I’ve reviewed grab bars and shower mats for Wirecutter and a variety of gear for older adults and disabled people for USA Today’s Reviewed. I’ve also helped multiple family members find the best toilet seat riser for their needs, including my mother while she went through chemotherapy that weakened her leg muscles.

For this guide:

• I spoke with two occupational therapists and pulled in research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, the National Health Service, and medical journals.
• I worked with both of my grandmothers (who graciously helped with testing for this article) to find risers that work for older adults.

Toilet seat risers can make using the toilet safer and more comfortable for anyone who has difficulty sitting down or standing up from the toilet. They can be especially helpful for those who have arthritis, spinal injuries, joint pain, and muscle weakness.

While toilet seat risers are most commonly used by older adults, they’re also excellent for those who are recovering from surgery or who have temporary balance challenges. A higher toilet seat makes standing up easier, but occupational therapist Pamela Toto noted that “it can also help people avoid ‘plopping’ down, which could also result in injury.”

For a toilet seat riser that’s subtle and secure, we recommend the Bemis Independence Assurance 3″ Raised Toilet Seat. This 3-inch bolt-on riser has options available for both elongated and round toilet bowls and offers optional handles and bidet attachments (though they cost extra).

Although it’s pricier than the average toilet seat riser, we found the construction to be high quality and the design more stable than the rest.

It stays securely attached to the toilet. The Bemis riser stayed in place better than any other model we tried, even compared with other super-stable seats such as the Vive Health Toilet Seat Riser and the OasisSpace Standard Hinged Toilet Seat Riser. During my more intense wobble tests, the toilet itself started to move before the riser.

Its design is subtle but still functional. Toilet seat risers are often eyesores. The Bemis model isn’t—it looks much more like a regular toilet seat than others we tested. All of our testers—including our oldest (in their 80s), tallest (above 6 feet), and heaviest (350 pounds)—found the wide seat comfortable. While using a toilet seat riser often reduces the size of the inner opening to the toilet bowl, this design allows for all of the available toilet space to be used, so you won’t have to shuffle around on the seat to do both types of business. And unlike many risers, this seat also comes with a lid.

It’s easier to clean. Unlike most bolted-on risers we considered, which must be fully removed in order to thoroughly clean under them, this riser functions exactly like a regular toilet seat and is cleaned in the same way. You can lift the riser up via a hinge for easy cleaning, which is also helpful for people who stand while peeing.

It has a higher weight capacity. The Bemis toilet seat riser has the highest listed weight capacity of all the risers we tested at 1,000 pounds. Most others we tested typically ranged between 250 and 350 pounds (we didn’t put the weight capacities to the test ourselves). Most people don’t need such a high weight capacity, but it’s reassuring to know that anyone who visits can use your bathroom without the riser breaking. The wide seat also makes the experience as comfortable as it is safe.

It’s easier to install than other bolt-on risers. Each seat comes with its own set of installation tools that make it easier to use for people with fine motor issues or hand weakness. The riser also has a unique “Snap 2 Secure” system that indicates when the seat is properly installed by automatically snapping off the end of the piece you’re securing when it’s sufficiently tight. The other bolt-on models we tried were far more cumbersome to install.

You can add on handles and a bidet attachment. A wall-mounted grab bar is the safest way to get extra support while standing at or getting up from the toilet, but adding one isn’t logistically possible in every bathroom. If you just want an extra handhold, you can order the Bemis riser with add-on handles to provide an extra place to hold during toilet transfers. You can also add on a bidet attachment, though you have to order the arms with it, and it costs about $150 more in total. (You don’t have to have the handles installed in order to use the bidet attachment.)

Flaws but not dealbreakers

• The Bemis riser is the most expensive riser that we tested, and if you only need it temporarily, it may be more than you want to spend. But it’s often on sale, making it not much more expensive than the next priciest riser we tested.
• You can’t easily reinstall the riser onto another toilet. It only comes with one set of the “Snap 2 Secure” hardware, which indicates when you have it installed at the proper tightness level. While you can move the seat to other toilets later on and still tighten it appropriately, you won’t have a clear indication of when it’s tight enough. We were easily able to request another set of the hardware from the company, but we wish it came with some spares so we didn’t have to go through the hassle.
• Two of our testers were concerned that the drip shield on the inside of the riser didn’t extend into the bowl enough to protect against pee streams or diarrhea. But during nearly three months of using this seat daily, as well as an additional splash test conducted specifically to stress test the drip guard, we didn’t experience any leaks or other problems.

