The Best Folding Chairs

Any folding chair can provide you with extra seating that’s easy to store, but few are durable and comfortable enough to use for prolonged periods of time. After considering dozens of chairs and reading their reviews, we narrowed our search to chairs using the following criteria:

Comfort: Folding chairs are notoriously uncomfortable, so we searched, above all else, for chairs that looked like they’d be tolerable to sit on for a decent amount of time. Materials and design (including seat size and shape) both play a part in how comfortable a chair is. We had a slight preference for wider chairs with flexible, forgiving backs and good ventilation.

Materials and durability: We considered chairs made from wood, steel, and plastic but overall preferred those made from polypropylene or any other flexible plastic, which we found to be much more comfortable to sit in. Although it may seem that steel and hard plastics would be more durable, the polypropylene chairs we’ve been using for years have held up just as well.

Size: We considered chairs in a range of sizes, but we preferred those that folded compactly. Some contenders with thick plastic seats took up too much space when folded (not ideal for an item that will be in storage much of the time).

Price and quantity: We looked for chairs that, ideally, were sold individually and cost about $30 or less. Most chairs we tested met this criteria, but some were sold only in two- or four-packs.

With these guidelines in mind, we considered chairs sold at Home Depot, Amazon, Target, and IKEA that had positive reviews. Over the past three years, we’ve looked at more than 15 chairs and tested the top six contenders. Our tests included repeatedly opening and closing the chairs, sitting on each one for an hour at a time, and generally trying to scuff them up.

In 2019, we retested, bringing in our top pick, the HDX Black Plastic Seat Foldable Folding Chair (formerly called the MityLite FlexLite) along with five new options: the Hercules and Trade Series Folding Chair, the Lifetime Black Plastic Seat Outdoor Safe Folding Chair, the HDX Earth Tan Plastic Seat Outdoor Safe Folding Chair, and the Cosco Vinyl chair.

Top pick

HDX Black Plastic Seat Folding Chair

The best folding chair

Weirdly comfortable, even for long periods of sitting, this chair is wider than most folding chairs we tested, with a flexible, breathable—yet firm—plastic-mesh back and seat.

Buying Options

$28 from Home Depot

$230 from Wayfair
(set of four)

The HDX Black Plastic Seat Foldable Folding Chair is the most comfortable folding chair we’ve ever tried. We think most people will be happy using it for hours at a time, and we also think it’s ideal for parties or family gatherings.

The seats are wide and supportive. A wide seat and a back with a bit of give (which allows for some bounce) set the HDX apart from the competition. The tall, 9-inch backrest provides plenty of support.

It's made of breathable, perforated plastic and steel. Because the seat and back are made of a ventilated plastic (the chair’s frame itself is steel), you don’t have to worry about searing your thighs or sticking to the chair with a sweaty back if you’re using it in the summer heat.

The chairs are easy to move and store. Despite the extra seat width, each chair folds up into a super-slim 4¾ inches, and although the specs list a weight of 11 pounds, our chair weighed in at 7½ pounds on an at-home scale.

They have a 10-year warranty. At about $30 per chair, the HDX folding chair is more than twice the price of the cheapest models we tried, but we think it’s worth the investment, especially if you live in a small home and don’t have enough storage for bulkier chairs. This chair also has a 10-year warranty, which is far better than those for most other chairs we found, which had one-year warranties or none at all.

Former editor Ganda Suthivarakom uses HDX chairs in her home for dinner-party overflow, and they’ve held up beautifully for several years, without scuffing her soft bamboo floors or making screeching noises, like cafeteria-grade metal folding chairs do. One Wirecutter colleague has had a set since 2016 that she uses only at holidays and for the rare large gathering. She said they’ve “held up great. Guests always comment on how surprisingly comfortable they are.” We also used these chairs as backup seating for our New York City office for the past four years. They’ve held up well, and our staff members have always found them comfortable.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

This may not be a chair you want to get for daily use. The few one-star reviews complain about the seating material tearing or breaking. And given how flexible the seat is, we don’t recommend standing on one when you need to reach a high place, as this reviewer did. However, in our experience with them—in the office and at home—we’ve never had a chair break.

Budget pick

IKEA Nisse Folding Chair

A compact option

This chair has a surprisingly comfortable seat, given its smaller size, and it has the thinnest profile we found. A handle across the top makes the Nisse easy to carry and to hang.

Buying Options

$20 from IKEA

At 20 bucks a chair, the IKEA Nisse Folding Chair is a remarkably good value for a simple seat that gets the job done. We also appreciate that, like the HDX, the Nisse is sold by the chair (rather than in two- or four-packs).

It's compact, lightweight and easy to move around. It’s smaller and lighter than the HDX—only 3 inches deep when folded and less than 8 pounds. With a wide handle cutout that runs along the top of the back support, the Nisse is easy to pick up and to move around or hang. It’s one of two chairs we tried—and the only one we recommend—that has a handle.

It's comfortable enough. Although the Nisse’s seat isn’t as roomy as the HDX’s, it’s still remarkably comfortable. The plastic doesn’t have the same degree of flex, but it feels softer than the steel-and-padding or solid plastic seats on other chairs we tested. And the angle of the Nisse’s back is neither too upright nor too steeply reclined—it’s just right for long stints of sitting.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The Nisse lacks the ventilation of the HDX’s mesh and has a lower weight rating (220 pounds, compared with the HDX’s 600). Temperature wasn’t an issue for us during our testing, but this chair may be a bit sticky to use at summertime parties. Unlike the HDX, the Nisse doesn't have a warranty beyond IKEA's return policy.

The IKEA Terje folding chair gets nods from several reviewers for its neutral, Scandinavian looks and excellent price. We tested the HDX folding chair against the IKEA Terje for comfort, and the HDX emerged as the winner, hands down. The Terje’s rigid slatted-wood seat is 2 inches narrower than the HDX’s, it provides no give, and the chair hits the middle of the occupant’s back in an awkward, uncomfortable way.

Flash Furniture’s Hercules and Trade Series Folding Chair is a decent alternative to our picks. It comes in seven colors, and it’s available as a single chair or in packages of two or ten. But the Hercules’s plastic was stiffer than that of our picks, and we didn’t find the angling of the back and seat pieces as comfortable.

There’s a lot to love about the Lifetime Black Plastic Seat Outdoor Folding Chair. It’s well reviewed and, like our top pick, has a 10-year warranty. But the Lifetime is available only in a four-pack, and we didn’t find its seat as comfortable as those of the HDX and IKEA chairs.

The HDX Earth Tan Plastic Seat Outdoor Folding Chair is relatively comfortable, but the stiff plastic seat isn’t as forgiving as the polypropylene seats of our two picks, and it’s bulky, even when folded up.

The Cosco Vinyl chairs are made of metal, with a lightly padded vinyl seat. They were woefully uncomfortable, heavy, and difficult to carry around.