In 2023, 27.5 percent of Americans were unaffiliated with any religion. A further 13.4 percent of Americans were White evangelical Protestants, and an additional 13.3 percent were White mainline Protestants. Religious trends in the United States Although the United States is still home to the largest number of Christians worldwide, the nation has started to reflect a more diverse religious landscape in recent years. Americans now report a wide range of religious beliefs and backgrounds, in addition to an increasing number of people who are choosing to identify with no religion at all. Studies suggest that many Americans have left their previous religion to instead identify as atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular, with many reasoning that they stopped believing in the religion's teachings, that they didn't approve of negative teachings or treatment of LGBTQ+ people, or that their family was never that religious growing up. Christian controversies Over the last few years, controversies linked to Christian denominations have plagued the nation, including reports of child sexual abuse by the Catholic Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the Southern Baptist Convention. Christian churches have also been accused of supporting discriminatory actions against LGBTQ+ people and people belonging to other religious groups. In addition, there have been increasing concerns about Christian nationalism, the political ideology that asserts that America was founded to be a Christian nation. Although the majority of Americans still think that declaring the United States a Christian nation would go against the U.S. Constitution, studies found that most Republicans would be in favor of this change.

The statistic shows the religious affiliation of the population in the United States in 2017, by age. In 2017, about 38 percent of respondents aged 18 to 29 years old were unaffiliated with any religious belief.

This study, designed and carried out by the "http://www.asarb.org/" Target="_blank">Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB), compiled data on 372 religious bodies by county in the United States. Of these, the ASARB was able to gather data on congregations and adherents for 217 religious bodies and on congregations only for 155. Participating bodies included 354 Christian denominations, associations, or communions (including Latter-day Saints, Messianic Jews, and Unitarian/Universalist groups); counts of Jain, Shinto, Sikh, Tao, Zoroastrian, American Ethical Union, and National Spiritualist Association congregations, and counts of congregations and adherents from Baha'i, three Buddhist groupings, two Hindu groupings, and four Jewish groupings, and Muslims. The 372 groups reported a total of 356,642 congregations with 161,224,088 adherents, comprising 48.6 percent of the total U.S. population of 331,449,281. Membership totals were estimated for some religious groups.

In January 2024, the ARDA added 21 religious tradition (RELTRAD) variables to this dataset. These variables start at variable #9 (TOTCNG_2020). Categories were assigned based on pages 88-94 in the original "https://www.usreligioncensus.org/index.php/node/1638" Target="_blank">2020 U.S. Religion Census Report.

Visit the "https://www.thearda.com/us-religion/sources-for-religious-congregations-membership-data" Target="_blank">frequently asked questions page for more information about the ARDA's religious congregation and membership data sources.

This statistic shows the share of adults in the United States affiliated to a religious denomination in January 2017, by race/ethnicity. As of January 2017, 15 percent of Asian or Pacific Islanders in the United States identified themselves as Hindu.

The 2008 Conversion Recontact Survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life, is a follow-up to the 2007 "U.S. Religious Landscape Survey." One of the most striking findings from the Landscape Survey was the large number of people who have left their childhood faith. The Landscape Survey found that more than one in four American adults (28%) have changed their religious affiliation from that in which they were raised. This number includes people who have changed from one major religious tradition to another, for instance, from Protestantism to Catholicism or from Judaism to no religion. If change within religious traditions is included (e.g., from one Protestant denominational family to another), the survey found that roughly 44% of Americans now profess a religious affiliation different from that in which they were raised.

The Conversion Recontact Survey is designed to offer a fuller picture of this churn within American religion, with a special focus on the reasons that people change religious affiliation. The Conversion Recontact Survey is based on follow-up interviews with Landscape Survey respondents, including those from the largest segments of the population that have changed religious affiliation as well as those who still belong to the religious faith in which they were raised. Interviews were conducted by telephone with a nationally representative sample of 2,867 adults living in continental United States telephone households. The survey was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International (PSRAI). Interviews were conducted on landline telephones in English and Spanish by Princeton Data Source (PDS), LLC from Oct. 3 to Nov. 7, 2008. Statistical results are weighted to correct known demographic discrepancies. A full report on the survey's findings, "Faith in Flux: Changes in Religious Affiliation in the U.S.," is available on the Pew Forum's "http://www.pewforum.org/2009/04/27/faith-in-flux/" Target="_blank">website.

This study, designed and completed by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB), represents statistics for 149 religious bodies on the number of congregations within each county of the United States. Where available, also included are actual membership (as defined by the religious body) and total adherents figures. Participants included 149 Christian denominations, associations, or communions (including Latter-day Saints and Unitarian/Universalist groups); two specially defined groups of independent Christian churches; Jewish and Islamic totals; and counts of temples for six Eastern religions.

