Your body needs 13 essential vitamins every day, and the amount of each one varies by age, sex, and life stage. The simplest reference point is the Daily Value (DV) listed on food and supplement labels, which the FDA sets as a single target for most adults. But your personal needs may be higher or lower depending on whether you’re pregnant, over 70, or fall into another specific group. Here’s a full breakdown.
Daily Values for All 13 Vitamins
The Daily Value is what you’ll see on every nutrition label in the United States. It represents the recommended daily amount for a general adult diet. These are the current DVs for all 13 essential vitamins:
- Vitamin A: 900 mcg
- Vitamin B1 (thiamin): 1.2 mg
- Vitamin B2 (riboflavin): 1.3 mg
- Vitamin B3 (niacin): 16 mg
- Vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid): 5 mg
- Vitamin B6: 1.7 mg
- Vitamin B7 (biotin): 30 mcg
- Vitamin B9 (folate): 400 mcg
- Vitamin B12: 2.4 mcg
- Vitamin C: 90 mg
- Vitamin D: 20 mcg (800 IU)
- Vitamin E: 15 mg
- Vitamin K: 120 mcg
When you see “%DV” on a package, it’s telling you what percentage of these targets a single serving provides. A food with 5% DV or less is considered low in that vitamin, while 20% DV or more is considered high. That quick rule makes label-reading much faster.
One important note: the DV is a single number designed for labels. Your actual recommended intake (called the RDA) may differ slightly based on your sex, age, or whether you’re pregnant or breastfeeding. The DV is often set to cover the highest common need, so for many people it’s a reasonable or slightly generous target.
How Needs Change With Age
Most vitamin requirements stay stable throughout adulthood, but a few shift meaningfully as you get older. Vitamin D is the clearest example. From ages 1 through 70, the recommended intake is 15 mcg (600 IU) per day. After age 70, it jumps to 20 mcg (800 IU) because aging skin produces less vitamin D from sunlight and the kidneys become less efficient at converting it to its active form. Infants under 12 months need 10 mcg (400 IU).
Vitamin B12 is the other nutrient that demands attention with age. The standard recommendation is 2.4 mcg, but adults over 50 often have reduced stomach acid, which makes it harder to pull B12 from food. The Mayo Clinic notes that older adults may need to consume 10 to 12 mcg of B12 daily to absorb enough. Fortified foods and supplements use a form of B12 that doesn’t require stomach acid for absorption, making them a reliable option for this age group.
Pregnancy and Breastfeeding
Folate is the vitamin that changes most during pregnancy. The standard DV is 400 mcg, but pregnant women need 600 mcg per day to support the baby’s neural tube development, which happens in the earliest weeks. Because roughly half of pregnancies are unplanned, any woman who could become pregnant is advised to take 400 mcg of folic acid daily as a baseline, even before conception. Women who have previously had a baby with a neural tube defect may benefit from up to 4,000 mcg, though that level requires guidance from a provider.
Needs for several other vitamins also increase modestly during pregnancy and breastfeeding, including vitamins A, C, B6, and B12. Women following a vegan or vegetarian diet during pregnancy may need supplemental B12 and vitamin D, since plant-based diets provide little of either.
Fat-Soluble vs. Water-Soluble Vitamins
The 13 vitamins split into two categories based on how your body handles them, and this distinction matters for both daily intake and safety.
Vitamins A, D, E, and K are fat-soluble. They’re absorbed alongside dietary fats, then stored in your liver and fat tissue for up to six months. Because your body holds onto them, you don’t necessarily need to hit your target every single day. A few days of low intake won’t cause a deficiency. The flip side is that consistently taking too much can lead to a buildup, which is why fat-soluble vitamins carry higher toxicity risks.
The remaining nine vitamins, vitamin C and the eight B vitamins, are water-soluble. They dissolve in your bloodstream, and whatever your body doesn’t use gets flushed out through urine. There’s no meaningful storage, so these need to be replenished frequently through food or supplements. The upside is that toxicity from water-soluble vitamins is rare, though not impossible at extreme doses.
Upper Limits: When More Becomes Harmful
More is not always better. Each vitamin has a Tolerable Upper Intake Level (UL), the maximum daily amount unlikely to cause harm. Going above the UL occasionally probably won’t hurt you, but doing so regularly increases your risk of side effects. These upper limits apply primarily to supplements and fortified foods, not to vitamins naturally present in whole foods.
Here are the ULs for the vitamins most commonly over-consumed by adults ages 19 and older:
- Vitamin A: 3,000 mcg per day (from preformed vitamin A only, not beta-carotene). Excess can cause liver damage, nausea, and in pregnant women, birth defects.
- Vitamin D: 100 mcg (4,000 IU) per day. Too much can raise blood calcium to dangerous levels.
- Vitamin E: 1,000 mg per day from synthetic supplements. High doses may increase bleeding risk.
- Niacin (B3): 35 mg per day from supplements or fortified foods. Exceeding this can cause flushing, itching, and liver problems.
- Vitamin B6: 100 mg per day. Chronic high doses can cause nerve damage, leading to numbness and tingling in the hands and feet.
Vitamin C, folate, and the other B vitamins also have upper limits, but they’re high enough that most people won’t reach them through normal supplement use. The vitamins without established upper limits (like B12 and vitamin K) haven’t shown toxicity at high intakes in studies, though that doesn’t mean unlimited amounts are wise.
Reading Supplement Labels
Supplement labels can be confusing because vitamins A, D, and E have historically been listed in International Units (IU) rather than the milligrams or micrograms used for RDAs. Labels now use mcg and mg, but older supplements or international products may still show IU. Here’s how to convert:
- Vitamin D: 1 IU equals 0.025 mcg. So a supplement listing 1,000 IU contains 25 mcg.
- Vitamin A: 1 IU of retinol equals 0.3 mcg. A supplement with 3,000 IU contains 900 mcg.
- Vitamin E: 1 IU of natural vitamin E equals 0.67 mg. 1 IU of synthetic vitamin E equals 0.45 mg. This matters because supplements vary in which form they use.
When comparing a supplement to your daily target, check whether the label shows the amount per serving or per capsule, since those aren’t always the same thing. A “serving” might be two or three capsules.
Getting Enough From Food Alone
Most people eating a varied diet that includes fruits, vegetables, whole grains, dairy or fortified alternatives, and some animal protein will meet their needs for the majority of vitamins without supplements. The vitamins most commonly lacking in modern diets are vitamin D (limited food sources and sun exposure), vitamin B12 (especially for plant-based eaters and older adults), and folate (particularly important for women of childbearing age).
A standard multivitamin typically provides close to 100% of the DV for most vitamins, which serves as a reasonable safety net for people with gaps in their diet. Taking individual high-dose supplements for specific vitamins carries more risk of exceeding upper limits, particularly for the fat-soluble group. If you’re eating well and not in a high-need category like pregnancy or older age, a multivitamin is generally sufficient insurance rather than a necessity.