Yes, a household dryer on high heat will kill bed bugs at every life stage, including eggs. A loosely filled dryer set to high for 30 minutes is enough to eliminate all bed bugs and their eggs on clothing, bedding, and many other items. This makes your dryer one of the most accessible and effective tools you already own for dealing with an infestation.
Why Heat Kills Bed Bugs
Bed bugs die when their internal temperature stays above 120°F for a sustained period. At that point, the proteins inside their cells break down and stop functioning, which is lethal to adults, nymphs, and eggs alike. A standard residential dryer on its high setting reaches around 135°F to 160°F, well above that threshold. Even at the lower end of that range, 30 minutes of sustained exposure is more than enough to be fatal.
The Right Dryer Settings
The key variables are temperature, time, and how full the dryer is. You need all three working together.
- Temperature: Use the high heat setting. On most home dryers, this reaches around 140°F. Lower settings like “delicate” or “low” only hit about 125°F, which cuts it too close to the thermal death point and may not kill eggs reliably.
- Time: Run the dryer for a full 30 minutes after the items are already dry. If you’re drying wet laundry, the evaporating moisture keeps the temperature lower for the first portion of the cycle, so you may need a longer total run time.
- Load size: Don’t overstuff the dryer. Items in the center of a tightly packed load may not reach lethal temperatures. A loosely filled drum lets hot air circulate through every fold and seam where bed bugs hide.
Washing vs. Drying
Washing alone is not reliable for killing bed bugs. While hot water can kill some, the agitation and rinsing of a wash cycle won’t consistently reach every bug or egg clinging to fabric. The dryer is what does the heavy lifting. If your items are already clean and you just need to kill bed bugs, you can skip the wash entirely and put dry items straight into the dryer on high for 30 minutes.
For items that are both dirty and potentially infested, wash them first on the hottest setting the fabric allows, then dry on high for at least 30 minutes. The combination covers both cleaning and killing.
Items You Can’t Tumble Dry
Not everything can safely tumble in a dryer, but heat can still work. Some dryers have a removable shelf or rack that holds items stationary while hot air circulates around them. This works well for shoes, handbags, stuffed animals, books, and small household items. When using a shelf instead of tumbling, increase the drying time beyond 30 minutes, since items sitting still may take longer to heat all the way through.
Dry-clean-only clothing is trickier. Some dry-clean fabrics can tolerate a dryer cycle without damage, but it’s worth checking with a professional cleaner first. If heat isn’t an option, freezing is an alternative: placing infested items in a freezer at 0°F for at least four days will also kill bed bugs, though it takes much longer. This is a good backup for delicate fabrics, leather, or anything that would shrink or warp in high heat.
What the Dryer Can’t Do
A dryer is excellent for treating portable, fabric-based items. It will not solve a bed bug infestation on its own. Bed bugs live in mattress seams, behind baseboards, inside furniture joints, and in cracks in walls. Treating your clothes and bedding removes one reservoir of bugs, but the ones hiding in your bed frame or nightstand will survive and continue breeding.
Think of the dryer as one part of a broader approach. It’s the best tool you have for making sure the items you sleep in and wear aren’t carrying bugs, but it needs to be paired with treatment of your living space to actually end an infestation.
Handling Items After Treatment
This step is easy to overlook and important to get right. Once your items come out of the dryer, they’re bug-free, but they won’t stay that way if you toss them back into an infested room. Store treated clothing and bedding in sealed plastic bags or airtight containers until the infestation in your home is fully resolved. Use fresh bags each time, and throw away the bags you used to transport items to the laundry, since those bags may have picked up bugs or eggs during transit.
If you’re doing laundry at a shared facility, bag your items before leaving your room and seal the bag. At the laundromat, empty directly from the bag into the washer or dryer, then immediately discard the bag. After drying, transfer clean items into a new sealed bag before carrying them back. This prevents recontamination during the trip home.