It is important to understand the methodology producing these data and its limitations. While these data contain membership data for many religious groups in the United States, including most of the larger groups, they do not include every group. It is recommended that users read the notes below. Users may also want to refer to a paper by Roger Finke and Christopher P. Scheitle that explains the "adjusted" adherence rates included in the file.

Visit the "/us-religion/sources-for-religious-congregations-membership-data" Target="_blank">frequently asked questions page for more information about the ARDA's religious congregation and membership data.

The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey completed telephone interviews with a nationally representative sample of 35,556 adults living in continental United States households. The survey was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International (PSRAI). This extensive survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life details the religious makeup, religious beliefs and practices as well as social and political attitudes of the American public.

Information on this page was adapted from the Pew Forum's methodology report for this survey.

Graph and download economic data for Total Construction Spending: Religious in the United States (TLRELCONS) from Jan 2002 to Apr 2025 about religion, expenditures, construction, and USA.

This dataset is the centerpiece of Pew Research Center's 2014 Religious Landscape Study, a nationally representative telephone survey conducted June 4-Sept. 30, 2014, among a sample of 35,071 U.S. adults. Approximately 60 percent of the interviews were conducted with respondents reached on cellphones (n=21,160) and 40 percent were completed on landlines (n=13,911). A minimum of 300 interviews were conducted in every state and the District of Columbia. Interviewing was conducted in English and Spanish. The survey is estimated to cover 97 percent of the non-institutionalized U.S. adult population; 3 percent of U.S. adults are not reachable by telephone or do not speak English or Spanish well enough to participate in the survey. No adjustments have been made to the data to attempt to account for the small amount of non-coverage.

The size of the national sample is unusually large for a religion survey. There are two main reasons for this. First, the large sample size makes it possible to estimate the religious composition of the U.S. with a high degree of precision. After taking into account the survey's design effect (based on the sample design and survey weights), the margin of error for the results based on the full sample is +/- 0.6 percentage points.

Second, the large sample size makes it possible to describe the characteristics of a wide variety of religious groups, including relatively small groups that cannot be analyzed using data from smaller surveys. With more than 35,000 respondents in total, the Religious Landscape Study includes interviews with roughly 350 in religious groups that account for just 1 percent of the U.S. population, and with 100 or more people in religious groups that are as small as three-tenths of 1 percent of the overall population. For instance, the study includes interviews with 245 Jehovah's Witnesses, a group that accounts for less than 1 percent of the U.S. population and is typically represented by only a few dozen respondents in smaller surveys.

As 23 percent of the American population, white evangelicals are an important part of the American mainstream whose collective voice is growing louder both in politics and in culture. In many respects, white evangelicals look like other Americans. They live all over the country, they are found in cities and small towns alike, they have friends outside of their churches, and a majority have at least some college education. They share concerns with the rest of the country about the cost of healthcare and having a secure retirement. Yet white evangelicals share a set of strongly-held beliefs about the role of religion in daily life, and they incorporate a set of religious behaviors based on these beliefs into their daily lives. It is these beliefs and behaviors that set them apart religiously and politically from the rest of the country. This study places white evangelicals in comparative perspective with mainline Protestants, Catholics, African Americans, and Hispanics.

Between 2023 and 2024, the majority of Muslim immigrants living in the United States were born in another country, with 59 percent of U.S. Muslims born outside the United States. In contrast, most Christian immigrants were U.S. born, with both parents also born in the U.S. during the provided time period.

This study, designed and carried out by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB), compiled data on the number of congregations and adherents for 236 religious groups in each county of the United States. Participants included 217 Christian denominations, associations, or communions (including Latter-day Saints, Messianic Jews, and Unitarian/Universalist groups); counts of Jain, Shinto, Sikh, Tao and National Spiritualist Association congregations, and counts of congregations and adherents from Bahá'ís, three Buddhist groupings, four Hindu groupings, four Jewish groupings, Muslims and Zoroastrians. The 236 groups reported a total of 344,894 congregations with 150,686,156 adherents, comprising 48.8 percent of the total U.S. population of 308,745,538 in 2010.

Visit the "/us-religion/sources-for-religious-congregations-membership-data" Target="_blank">frequently asked questions page for more information about the ARDA's religious congregation and membership data.

