Best litter box with a lid in 2026: Modkat top-entry and XL compared

A litter box with a lid depends on size, ventilation, and how often you’re willing to scoop. Among covered designs, the Modkat Top-Entry Litter Box with Swivel Lid is the best all-around pick for most single-cat homes because its swivel lid solves the biggest annoyance of covered boxes—having to wrestle a hood off to scoop—while still cutting tracking dramatically. If you’ve got a large cat, multiple cats, or a side-sprayer, size up to the Modkat XL, which converts between top- and front-entry.

Before you buy either one, it’s worth understanding why covered boxes are polarizing among vets and behaviorists. Litter-Robot’s blog on covered boxes and Rover’s roundup of cat-expert opinions both point to the same underlying issue: covered boxes trap odor and moisture more than open pans do, and that trapped mess is easy to ignore because it’s hidden from view. The lid itself isn’t usually the problem. What causes cats to start avoiding the box is what happens inside it when cleaning slips.

Do cats actually prefer covered litter boxes?

Most don’t show a strong preference, as long as the box is large and kept clean. A widely cited 2013 study in the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery, led by Grigg and colleagues at Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine, found that a large majority of cats showed no clear preference between covered and uncovered boxes when both were oversized and cleaned daily, with only a smaller minority gravitating toward covered setups. Exact percentages get repeated online with a precision the original abstract doesn’t fully support, so treat any specific figure you see, including ones on this page, as an approximation of the trend rather than a locked-in statistic.

The more useful takeaway is the study’s methodology: researchers used boxes noticeably roomier than what’s typically sold at retail. Rover’s coverage of covered-box behavior makes a similar point—commercial covered boxes tend to run smaller than the research setups showing cats are indifferent to lids. That’s a real caveat worth carrying into any purchase decision, and it’s exactly why the Modkat XL’s larger footprint matters more than it might seem on a spec sheet.

Modkat Top-Entry Litter Box with Swivel Lid: best for style-conscious owners who hate tracking

According to the manufacturer’s listed specs, the Modkat top-entry is a 16 x 16 x 15 inch cube that cats enter from a 9.5-inch top opening, a shape designed to strip litter off paws before a cat jumps back out. It ships with a reusable tarpaulin liner the manufacturer says lasts up to three months, which cuts down on buying disposable liners, and the lid is rated by the manufacturer to hold up to 30 lbs, so it can double as a step or a perch. These figures come from Modkat’s own product listing rather than independent testing, so treat them as manufacturer claims.

What sets it apart from typical covered boxes is the swivel lid. Instead of lifting off a hood to scoop, you rotate the lid open, which removes a lot of the friction that makes owners put off cleaning covered boxes. Scooping frequency is consistently flagged by veterinary sources, including the ASPCA and The Gentle Vets, as one of the biggest factors in whether a cat accepts or rejects a litter box. A design that lowers the effort of scooping does real behavioral work, not just look nice.

Top-entry only works for cats willing to climb in and out of a fairly enclosed cube, and some cats flatly refuse that format, especially older or arthritic cats, a concern echoed in accessibility guidance from Dakota Hills Veterinary and Huckwell. Even with the swivel lid open, you’re reaching an arm into a 16-inch cube to get litter out of the back corners, which takes more maneuvering than sweeping a scoop across an open pan.

Best for: small-to-medium cats and owners in tighter apartments who want a box that looks intentional and doesn’t scatter litter across the floor.

Modkat XL Litter Box: best for large cats and multi-cat households

The Modkat XL is the same design philosophy scaled up, at 21 x 16.5 x 17 inches per the manufacturer’s listing, and it comes with more included gear: Type C and Type D reusable liners, a sifting scoop, and two charcoal filters. The filters matter because poor ventilation is repeatedly named across odor-control sources, including Purrify and CATLINK, as a driver of ammonia buildup in covered boxes. Charcoal filtration is one of the few fixes that addresses the cause rather than masking the smell afterward, though how long any individual filter stays effective depends on usage and isn’t something the manufacturer specifies in detail.

The headline feature is configurability: you can set it up as a top-entry box like its smaller sibling, or switch it to front-entry. That flexibility matters because Huckwell’s sizing guide, drawing on general veterinary guidance, suggests most adult cats need a good deal more interior length than smaller retail boxes offer, and plenty of cats won’t commit to climbing up and in if their joints or size make that awkward. The seamless, full-height base is also a genuine advantage for cats that spray sideways when they dig, since there’s no seam at floor level for urine to find.

