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Gym membership statistics 2026: members, growth, visits and cost

By Stelvo Team · · 10 min read

Every figure on this page comes from the organisation that produced it — the Health & Fitness Association's national surveys, EuropeActive and ukactive's market reports, SEC filings and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics — and was checked against the source page on 15 September 2026. No numbers were copied from other roundups. Each statistic appears once, with its publisher, year and link.

Key takeaways

  • 81 million Americans belonged to a gym, studio or other fitness facility in 2025, an all-time high and 5.2% more than in 2024 (Health & Fitness Association, 2026).
  • 26.1% of the US population aged six and older held a fitness facility membership in 2025 (HFA, 2026).
  • More than 100 million people used a US fitness facility in 2025 once non-members on day passes and guest visits are counted (HFA, 2026).
  • US fitness facilities logged 7 billion visits in 2025, passing the 2019 pre-pandemic peak (HFA, 2026).
  • The share of US members who never used their membership fell from about 10% to 4.6% (HFA, 2026).
  • Gen Z adults aged 18–24 have the highest membership penetration of any age group, 35.5%; members aged 65 and older were the fastest-growing cohort, up 8.6% year over year (HFA, 2026).
  • Average US monthly dues were $65 in 2023, up 9% in a year, and almost 67% of members paid less than $50 a month (HFA, 2024).
  • 75.5 million Europeans were fitness club members at the end of 2025, generating €39.1 billion in revenue across 67,515 clubs (EuropeActive/Deloitte, 2026).
  • 12.2 million people over 16 in the UK are members — 18% of the adult population — and UK clubs recorded 679 million visits in 2025 (ukactive, 2026).
  • Planet Fitness alone had 20.8 million members and 2,896 clubs on 31 December 2025 (Planet Fitness, SEC filing, 2026).
  • Median operator revenue grew 10.7% worldwide in 2025 and median net membership 6.1% (HFA Global Report, 2026).
  • The US employs 388,400 fitness trainers and instructors, a number projected to grow 7% from 2025 to 2035 (US Bureau of Labor Statistics).
  • In a 5,240-member study, 63% of new members quit within three months and fewer than 4% trained continuously for a year (Sperandei et al., 2016).
  • Membership is still a minority habit: only 24.2% of US adults met both federal activity guidelines in 2020 (CDC), and 23.4% of Americans exercise or play sport on a given day (BLS, 2025).

How many people have a gym membership in the US?

81 million Americans belonged to a gym, studio or other fitness facility in 2025, according to the Health & Fitness Association's 2026 US Health & Fitness Consumer Report, a record and a 5.2% increase on 2024. That is 26.1% of the US population aged six and older. Counting non-members who used day passes, guest privileges and other flexible access, more than 100 million people used a fitness facility during the year.

The trend has been up for several years. HFA's earlier reports put membership at 72.9 million in 2023 (23.7% of the population aged six and older, up 5.8% year over year) and 77 million in 2024 (24.9% penetration, up 5.6%), when total customers including non-members reached nearly 96 million and 31.0% of the population.

Year US members Share of population aged 6+ Source
2023 72.9 million 23.7% HFA 2024 report
2024 77 million 24.9% HFA 2025 report
2025 81 million 26.1% HFA 2026 report

HFA's figures come from an annual national online survey of about 18,000 US residents aged six and older; at that sample size a 5% participation rate carries a margin of error of roughly ±0.32 percentage points, per the 2026 report's methodology page (the 2025 edition drew on the same 18,000-person sample).

How often do gym members actually go?

US facilities recorded an estimated 7 billion visits in 2025, a record that surpassed the previous pre-pandemic peak set in 2019, and the share of members who did not use their membership at all fell from around 10% to 4.6% (HFA, 2026). The average member visited a facility 81 times in 2023, up from 78 in 2022 and 72 in 2021, but still below the 119 visits averaged in 2019 (HFA, 2024).

Foot-traffic data tells the same story from the door counter: US commercial fitness facilities averaged more than 184,000 visits per location in 2025, up 4.2% from 2024, marking 19 consecutive quarters of visitation growth, and monthly visits per visitor rose 1.1% (HFA FIT Tracker, powered by Placer.ai, January 2026).

How many new members quit?

Most of them, within a season. A retrospective study of 5,240 members of one fitness centre found 63% of new members abandoned before the third month and fewer than 4% stayed continuously active for more than 12 months; age, prior activity, starting BMI and motivation all predicted quitting (Sperandei et al., Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 2016). Habit takes a while to set: new gym members needed at least four sessions a week for six weeks to establish an exercise habit (Kaushal & Rhodes, Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 2015). Industry-wide churn is lower because it counts everyone, not just newcomers — HFA reports 2025's churn as a decade low with tenure rising (HFA, 2026). The full picture of who quits and what keeps people going is on our gym dropout statistics page.

Who joins a gym? Age, income and gender

Gen Z adults aged 18–24 had the highest membership penetration of any age group at 35.5% in 2025, while members aged 65 and older were the fastest-growing cohort, up 8.6% year over year (HFA, 2026). Growth was broad-based: penetration rose across every age group, income bracket and gender.

Members skew affluent. Households earning more than $75,000 continued to represent just over half of US members in 2024 (HFA, 2025). In the UK, 62% of consumers say trying new activities motivated them to take out a membership and 49% say making friends matters (ukactive, 2026).

