Daily Sodium Intake: How Much Do You Really Need?
Your daily sodium intake is surrounded by one of the most widespread numbers in nutrition, 2,300 milligrams, and most people have it slightly wrong. That figure is not actually your target. The daily goal set by the National Academies is 1,500 milligrams for most adults; 2,300 is the level above which cutting back is proven to benefit health, which is a different thing entirely. Meanwhile the average person eats around 3,400 milligrams a day, more than double the goal, and the biggest surprise is where it comes from: not the salt shaker, but packaged and restaurant food. This guide sorts out the real numbers, untangles sodium from salt, and shows where your sodium is actually hiding.
What Your Daily Sodium Intake Should Be
Sodium is set as an Adequate Intake rather than a full Recommended Dietary Allowance, because the evidence was not sufficient to establish an RDA. For adults aged 19 to 50 the AI is 1,500 milligrams a day, and it steps down with age. Our guide to what DRI is explains how an Adequate Intake differs from the other reference values, which matters a great deal for sodium because it carries two separate numbers that are easy to confuse.
Sodium itself is an essential mineral. The body uses it to balance fluids, transmit nerve signals, and contract muscles, and it genuinely cannot function without it. The catch is how little it needs: the body requires only around 500 milligrams a day to work properly, far below both the 1,500 milligram goal and the amount most people actually eat. Sodium is one of the rare nutrients where the entire public health message is about getting less, not more.
Daily Sodium Intake by Age (Full Chart)
The sodium Adequate Intake is highest for younger adults and decreases with age, as the body's tolerance and needs shift. Children's targets are lower still.
How much sodium do you need per day?
Adults aged 19 to 50 have a sodium Adequate Intake of 1,500 milligrams a day. This drops to 1,300 milligrams for ages 51 to 70 and 1,200 milligrams for those over 70. Children need less, from 800 milligrams at ages 1 to 3 up to 1,500 milligrams by the teen years. These are goals, not limits, and most people eat well above them.
| Age group | Adequate Intake (mg) |
|---|---|
| 1–3 years | 800 mg |
| 4–8 years | 1,000 mg |
| 9–13 years | 1,200 mg |
| 14–50 years | 1,500 mg |
| 51–70 years | 1,300 mg |
| 71+ years | 1,200 mg |
Why 2,300 mg Isn't Your Target
This is the heart of the sodium confusion, and almost every article gets it muddled. Sodium is unusual in having two official numbers that mean very different things, and the famous 2,300 is not the one most people think.
Sodium vs Salt: The Units Trap
A second confusion compounds the first: sodium and salt are not the same, and the numbers do not match. People use the words interchangeably, but salt is only partly sodium.
The Hidden 70%: It's Not Your Salt Shaker
Ask most people where their sodium comes from and they point to the salt shaker. The data says otherwise, and this is the most useful thing to understand if you want to actually reduce your intake.
Why Too Much Sodium Matters
The entire reason sodium guidance pushes downward is its effect on blood pressure. Excess sodium makes the body hold on to more water to keep blood sodium levels balanced, which raises blood volume and, in turn, blood pressure. Over years, high blood pressure is a leading driver of heart disease, stroke, and kidney damage, which is why sodium is treated as a public health priority rather than a personal preference. Research shows that cutting sodium by around 1,000 milligrams a day measurably lowers blood pressure, especially in people who are salt-sensitive or already have hypertension. Not everyone's blood pressure responds equally, but at a population level the link is well established, and reducing intake toward the goal is one of the most effective dietary changes for heart health.
Can Sodium Be Too Low?
Because the whole message is usually "eat less," it is worth being clear that sodium is still essential and can, in specific situations, fall too low. For the general population eating a typical diet, this is not a realistic concern, intake is far more likely to be too high. But very low sodium levels in the blood, a condition called hyponatremia, can occur and is dangerous, usually from medical conditions, certain medications, or drinking extreme amounts of water during prolonged endurance exercise without replacing salt. Endurance athletes losing large amounts through sweat are the main group who may need to pay attention to replacing sodium, a point covered in our guide to the DRI for athletes. For everyone else, the practical reality is that the floor is easy to clear and the ceiling is the problem.
Sodium & Potassium: The Balance That Matters
Sodium does not act alone. It works in a seesaw with potassium, and the balance between the two matters as much as sodium on its own. Where sodium tends to raise blood pressure, potassium helps lower it by relaxing blood vessel walls and helping the body excrete sodium. The modern diet gets this backwards, delivering far too much sodium and too little potassium, the reverse of what the body evolved to handle.
This is why advice to cut sodium is often paired with advice to eat more potassium-rich foods like fruits, vegetables, beans, and potatoes. Improving the ratio in both directions is more powerful than focusing on sodium alone, and the full picture of the partner mineral is in our guide to daily potassium intake. Needs also shift with age, which our guide to the DRI for older adults covers, since both blood pressure and sodium sensitivity tend to rise over time.
How to Cut Back on Sodium
Because most sodium is hidden in packaged food, the effective strategies target that source rather than the salt shaker. Read the Nutrition Facts label and use the percent Daily Value: 5 percent or less per serving is low, 20 percent or more is high, and the goal is to stay under 100 percent across the day. Cook at home more often, where you control what goes in, and lean on herbs, spices, citrus, and garlic for flavour instead of salt. Limit the big carriers, processed meats, canned soups, sauces, salty snacks, and fast food, or choose their lower-sodium versions. Rinse canned beans and vegetables to wash off some surface sodium. And eat more potassium-rich produce to improve the balance. None of this requires a bland diet; taste for salt adapts within a few weeks of eating less.
The most useful starting point is your own number, since it depends on your age. Your full nutrient targets, sodium included, take only a moment to calculate.
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Calculate my DRI →Frequently Asked Questions
They are two different numbers. 1,500 milligrams is the Adequate Intake, your actual daily goal for most adults. 2,300 milligrams is the Chronic Disease Risk Reduction intake, the level above which cutting back is proven to reduce health risk. So aim toward 1,500, and if you are above 2,300, bringing it down benefits your heart. Neither is a toxic threshold; both point in the same direction, which is lower for most people.
No. Salt is sodium chloride, and only about 40 percent of its weight is sodium. One teaspoon of salt, around 5,800 milligrams of salt, contains about 2,300 milligrams of sodium. Nutrition labels and guidelines always measure sodium, not salt, so when you see 2,300 milligrams of sodium, that is a full teaspoon of salt's worth across the whole day from all foods.
Focus on packaged and restaurant food, not the salt shaker, since around 70 percent of sodium is already in those foods. Read labels and use the percent Daily Value, cook at home more, flavour with herbs and spices instead of salt, limit processed meats, soups, sauces, and salty snacks, and eat more potassium-rich produce. Your taste for salt adjusts downward within a few weeks.
Disclaimer & Sources
This article is for general education and is not medical advice. It does not recommend specific doses or diagnose any condition. Talk to a doctor about your sodium intake if you have high blood pressure, heart or kidney disease, or take medication that affects fluid or sodium balance.
Sources:
- National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) — Dietary Reference Intakes tables
- NIH Office of Dietary Supplements — sodium information
- USDA Dietary Guidelines for Americans (2020–2025)
- Health Canada — joint US/Canada DRI publisher
- Mifflin–St Jeor predictive equation (1990) — for calorie estimates used elsewhere on this site