6 Best Countertop Dishwashers for Even the Smallest Kitchens

We updated this article in February 2023 to ensure the information reflected current prices, features and more. While our picks essentially remain the same based on testing notes from the Good Housekeeping Institute, we chose a new Best Value pick and added the weight of each dishwasher to the specs along with why you can trust Good Housekeeping's recommendations.

For those that live with tiny, cramped kitchens, a built-in dishwasher may seem like a luxury that dreams are made of. But having a dishwasher is not as out of reach as you may think. Even if you have limited space, a countertop dishwasher can be a time- and energy-saving solution worth considering and can save you the work of washing dishes by hand.

Countertop dishwashers are mini machines that sit on the countertop next to your kitchen sink and get hooked up to the faucet as their source for clean water. At the end of the cycle, the dirty water drains into the sink. Some have built-in water tanks that you fill by hand. The benefit of that is that now your faucet is free for hand washing or food prep while the dishwasher is running. Most countertop dishwashers hold up to six place-settings of dishes and glassware — and like their full-size counterparts— offer multiple cleaning cycles and heating elements along with basic features, like fold-down cup shelves, flatware baskets, touch controls, detergent dispensers, pull-out racks, and more. Just be sure to follow the same smart dishwasher loading techniques you would with any full-size dishwasher to get the best cleaning results.

How we chose these countertop dishwashers

In the Good Housekeeping Cleaning Lab, we test full-size, countertop and portable dishwashers for how well they clean normal and heavily-soiled loads we've stained with a greasy spinach slurry, milk, egg yolk, baked-on mac and cheese, fried hamburger and more. After a two-hour drying session, all the soiled items are loaded into the test machine and the cycle is started. We also assess capacity, sound, energy use, how easy the dishwashers are to load and program and more. And while we haven't tested these countertop models in our Lab, to make our recommendations we looked for brands with familiar names and solid performance reputations based on our testing experience, cycles and features that would be most useful, energy savings, size relative to capacity and top consumer reviews. Taking all of these factors into account, these are the countertop dishwasher models the GH Cleaning Lab recommends:

Our top picks

After you review our recommended picks, read about how countertop dishwashers work, what to consider when buying one, answers to other commonly asked countertop dishwasher questions and why you should trust Good Housekeeping reviews.