Added Sugars
A nutrition declaration you cannot measure. This guide covers the United States.
Added Sugars is a nutrition declaration you cannot measure. A sugar molecule from a bag of cane sugar is chemically identical to one inside a banana, so no laboratory can tell them apart in a finished food. It is a property of how the food was made. The rules in this guide are those of the United States.
Why Added Sugars cannot be measured
Nothing in a finished muffin distinguishes the sugar you added from the sugar that arrived in the fruit. There is no test, and no laboratory can supply one.
That single fact drives everything else. Because the quantity cannot be verified by analysis, it is determined from your formulation and substantiated by the records you keep — not by a certificate of analysis. Every other page in this guide follows from it.
Which markets require an Added Sugars declaration
Added Sugars is unusually specific to the United States. Applying US logic to a label bound for another market produces the wrong panel.
| Market | Requirement |
|---|---|
| United States | Required under 21 CFR 101.9(c)(6)(iii). "Includes Xg Added Sugars" indented under Total Sugars, with a percent Daily Value. The Daily Value is 50g for adults and children 4 and over, and 25g for children 1 to 3. No Daily Value is set for infants under 12 months, so those labels show the gram amount with no percentage. See FDA Daily Values. |
| European Union | No added-sugars declaration. Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 requires "of which sugars" only. |
| United Kingdom | No added-sugars declaration on the mandatory panel. The WHO free-sugars concept appears in dietary guidance, not in labeling. |
| Canada | A Sugars declaration with a percent Daily Value, and sugars-based ingredients grouped in the ingredient list. No separate added-sugars line. |
| Australia / New Zealand | No added-sugars declaration currently required on the mandatory panel. FSANZ has consulted on introducing one. |
If you are not labeling for the United States, the rest of this guide does not apply to your panel.
How do Added Sugars, Total Sugars and free sugars differ?
They measure different things, and using one where another belongs changes the number you declare.
Total Sugars and Added Sugars are the names of two lines on the US Nutrition Facts panel. Total Sugars is every mono- and disaccharide in the food, whatever its origin, and it is analytically measurable. Added Sugars is the portion introduced during processing — a subset of Total Sugars, and never larger.
Free sugars is a different concept, defined by the World Health Organization and used in the United Kingdom. It sweeps in all sugars from fruit juice, which the US definition partly exempts. A free-sugars figure is not a US Added Sugars declaration; the two are defined differently.
Where to go next
- United States: Added Sugars under FDA rules — the definition, the exclusions, the label format, rounding, and the percent Daily Value.
- How to determine Added Sugars for a recipe — the per-ingredient decision procedure, worked end to end.
Related concepts: Nutrient · Nutrition Fact · Serving Size
This page is educational and is not legal advice. Labeling requirements differ by market and change over time — verify against the current regulation in your market and your own regulatory counsel before relying on it for a commercial label.