There are approximately 356,739 churches and religious congregations in the United States, according to the 2020 U.S. Religion Census published by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. That count includes 372 religious bodies reporting 161,371,931 adherents, which is 48.6% of the 2020 U.S. population of 331,449,281.
Most of those congregations are Christian churches. The Hartford Institute for Religion Research puts the broader estimate at roughly 373,000 congregations of all faiths, since some independent and immigrant congregations never show up in denominational reporting.
I run a church marketing agency and I serve as executive pastor at a church of about 300 people. So this number is not trivia to me. It’s the size of the field every pastor is standing in.
Here are the numbers that matter, where each one comes from, and what they should change about how you lead.
Churches in America at a Glance
- 356,739 total congregations (2020 U.S. Religion Census)
- ~373,000 broader estimate including unreported groups (Hartford Institute)
- 44,319 nondenominational congregations, the largest Protestant segment
- ~1,850 megachurches (Hartford Institute, 2026)
- 4,000 closed vs. 3,800 opened in 2024 (Lifeway Research)
- 70 people in the median congregation (Faith Communities Today, 2025)
Where Does the 356,739 Number Come From?
The 356,739 figure comes from the 2020 U.S. Religion Census, a once-a-decade county-by-county count run by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies and archived at the Association of Religion Data Archives.
The census gathered data on 372 religious bodies. It got both congregation and adherent counts for 217 of them, and congregation-only counts for the other 155. The archived data file at ARDA lists 356,642 congregations rather than 356,739, a small gap that comes from different reporting cutoffs. Either way, the honest answer is about 356,700.
The Hartford Institute for Religion Research estimates roughly 373,000 congregations. That number is higher because denominational reporting misses independent churches, storefront congregations, and newer immigrant churches that belong to no reporting body.
So the defensible range for how many churches are in America is 356,000 to 373,000. Anyone quoting a precise figure past that is guessing.
One more way to hold it: divide 356,739 congregations into the 2020 population of 331.4 million and you get one congregation for every 929 residents in the country.
How Many Churches Are There by Denomination?
The Southern Baptist Convention has the most congregations of any single religious body in America at 51,379, followed by nondenominational churches at 44,319, according to the 2020 U.S. Religion Census.
| Religious Body | Congregations (2020) | What to Know |
|---|---|---|
| Southern Baptist Convention | 51,379 | Largest single Protestant denomination by congregations |
| Nondenominational Christian | 44,319 | Largest Protestant segment overall, up ~9,000 since 2010 |
| United Methodist Church | 30,051 | A 2020 snapshot taken before the disaffiliation wave |
| Catholic Church | 19,405 | Counts worship sites; CARA counted 17,007 parishes in 2018 |
| Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints | 14,567 | Ward and branch meetinghouses |
| Assemblies of God | 12,739 | Largest Pentecostal body in the count |
| Jehovah's Witnesses | 12,285 | Kingdom Halls |
| Churches of Christ | 11,881 | Autonomous congregations, no denominational office |
| Evangelical Lutheran Church in America | 8,857 | Largest Lutheran body |
| Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) | 8,851 | Largest Presbyterian body |
| Episcopal Church | 6,353 | Parishes and missions |
The nondenominational line is the story of the last decade. Those 44,319 congregations grew by roughly 9,000 over ten years and now report more than 21 million adherents, which the 2020 U.S. Religion Census puts second only to the Catholic Church. Christianity Today summarized the finding in 2022 by calling nondenominational the largest segment of American Protestantism. If it were a denomination, it would claim more than 13% of American churchgoers.
Read that next to the United Methodist and Presbyterian lines and you see two curves crossing. Mainline denominations are shedding congregations. Independent churches are adding them.
How Many Christian Churches Are in America?
Roughly 320,000 to 350,000 of the 356,739 congregations in the United States are Christian churches, with Protestant congregations making up the large majority and Catholic parishes numbering between 17,000 and 19,405 depending on the source.
That Catholic range is worth naming plainly, because the two credible sources disagree. The 2020 U.S. Religion Census counted 19,405 Catholic congregations, which includes missions and worship sites. The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown counted 17,007 canonical parishes in 2018. Different definitions, not a contradiction.
The direction is the same either way. CARA reported that the number of U.S. parishes fell 9% between 1970 and 2020, while the American Catholic population grew 46% over the same fifty years. Fewer parishes, more Catholics, larger average parish.
Non-Christian congregations account for a small share of the total, though they are growing. The 2020 U.S. Religion Census recorded Muslim adherents rising from 2.6 million in 2010 to 4.5 million in 2020.
How Many Churches Close Each Year in America?
About 4,000 Protestant churches closed in 2024 while about 3,800 opened, a net loss of 200 congregations, according to Lifeway Research’s January 2026 report.
That’s a much narrower gap than the one that made headlines a few years ago, and the trend line is worth seeing in full.
Protestant church openings vs. closings
2014: 4,000 opened, 3,700 closed. Net gain of 300.
2019: 3,000 opened, 4,500 closed. Net loss of 1,500.
2024: 3,800 opened, 4,000 closed. Net loss of 200.
Lifeway Research. The 2019 estimate analyzed 34 denominations covering 60% of U.S. Protestant churches; the 2024 estimate analyzed 35 groups covering 58%.