This study assessed the effects of male inmate religiosity on post-release community adjustment and investigated the circumstances under which these effects were most likely to take place. The researcher carried out this study by adding Federal Bureau of Investigation criminal history information to an existing database (Clear et al.) that studied the relationship between an inmate's religiousness and his adjustment to the correctional setting. Four types of information were used in this study. The first three types were obtained by the original research team and included an inmate values and religiousness instrument, a pre-release questionnaire, and a three-month post-release follow-up phone survey. The fourth type of information, official criminal history reports, was later added to the original dataset by the principal investigator for this study. The prisoner values survey collected information on what the respondent would do if a friend sold drugs from the cell or if inmates of his race attacked others. Respondents were also asked if they thought God was revealed in the scriptures, if they shared their faith with others, and if they took active part in religious services. Information collected from the pre-release questionnaire included whether the respondent attended group therapy, religious groups with whom he would live, types of treatment programs he would participate in after prison, employment plans, how often he would go to church, whether he would be angry more in prison or in the free world, and whether he would be more afraid of being attacked in prison or in the free world. Each inmate also described his criminal history and indicated whether he thought he was able to do things as well as most others, whether he was satisfied with himself on the whole or felt that he was a failure, whether religion was talked about in the home, how often he attended religious services, whether he had friends who were religious while growing up, whether he had friends who were religious while in prison, and how often he participated in religious inmate counseling, religious services, in-prison religious seminars, and community service projects. The three-month post-release follow-up phone survey collected information on whether the respondent was involved with a church group, if the respondent was working for pay, if the respondent and his household received public assistance, if he attended religious services since his release, with whom the respondent was living, and types of treatment programs attended. Official post-release criminal records include information on the offenses the respondent was arrested and incarcerated for, prior arrests and incarcerations, rearrests, outcomes of offenses of rearrests, follow-up period to first rearrest, prison adjustment indicator, self-esteem indicator, time served, and measurements of the respondent's level of religious belief and personal identity. Demographic variables include respondent's faith, race, marital status, education, age at first arrest and incarceration, and age at incarceration for rearrest.

This statistic shows the percentage of migrants alive today who have moved to North by religious affiliation. As of 2010, 72 percent of all immigrants to North America, who are still alive, are Christians.

This study, designed and completed by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB), represents statistics for 149 religious bodies on the number of congregations within each county of the United States. Where available, also included are actual membership (as defined by the religious body) and total adherents figures. Participants included 149 Christian denominations, associations, or communions (including Latter-day Saints and Unitarian/Universalist groups); two specially defined groups of independent Christian churches; Jewish and Islamic totals; and counts of temples for six Eastern religions.

It is important to understand the methodology producing these data and its limitations. While these data contain membership data for many religious groups in the United States, including most of the larger groups, they do not include every group. It is recommended that users read the notes below. Users may also want to refer to a paper by Roger Finke and Christopher P. Scheitle that explains the "adjusted" adherence rates included in the file.

Visit the "/us-religion/sources-for-religious-congregations-membership-data" Target="_blank">frequently asked questions page for more information about the ARDA's religious congregation and membership data.

From 2010 to 2023, Democrats were found much more likely than Republicans to identify with no religion in the United States. In 2023, 33 percent of Democrats said that they identified with no religion compared to 12 percent of Republicans.

The Statistics of Churches in the United States was part of the 11th Census, conducted in 1890 (the U.S. Census collected data on religion through the 1936 Census, though the 1890 Census was the first to count the number of members). The Census collected data on church seating capacity, property value, number of members, number of edifices ("buildings owned and used for worship"), and number of organizations (churches, mission stations when separate from congregation, chapels when they are separate from churches, and societies or meetings among groups that designate such organizations). The data are organized by states (states are the cases). Measures for religions in Indian Territories are also included.

The annual Report to Congress on International Religious Freedom � the International Religious Freedom Report � describes the status of religious freedom in every country. The report covers government policies violating religious belief and practices of groups, religious denominations and individuals, and U.S. policies to promote religious freedom around the world. The U.S. Department of State submits the reports in accordance with the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.

This data collection provides county- and state-level information on the number of members of a variety of religious organizations and groups in the United States between 1906 and 1936. The variables in this collection provide the names of these groups and organizations, which include the Advent Christian Church, Southern and National Convention Baptist churches, Buddhist (Japanese) temples, Evangelical Association, Jewish congregations, Greek Orthodox Church, Mennonite Church, Friends Church, Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene, Polish National Church, Roman Catholic Church, Salvation Army, Seventh Day Adventist, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Russian Eastern Orthodox Church, Mennonite General Conference, Hungarian Reformed Church, Unitarian Church, Negro Baptist Church, and Evangelical Church.

Graph and download economic data for Total Private Construction Spending: Religious in the United States (MPCV06XXS) from Feb 2002 to Apr 2025 about religion, expenditures, construction, private, and USA.