than the real 0.10 / 0.20 % DM (since 0.10 % DM = 1.0 g/kg, not 0.1). That is a likely unit/parse discrepancy in the dataset, not a genuine 10× gap versus FEDIAF. Using the canonical % DM figures, AAFCO (0.10 / 0.20 % DM) and FEDIAF (0.20 / 0.27 % DM) are in close agreement, with FEDIAF's canned minimum marginally higher.
NIAS taurine note
NIAS 2024 lists cat taurine (canned 0.20 / dry 0.10 % DM) in its nutrient tables, so unlike some other cat nutrients it is not a gap there. The genuine gaps are FEDIAF/NIAS dog taurine (none set) and any standard lacking a split by food form.
Sources
life_stage_nutrient_matrix_taurine— FEDIAF 2025 (0.20 dry / 0.27 canned) and AAFCO 2026 (0.10 dry / 0.20 canned) cat taurine; theg_per_kg_dmunit flag; no dog taurine minimum anywhere.nutrient_matrix_kr— NIAS 2024 cat taurine canned 0.20 / dry 0.10 (% DM).nutrient_matrix_cn— GB/T 31217-2014 cat taurine ≥0.1 % (dry) / ≥0.2 % (wet).