The characteristics of household resilience, an emerging development paradigm, remain uncertain. This paper's purpose was to identify the characteristics of self-perceived resilient households in rural Burkina Faso. Among 46 participants, self-perceived resilience status was established through resilience diaries'. Diary results were compared with a series of socio-economic, community and household variables of interest. Major factors associated with household resilience included poverty status, savings accumulation and the use of livestock as an income-generating activity. These findings provide insights into factors likely to strengthen household resilience and provide direction for practitioners interested in building and measuring changes in household resilience. Copyright (c) 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.