Dog & cat health · Vet-reviewed guide

Cat Vomit Color Chart: What the Colors Mean

Reaching for a vomit-color chart is a natural first move when your cat throws up. It's a useful clue, but the color alone won't tell you whether to worry.

A cat vomit color chart is a useful starting point, but color is a clue, not a diagnosis. What matters most is how often your cat is vomiting and whether it seems unwell overall. Occasional vomiting can be normal; frequent vomiting, blood, or a lethargic cat needs a vet.

No color is a reason to skip a vet if your cat is vomiting frequently, not eating, or acting sick. This guide walks through what each color tends to mean and, just as importantly, when the color should send you to a vet rather than to a home remedy.

About Cerenia (maropitant): this is a prescription medication your veterinarian can prescribe. Read our guide, or ask us if you need help sourcing it.

What each color tends to mean

Color is a clue, not a diagnosis. What matters most is how often your cat vomits and whether they seem unwell overall.

• White foam or clear liquid. Usually an empty, slightly irritated stomach, froth, mucus, and stomach fluid with no food. It is often harmless once, but worth a vet if repeated. See our white foam guide.²
• Yellow or green. Bile, which the body releases into an empty stomach, and is common with long gaps between meals or with morning vomiting.
• Brown. Often just recently eaten food. But brown can also be partly digested blood, so if it looks like grounds or your cat seems unwell, treat it as possible blood and call a vet.
• Pink or red. Fresh blood. This always needs a vet, see our vomiting blood guide.²

Why color isn't the whole story

It is tempting to diagnose from color alone. But the same color can come from a harmless cause or a serious one.¹ Yellow bile from skipping a meal is minor. Yellow vomiting several times a day in a cat that is losing weight is not. The pattern, meaning how often plus appetite, energy, and weight, tells you far more than the color does.

When any color means a vet

Regardless of color, see a vet if your cat vomits more than about once a week, vomits several times in a day, cannot keep water down, is losing weight or refusing food, or seems lethargic, and treat any pink, red, or coffee-ground color as urgent.¹ Do not use home remedies or human medicines to try to settle the stomach. For the full picture, see our main cat vomiting guide.