Three things stand out. Closures still outrun openings. The 2019 gap of 1,500 was the worst on record in Lifeway’s tracking. And church planting recovered hard, from 3,000 new churches in 2019 to 3,800 in 2024.
I read that recovery as good news that nobody is celebrating. Planters kept planting through a pandemic and a giving downturn. If you’re weighing that call yourself, work through our church planting considerations before you sign a lease.
How Many Megachurches Are in the US?
There are approximately 1,850 megachurches in the United States, defined as Protestant congregations with weekly worship attendance approaching 2,000 or higher, according to the Hartford Institute for Religion Research’s Megachurch Resurgence report released in 2026.
That’s about half of one percent of all U.S. congregations. And here is why they dominate the conversation anyway.
The concentration problem
1 in 6 Protestant worshipers attends one of the ~1,850 megachurches on a typical weekend (Hartford Institute, 2026).
78% of churchgoers attend the largest 13% of congregations, those with 250 or more participants (Faith Communities Today, 2025).
70% of congregations have 100 or fewer people, and together they hold just 14% of total worship attendance (Faith Communities Today, 2025).
4,092 is the average Sunday attendance at a megachurch, against a median of 70 for all U.S. congregations.
So the country has 356,739 churches, and a few hundred of them hold a wildly disproportionate share of the people, the money, and the attention. We track the top of that curve in our roundup of the largest churches in America and across the full Church Influence 100.
Megachurches are also concentrated geographically. Ryan Burge, writing at Graphs about Religion in 2025, found the Hartford database heavily weighted toward the Sun Belt, with Texas, California, Florida, and Georgia leading. Burge has counted more than 200 megachurches in Texas alone.
They came out of the pandemic stronger, too. Hartford reports 67% of megachurches now exceed their pre-pandemic attendance, and 66% qualify as multiracial, up from 56% five years earlier.
If you want the definition and the honest debate around it, we wrote a full explainer on what a megachurch actually is.
How Many Americans Actually Attend Church?
About 31% of Americans say they attend religious services weekly or almost every week, according to Gallup’s 2025 polling, while 57% say they seldom or never attend.
The two major research houses land in a similar place from different angles. Pew Research Center’s 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study, published in February 2025, found about 33% of adults attend at least monthly in person, rising to 40% when you count people who watch online. Pew also found the Christian share of U.S. adults holding around 62% after years of decline.
Gallup’s long trend is the sobering one. Two decades ago, an average of 42% of U.S. adults attended weekly or nearly weekly. A decade ago it was 38%. Now it’s around 30%.
Age tells you where it’s heading. Gallup’s 2025 numbers show 25% weekly attendance among adults 18 to 29, against 37% among adults 65 and older.
Put the two datasets together and the picture is clear. The number of churches has held up better than the number of churchgoers. For more on that gap, see our church attendance statistics and our full roundup of church statistics every leader needs to know.
Which State Has the Most Churches?
Texas has the most congregations of any state, with 29,746 counted in the 2020 U.S. Religion Census, roughly 8% of the national total.
That fits the wider pattern. Texas reported 16,045,479 adherents in 2020, or 55.1% of its population, well above the national adherence rate of 48.6%. The South and lower Midwest carry both the highest congregation counts and the highest adherence rates in the country.
Population size alone doesn’t decide it. A state’s religiosity does. Which is why Texas, with roughly 10 million fewer residents than California, still leads the country in raw church count.
What This Means for Your Church
If there are 356,739 congregations in America and only about 31% of adults attend one weekly, then the constraint on your church is not that people have no options. It’s that they have hundreds, and most of them will never know you exist.
Do the math in your own county. The national average is one congregation per 929 residents. In a town of 40,000, that’s roughly 43 churches competing for the attention of the same commuters, the same young families, the same people who just moved in.
Nobody drives around looking for a church anymore. They search. And the churches that get found are the ones whose name, address, service times, and beliefs are legible to a search engine on the first try.
That is the practical takeaway from all these numbers. In a country with 350,000-plus churches, being good is not enough. You have to be findable. When 78% of churchgoers already sit in the largest 13% of congregations, the small church that is invisible online is not competing on preaching or hospitality. It’s not in the race.
This is fixable, and it’s cheaper than most pastors assume. Get your Google Business Profile accurate. Make sure your service times are on your homepage in text, not in an image. Answer the questions real visitors ask before they visit. That’s the core of what local SEO for churches does.
You can also see where your church stands. Our Church Influence Score grades your church’s online reach against the churches actually winning attention in America.
Frequently Asked Questions
There are 356,739 churches in America. Can people in your town find yours?
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Sources
- 2020 U.S. Religion Census, Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (2022)
- Congregational Membership Reports, Association of Religion Data Archives
- Fast Facts on American Religion, Hartford Institute for Religion Research
- Megachurch Resurgence 2026, Hartford Institute for Religion Research
- Protestant Church Closures Outpace Openings, Lifeway Research (2021)
- Lifeway Research Finds Church Closures Eclipse Openings, Lifeway Research (2026)
- Americans’ Religious Engagement Holds at Lower Levels, Gallup (2025)
- 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study, Pew Research Center (2025)
- FAQs and Frequently Requested Statistics, Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, Georgetown University
- Megachurch Geography, Ryan Burge, Graphs about Religion (2025)