Clamp-on seats, which attach via screw-on knobs instead of bolts, are less secure than the bolted-on style. But for anyone who needs to be able to easily remove the riser for others in their home, this style is a necessity. The Dr. Maya 4″ Raised Toilet Seat is one of the best available because of its smart design, security, and ease of installation.

It’s well-designed. Though you can’t hide that the Dr. Maya seat is a toilet seat riser, its appearance is nonetheless sleeker and more modern than many of the others we tested. Its plastic felt high quality and comfortable to sit on, and its use of a clamp on either side rather than just one in front means that the riser is more secure—and crucially, that the clamps are less likely to get pee or poop on them.

It comes with a lid. Lids are a rarity among portable toilet seat risers. While not everyone needs a lid, it can be helpful for people who want to draw less attention to the riser or be able to close the lid before flushing, as well as those who need to keep kids or pets from playing in the toilet bowl.

Your existing toilet seat can stay attached. Unlike the Bemis Independence Assurance 3″ Raised Toilet Seat, your existing toilet seat can stay attached to the toilet—but flipped up—while using the Dr. Maya riser. This makes it easier for household members or guests who are shorter or weigh more than the 300-pound weight capacity to remove the riser and use the toilet’s regular seat instead.

It’s affordable. The Dr. Maya seat was one of the cheapest toilet seat risers that we tested, but it felt high quality and durable. If you only need a seat for a short while, for travel, or that simply stays within a smaller budget, it’s worth considering.

It’s comfortable for most people. This riser was both my grandmothers’ favorite out of the top four options we tested because it felt “softer” to sit on with the wider rounded shape. Though it ran a little small for our bigger and taller testers, most of them still agreed that the seat was one of the most comfortable overall.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

• This riser only comes in an elongated version, so it may not fit round toilets.
• Though it is very secure for a clamp-on-style toilet riser, it’s ultimately not as secure as a bolted-on seat and needs to be checked frequently to make sure it has not loosened.
• The inner opening of the toilet bowl is smaller with this riser, which means you might have to scooch around on the seat to pee and poop to avoid a mess. But that’s fairly typical of clamp-on risers; part of the riser sits inside the toilet so that the clamp can apply pressure to both sides of the bowl to stay more secure.
• In order to fully clean the riser, it must be removed from the toilet. Since this is standard for clamp-on seats, it’s not a dealbreaker, but it can be less pleasant and convenient to clean.

When it comes to finding the right toilet seat riser for your setup, it’s not a one-size-fits-all situation. The height and shape of your toilet, as well as your height and who you’ll be sharing the toilet with, all factor into picking the perfect riser.

Shape of toilet bowl

Every toilet bowl has either a round or elongated opening; knowing which one you have is crucial to getting a snug, secure fit with your toilet seat riser. Though you can often tell just by looking if it’s a circle or an oval, measuring is the easiest way if you’re unsure.

Measure from the front lip of the toilet seat to the bolts of the toilet seat. A round toilet bowl is generally around 16.5 inches in length while an elongated bowl is 18.5 inches.

Some toilet seat risers work for both shapes, but be sure to check before purchasing, as most are designed for one shape or the other.

Installation method

Toilet seat risers fall into one of three installation methods:

• Set-on: The riser just sits inside the toilet bowl; it is not secured.
• Clamp-on: The riser has pressure-mounted knobs to hold it in place.
• Bolt-on: The riser is attached to the toilet with bolts like a regular toilet seat.

The first two methods are best suited for people who need to regularly add and remove the toilet seat riser, such as households with children who can’t get on a raised seat or those who travel often. Though a set-on toilet seat can temporarily work in a pinch, the occupational therapists we spoke to were skeptical of the stability and security of these seats. If you need an easily removable riser, they recommend using a clamp-on seat that everyone in the household can securely tighten and loosen.

All of that being said, both occupational therapists that we spoke to emphasized that if a bolt-on seat is an option, it’s the best choice. Although they can seem intimidating to install, in reality it takes around five minutes to get most of these seats in place, even for people new to the process.

The main concern that many have with a bolt-on riser is that guests or other household members won’t want to use it. You might have some necessary reasons to remove and re-add your toilet seat riser, but for many households, the right toilet riser doesn’t need to be removed for others to use it. In the case of our top pick, the Bemis Independence Assurance 3″ Raised Toilet Seat, many of our testers actually preferred it over a regular toilet seat.