The lid capacity matches the smaller Modkat at 30 lbs per the manufacturer, and the swiveling lid again makes scooping and deep-cleaning easier than a fixed hood. The real limitation is that the lid only hinges open far enough to expose part of the box at a time, so reaching the far back corners for scooping still takes some maneuvering. Sizing up solves one common objection to covered boxes, but it won’t override every cat’s individual preference—some will still decline to use it no matter how roomy it is.

Best for: multi-cat homes, large or large-breed cats, and anyone who’s had a cat reject a smaller covered box due to size.

How to choose a litter box with a lid

Size before style. Veterinary guidance cited by Huckwell generally points to interior box length being about 1.5 times a cat’s body length from nose to tail base, which for most adult cats works out to a box in the neighborhood of 20-24 inches of interior space. Covered boxes are especially prone to overstating their real capacity, since the exterior dimensions on a box include the curve or slope of the lid, which eats into usable interior room. Measure interior space, not the dimensions printed on the packaging, and don’t assume a retailer’s exterior measurement tells you how much floor space your cat actually gets.

Plan to scoop daily regardless of lid style. The Grigg et al. research used daily cleaning to keep covered boxes acceptable to cats in a controlled setting, and real-world owner behavior often lags behind that standard, particularly with covered boxes where mess is easy to ignore. If you know you won’t scoop daily, an open box or a self-cleaning system is the more honest choice for you.

Watch for signs the cover isn’t working. Litter box avoidance is named by the ASPCA as a leading behavioral reason cats are surrendered to shelters, and while medical issues always need ruling out first, a covered box that’s too small, poorly ventilated, or infrequently cleaned is a common contributing factor according to veterinary behavior resources like The Gentle Vets and Dakota Hills Veterinary. Multiple vet-facing sources, including Litter Box Guide’s overview of covered-box drawbacks, note that switching from a covered box to an open one is a common recommendation when elimination problems don’t resolve with better sizing and cleaning. Exact recovery rates vary by source and aren’t something you should treat as a guarantee. If a covered box isn’t working after a fair trial with adequate size and daily cleaning, don’t force it.

If you have more than one cat, don’t just size up one box. The ASPCA recommends one box per cat plus one extra, placed in separate locations rather than clustered together, since clustering lets a dominant cat guard access to all of them.

What’s the best cat litter for odor control?

There’s no single best litter for every household, but the odor-control basics that actually work are consistent across sources like Purrify and Purrfect Insights: keep litter depth in roughly the 2-5 inch range, since shallow litter lets ammonia concentrate faster on the exposed plastic base. Scoop daily, and if you’re using a covered box, pair it with a design that includes ventilation or charcoal filtration, like the Modkat XL’s included filters. Clumping litters with activated carbon or baking soda additives can help at the margins, but no additive substitutes for frequent scooping.

Why does my litter box smell like ammonia, and is it dangerous?

Ammonia builds up as urine breaks down when a box isn’t scooped often enough, and it’s a bigger problem for your cat than for you. Purrify’s writeup, citing OSHA occupational exposure guidance, notes that cats can detect ammonia at concentrations well below what most humans notice, and that higher concentrations cause respiratory irritation in both cats and people. Covered boxes are more prone to this because poor ventilation traps both odor and moisture, so if you can smell ammonia at all, your cat has likely been avoiding the box for a while already.

Bottom line

For most households, the Modkat Top-Entry is the stronger everyday pick: it’s reasonably sized, its swivel lid genuinely lowers the friction of daily scooping, and the tracking control is a real, noticeable benefit over open pans. Step up to the Modkat XL if you’ve got a large cat, more than one cat, or a spray-happy digger, since the bigger interior and configurable entry solve accessibility problems the standard top-entry can’t. Whichever you choose, the lid is the least important spec on the page. Box size and how often you actually scoop will determine whether your cat uses it at all.

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Sources

• Litter box preference in domestic cats: covered versus uncovered
• Covered Litter Boxes for Cats: Expert Guide to Benefits, Drawbacks, and Best Options
• Should You Use a Covered Litter Box? Cat Experts Explain
• Is a Covered Litter Box Better? All the Pros & Cons
• What Size Litter Box Does My Cat Actually Need?
• Litter box problems | ASPCA
• Cat Litter Smells Like Ammonia? How to Neutralize It
• How to Get Rid of Litter Box Ammonia Smell
• 9 Hacks on How to Neutralize Ammonia in Cat Litter
• THE WHOLE SCOOP AND NOTHING BUT THE SCOOP
• Cat Litter Box Behavior | The Gentle Vets
• Cat Behavior 101: Solving Litter Box Problems with Vet-Approved Tips