How much does a gym membership cost?

Average monthly fitness facility dues in the United States rose 9% in 2023 to $65, and almost 67% of members paid on average less than $50 per month, according to HFA's 2024 consumer report. The premium end grew too: facilities charging $100 a month or more grew their membership by 7.9% from 2022 to 2023.

For a sense of what members get for their money, the classic economics paper Paying Not to Go to the Gym (DellaVigna & Malmendier, American Economic Review, 2006) found that members who chose a flat monthly fee of over $70 attended on average 4.3 times per month, paying more than $17 per expected visit when a 10-visit pass would have cost $10 per visit.

What do people do at the gym?

Treadmills and free weights lead. In 2024, 43.4% of US members used treadmills and 32.1% trained with dumbbells or free weights, while resistance machines slipped to 26.6% (from 31.4% in 2021) and ellipticals to 18.8% (from 23.2%), per HFA's 2025 report. Nearly one in four members (22.6%) worked with a personal trainer in 2024, and 32.3% took part in small-group training; 7.3 million women used personal training, up 15.9%.

Yoga remained the most widely practised activity in 2025 at 17.7 million members, and pickleball was the fastest-growing, up 21.3% to 7.6 million members with nearly two-thirds playing weekly (HFA, 2026).

Are gym members healthier than non-members?

Yes, by a wide margin in HFA's survey data: 49.4% of members meet or exceed federal aerobic physical activity guidelines versus 24.5% of Americans who don't use fitness facilities, and members are seven times less likely to report no physical activity at all (4.7% vs 33.1%) (HFA, 2026). These are associations from survey data, not proof that joining causes the difference. The population baseline is low: only 24.2% of US adults met both the aerobic and muscle-strengthening guidelines in 2020 (CDC/NCHS), 23.4% of Americans aged 15 and over take part in sports, exercise or recreation on an average day (BLS American Time Use Survey, 2025), and 32% meet the 150-minute weekly guideline while 250 million took part in at least one sport or fitness activity in 2025 (SFIA, 2026). See the exercise statistics page for the full set.

How big is the gym industry worldwide?

Global memberships climbed 6% year over year in 2024, revenue increased an average of 8% and the number of fitness facilities expanded nearly 4%, according to the 2025 HFA Global Report, which covers nearly 30 countries. The 2026 edition, covering 33 countries and a survey of 244 operators representing nearly 27,000 facilities, reports that median operator revenue increased 10.7% in 2025, median net membership grew 6.1% and the median EBITDA margin reached 22.1%; 92.3% of operators expect revenue to rise again in 2026.

The same report gives a sense of the runway in emerging markets: India has an estimated 13.65 million members and 49,300 facilities at just 0.9% penetration, Brazil 14.7 million members and more than 45,000 facilities at 7%, and China about 50 million members and roughly 50,000 facilities at 3.6%.

How many gym members are there in Europe and the UK?

European fitness club memberships rose by 4.1 million (+5.8%) to 75.5 million by the end of 2025, revenues grew 9.1% to €39.1 billion and the number of clubs increased 3% to 67,515, per the European Health & Fitness Market Report 2025 by EuropeActive and Deloitte. Germany (12.4 million, +5.6%), the UK (12.2 million, +6.6%) and Spain (7.1 million, +8.3%) are the largest markets; penetration is 9.3% of the total population and 11% of people aged 15 and over. Basic-Fit is the largest operator by members (5.8 million) and revenue (€1.4 billion), ahead of PureGym (2.1 million members) and David Lloyd Leisure (€1.1 billion).

In the UK, the ukactive UK Health & Fitness Market Report 2026 counts a record 12.2 million members over the age of 16 — 18% of over-16s, up from 14.6% in 2022, 16.0% in 2023 and 16.9% in 2024 — across 5,842 clubs (+4.2%). Visits reached 679 million in 2025 (+10%), nearly double the 383 million GP visits recorded by the NHS, and total sector income hit £6.5 billion, up from £5.7 billion.

Which are the biggest gym chains?

Planet Fitness reported approximately 20.8 million members and 2,896 clubs as of 31 December 2025, net membership growth of 1.1 million in the year, 181 new clubs and total revenue up 12.1% to $1.3 billion, in its fourth-quarter 2025 results filed with the SEC. Its visits grew 8.9% year over year in the fourth quarter of 2025 and visitor frequency held steady through January 2026 while several other chains saw slight declines (Placer.ai, February 2026). In Europe, Basic-Fit's 5.8 million members make it the largest operator (EuropeActive, 2026).

How many people work in fitness?

The US had 388,400 fitness trainer and instructor jobs in 2025, with a median pay of $47,160 a year ($22.67 an hour); employment is projected to grow 7% from 2025 to 2035, adding 28,500 jobs, with about 68,000 openings a year on average, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook.

How to cite this page

Stelvo, "Gym membership statistics 2026: members, growth, visits and cost", stelvo.app, updated September 2026 — https://stelvo.app/blog/gym-membership-statistics. Individual figures should be credited to the original publisher named beside them.

Sources

Method: figures were traced to the organisation that produced them and verified on the linked page on 15 September 2026. Paid full reports (HFA, EuropeActive, ukactive) are cited through their publishers' own public summaries. This page is refreshed as new editions are published; the date at the top reflects the last check.

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