Does Creatine Have Calories? What 384 Labels Declare, and Why Two Brands Count It as Food

The short answer is that plain creatine carries no calories on a US label, and the reason is partly chemistry and partly law. The longer answer — the one that matters to anyone counting calories while cutting — is that many creatine products do carry calories, sometimes a lot, and none of it comes from the creatine.

This page counts what the labels declare, from the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements' Dietary Supplement Label Database, and sets out the rule that decides what goes on the panel. Whether creatine breaks a fast — the insulin and autophagy question — is a separate page: does creatine break a fast.

What 384 labels declare

On 2026-10-20 the label database's search for "creatine" was read to its first 1,500 results; 507 were on-market products with creatine in the name. All 384 powders, gummies and liquids among them were opened label by label — 181 brands.

Three things stand out.

Plain creatine is declared as zero almost everywhere. 243 of 245 single-ingredient powders carry no calorie line at all. That includes the 17 flavoured ones in this group, sweetened with sucralose, stevia or acesulfame; two of them (both Rivalus) also list maltodextrin and still declare no calories, meaning the serving falls under the 5-calorie threshold.

The two exceptions count creatine as protein. MET-Rx's unflavoured Creatine Monohydrate declares 20 calories per 5 g; PureBulk.com's Creatine Monohydrate Powder declares 10 calories per 2.5 g. Both are exactly 4 calories per gram — the general factor federal rules assign to protein. No calorie figure on any of the 245 labels was derived from a measurement of creatine itself.

The calories in creatine products come from what is mixed in. Among the 126 multi-ingredient powders, the high end is carbohydrate "loader" formulas: Optimum Nutrition's Pre-Load Creatine Complex at 280 calories a scoop, two Nutrex Volu Gro glycogen loaders at 246 per 76.5 g serving, Betancourt's Phosflex at 200, and Body Fortress and MET-Rx "performance" creatines at 140–150. Sixteen of the 56 declare 100 calories or more; 30 declare 20 or fewer. The format question for chews is set out on creatine gummies, and the liquid products — some of which do not state how much creatine they contain — on liquid creatine.

Why the label can say zero

Two federal rules decide it, both read in the eCFR on 2026-10-20.

• 21 CFR 101.36 governs the Supplement Facts panel. It requires calories, fats, carbohydrate, sugars and protein to be declared only "when they are present in a dietary supplement in quantitative amounts by weight that exceed the amount that can be declared as zero" under the food-labelling rule — and says amounts that can be declared as zero "shall not be declared."
• 21 CFR 101.9(c)(1), the food rule it points to, has calories expressed to the nearest 5-calorie increment up to 50, "except that amounts less than 5 calories may be expressed as zero." The same section gives the general factors manufacturers use to calculate energy: 4, 4 and 9 calories per gram for protein, total carbohydrate and fat.

So a label that declares nothing is saying the serving falls under the zero threshold, or that the maker treats creatine as none of the three macronutrients. A label that declares 20 calories per 5 g is applying the protein factor to a molecule that is not a protein.

Is creatine fuel?

Creatine sits inside muscle as phosphocreatine, a short-term store that hands a phosphate group to ADP to rebuild ATP during hard efforts — the job of the enzyme creatine kinase. That is an energy buffer, not an energy source: the creatine is recycled, not burned. What is not reused degrades steadily to creatinine, which the kidneys clear in urine (Wyss and Kaddurah-Daouk's 2000 Physiological Reviews survey is the standard reference on the pathway). Creatine taken beyond what muscle can store is excreted.

No study was found that measured the metabolisable energy of creatine in people — the kind of balance study that gives carbohydrate and protein their factors. The zero on most labels is therefore a labelling outcome consistent with the biochemistry, and the 4-per-gram on two labels is a convention borrowed from protein. Neither is a measured number, and this page does not supply one.

The nitrogen problem: why creatine can look like protein

Here the "creatine is protein" idea causes real trouble. Creatine (C₄H₉N₃O₂) carries three nitrogen atoms. Creatine monohydrate, with a molar mass of about 149.1 g/mol, is about 28.2% nitrogen by mass (3 × 14.007 ÷ 149.15).

Older and cheaper protein tests measure total nitrogen and multiply by a standard factor of 6.25 to estimate protein. On that method, 1 g of creatine monohydrate reads as about 1.76 g of protein — our arithmetic, from the molecular formula. That is the mechanism behind "amino spiking": adding cheap nitrogen-rich compounds to a protein powder to inflate its tested protein content. A 2019 study developing a rapid test for whey powders names creatine, L-glutamine and taurine as "three common adulterants" of whey protein concentrate (Jiao et al., Molecules 2019).

For a buyer the consequence runs the other way from the calorie question. Creatine added to a protein powder can make the label's protein figure — and any calories calculated from it — higher than the real protein content. How the two supplements differ is set out on creatine vs protein powder and the separate case for mixing creatine with collagen on creatine and collagen peptides.

Calories, cutting and the scale

The number people usually notice when starting creatine is on the scale, not the label. The early gain of a kilogram or so is water drawn into muscle with the creatine, measured in the body-water trials on does creatine make you gain weight. It is not stored energy and does not reflect calories. Whether creatine helps or hinders a calorie deficit is a separate evidence question, set out on creatine while cutting.

What is not established

• Creatine's metabolisable energy. No human balance study was found; the label zero and the label 20 are conventions.
• The calorie content of products not in the database. The census covers labels filed with NIH; store-only products and recent reformulations may differ, and their own panel is the source.
• How often protein powders are spiked with creatine in the US market. The 2019 study describes creatine as a common adulterant; it does not measure prevalence.

Sources and method

All opened or run 2026-10-20.

• NIH Office of Dietary Supplements, Dietary Supplement Label Database, API v9: search "creatine", first 1,500 results; 507 on-market products named creatine; 384 powder, gummy and liquid labels read individually. Calories taken from each label's "Calories" row; "only active ingredient" means one dietary-ingredient row, a creatine compound, besides macronutrient lines. Examples: MET-Rx Creatine Monohydrate Unflavored (label 66279); PureBulk.com Creatine Monohydrate Powder (23068); ON Pre-Load Creatine Complex (13927); Nutrex Volu Gro (9904); Betancourt Phosflex (12900); KAOXNU gummies (328026); CON-CRET HCl gummies (325586).
• 21 CFR 101.36 and 21 CFR 101.9, eCFR, versions current to 2026-10-01.
• Jiao X et al. "Rapid Detection of Adulterants in Whey Protein Supplement by Raman Spectroscopy Combined with Multivariate Analysis." Molecules 2019;24(10):1889. PMID 31100965
• Wyss M, Kaddurah-Daouk R. "Creatine and creatinine metabolism." Physiol Rev 2000;80(3):1107–213. PMID 10893433 — abstract.
• Nitrogen share and protein-equivalent: our arithmetic from the molecular formula (N 14.007 g/mol; creatine monohydrate 149.15 g/mol, PubChem CID 80116) and the 6.25 conversion factor.