Urine Albumin (Microalbumin), Random
How much albumin, a blood protein, is in a single urine sample. The number depends on how diluted your urine is, so it is usually read with creatinine.
AI-verified against cited sources. Awaiting expert reviewLOINC 14957-5
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What it is
Albumin is a protein that normally stays in your blood. Healthy kidneys let only a trace of it into the urine. This test measures how much albumin is in one urine sample, usually in milligrams per liter (some labs use milligrams per deciliter). The small amounts it picks up are often called microalbumin, and that name is still on many lab reports. A watery sample reads lower and a concentrated one reads higher, so the number alone can mislead.
Why it matters
Albumin leaking into the urine can be an early sign of kidney damage, often before other kidney tests change. It is checked most often in people with diabetes or high blood pressure. Because hydration changes the number, kidney guidelines (KDIGO 2024) ask labs to report the albumin-to-creatinine ratio (uACR) along with the concentration. The ratio is what clinicians use to sort results into categories.
If it’s high
A higher concentration means more albumin is leaving in your urine. It can be a sign of kidney damage, but it is also raised by short-lived things like hard exercise, fever or a very concentrated sample. One result can't settle the question. Clinicians usually repeat the test and look at the ratio to creatinine.
Common causes
- A concentrated sample, for example after drinking little fluid, which raises the number without any change in the kidneys
- Hard exercise in the previous 24 hours
- Fever or infection, including urinary tract infections
- Menstrual blood or blood in the urine mixing with the sample
- Marked high blood sugar or marked high blood pressure
- Heart failure
- Kidney damage from diabetes, high blood pressure or other kidney conditions
What can help
- Ask for an albumin-to-creatinine ratio (uACR), which corrects for how diluted your urine is
- Give a first-morning sample if your clinician asks for one, and skip hard exercise for 24 hours beforehand
- Expect a raised result to be repeated. Clinicians often look at more than one sample over 3 to 6 months before drawing a conclusion
- Talk with your clinician about blood pressure and blood sugar, which both affect kidney health
What can affect your result
- Hydration: dilute urine lowers the concentration and concentrated urine raises it
- Exercise in the previous 24 hours
- Fever, infection, heart failure, marked high blood sugar or marked high blood pressure
- Menstruation or blood in the urine
- Sample type: first-morning samples are preferred, and random samples are common
- Test method: lab immunoassays differ from home or office dipsticks, which give only a rough, semi-quantitative reading
- Hard exercise in the 24 hours before the sample can raise albumin for a short time.
- Fever, infection, heart failure, marked high blood sugar and marked high blood pressure can raise it.
- Menstrual blood or blood in the urine can add albumin to the sample.
- Dilute urine lowers the concentration and concentrated urine raises it, which is why labs also report the ratio to creatinine.
- Albumin samples should be tested fresh or refrigerated for up to 7 days, and should not be frozen.
A first-morning urine sample is preferred, but a random sample is acceptable if a first-morning one isn't available. Reflects the urine made around the time of the sample. Levels can swing from day to day.
When to talk to a clinician
A raised urine albumin on one sample is a reason to ask about a repeat test and a uACR. It is not an emergency. Contact your clinician if you notice new swelling in your legs, ankles or face, or blood in your urine.
Questions you could ask
- How often should my urine albumin be checked, given my other health conditions?
- Could exercise, a recent illness or how much I drank explain this result?
- Can you check my albumin-to-creatinine ratio as well?
- Should we repeat this on a first-morning sample?
Questions people ask
Why doesn't my report give a usual range for urine albumin?
Some large labs print an interval only for the albumin-to-creatinine ratio, because the concentration on its own changes with how much water is in your urine. If your lab printed a range for this result, that range is the one to use.
What is the difference between mg/L and mg/dL?
1 mg/dL equals 10 mg/L, so 2 mg/dL is the same as 20 mg/L. A result in µg/mL is the same number as mg/L.
Is microalbumin different from albumin?
No. It is the same protein. Microalbumin is an older name for the small amounts that leak into the urine early on, and many lab reports still use it.
Show the science and sources
Units
- 1 mg/L = 1 mg/L
- 1 mg/L = 0.1 mg/dL
Open the Urine Albumin unit converter
Is a change real?
Urine Albumin naturally varies about 36% from test to test in the same healthy person. Between two results from the same lab, a rise of 196% or more, or a fall of 66% or more, is unlikely to be day-to-day noise or lab variation (95% reference change value). Source: Desirable Biological Variation Database specifications, 2014 update (Minchinela J, Ricos C, et al.; the 'Ricos database', a compilation of median published CVI/CVG).
For clinicians and researchers
Urine albumin is usually measured by immunoturbidimetry on a random (spot) urine and reported as mass per volume (mg/L, or mg/dL where 1 mg/dL = 10 mg/L; µg/mL equals mg/L). The concentration depends on urine flow, so excretion is estimated by dividing by creatinine (uACR) or by a timed collection. KDIGO 2024 (Table 17) asks labs to report ACR in untimed samples in addition to the albumin concentration rather than the concentration alone, to analyze samples fresh or at 4 °C within 7 days, not to freeze them, and to use methods with an analytical CV below 15%. It advises a first-morning void when possible and accepts a random sample otherwise. The albuminuria categories A1 to A3 (below 30, 30 to 300 and above 300 mg/g) are defined for the ratio, so they should not be applied to a raw concentration. Within-person variation is large, and Labcorp advises that two of three samples over 3 to 6 months should be raised before a threshold is considered crossed. KDIGO describes reagent strips as semi-quantitative, not adjusted for urine concentration and not standardized between manufacturers. Labcorp maps its urine albumin result to LOINC 14957-5 (in µg/mL), and Mayo Clinic Laboratories maps its random albumin result to 89999-7.
LOINC 14957-5 (primary), 1754-1, 89999-7, 11218-5. Specimen: urine.
Sources
- KDIGO 2024 Clinical Practice Guideline for the Evaluation and Management of Chronic Kidney Disease, Kidney International (KDIGO) (2024)
- Albumin/Creatinine Ratio, Random Urine (test 140285), Labcorp
- ALBR: Albumin, Random, Urine, Mayo Clinic Laboratories Extended Catalog
- Microalbumin Creatinine Ratio, MedlinePlus (National Library of Medicine)
AI-verified against cited sources. Awaiting expert review. Last reviewed 2026-10-03. How we build and check these pages.