When evaluating toilet seat risers, we focused on the following attributes:

• Safe and secure: A good toilet seat should not slide or wobble during use, so we focused on options with clear safety elements such as a way to attach the riser to the toilet, nonslip strips, and other security features.
• Easy to clean: Many toilet risers must be fully removed in order to clean them. This would be a huge hassle with any toilet seat but is especially unfortunate for risers, as their deeper inner walls can often lead to unpleasant buildup faster than the average toilet seat. For bolted-on toilet seats, a hinged design lets you clean under and around the seat without uninstalling it. While not an absolute dealbreaker, this little design choice has a huge impact on your ability to keep your bathroom clean.
• Wide inner opening: For similar reasons, we kept an eye on how big the inner opening of each seat was to make sure that we wouldn’t lose too much of the available toilet bowl space. This also helps ensure no extra movement is needed in order to do all of your business.
• Elongated and round toilet options: Most toilet seat risers are designed for either a round bowl or an elongated one. Ideally, we wanted to find models that had an option available for both types of toilets.
• Adequate weight capacity: The last thing anyone wants is for a toilet riser to break. Since the average American adult weights between 170 and 200 pounds, we prioritized risers that could support at least 250 pounds.
• Subtle design: Toilet risers are often ugly, and the need to use them can feel embarrassing to some. Because of this, we tried to find toilet risers that worked well but were subtle enough to not broadcast their presence.
• Ability to remove and install it easily: For some people, having a toilet riser installed at all times simply isn’t an option because of others who need to use the same space. We kept this in mind, as well as the fact that any seat that is frequently removed must also be easy for the person using it to install securely and safely.

We chose nine risers to test based on the above factors, ensuring we had a mix of different types and heights of models. We put them to the test by installing them on our toilets and evaluating their safety, design, and comfort.

After eliminating the risers that we found unsafe, we used our top four contenders over the course of several weeks. Testers included two women in their 70s and 80s, a man over 6 feet in his 20s, seven women in their 20s and 30s, and three people of other genders in their 20s. The testers all weighed between 100 and 350 pounds.

We installed each riser onto two different toilets and left all of our picks installed for a week or more. To evaluate safety, we did several tests of sitting down and standing up in different ways to see if any movement occurred.

We also tested stability with wobble tests, which involved sitting on the toilet and leaning back and forth and side to side to see if the riser slipped at all. When it came to cleaning, we did a thorough cleaning while the seat was attached and after it was removed to see where waste tended to gather and to determine how difficult regular cleaning might be.

Though we briefly considered other toilet height solutions such as toilet elevators (platforms installed below the toilet rather than on top of the seat) and electronic lifts (such as Dignity Lifts), we ultimately decided that these wouldn’t be practical for most people.

If you want to keep using your current toilet seat: Whether you’re looking for a slightly cheaper (or taller) alternative to the Bemis toilet seat, or you’re just very attached to your current toilet seat, the 3.5-inch Vive Health Toilet Seat Riser is a great option. This riser is a secure seat with a hinge for easy cleaning. It features a 350-pound weight capacity and a toilet bowl without any wasted space.

If you’re looking for a solid budget option: Because of a slight tilt backwards, the 4-inch OasisSpace Standard Hinged Toilet Seat Riser didn’t offer the same comfort as the Bemis or Vive toilet seats. But it’s a fraction of the price, and we still found it stable and easy to clean, so it’s worth considering.

The Essential Medical Supply Toilet Seat Riser for Elongated Style is a good toilet seat riser, but it couldn’t compare to our top contenders in stability and easy cleaning. Overall, this seat is functional and safe. But the OasisSpace seat is roughly the same price and easier to clean, so you don’t need to consider this one from Essential Medical Supply.

Though we liked how easy the Carex Raised Toilet Seat was to put on and take off, ultimately its lack of a way to secure the seat in place was too big of a safety risk. The convenience of the seat might be worth it for some, but particularly for anyone who is at high risk for falls, we don’t recommend it.

The ProBasics E-Z Lock Raised Toilet Seat With Handles and the Drive Medical 12402 Premium Raised Toilet Seat With Removable Arms proved to be extremely unstable even when first installed. The ProBasics seat could not be secured in a way that didn’t immediately come free. With just a little pressure on the handles, the entire seat easily lifted up, and with only a little leaning back and forth, the seat slid side to side. Likewise, the Drive Medical riser sat unevenly on the toilet bowl from the get-go. Immediately after installation, the lightest touch could wobble the seat back and forth.

Though the Essential Medical Supply Toilet Seat Riser With Arms for Elongated Style showed promise, it ultimately proved unstable compared with other models we tested. The handles creaked upon use, and because they are held on by a few very small pressure-based buttons, we aren’t confident in their hold. The lack of hinge on this seat, as well as the Drive Medical and other Essential Medical seats, also poses a huge disadvantage when it comes to keeping the toilet clean.

This article was edited by Claire Perlman and Christine Cyr Clisset.