Bible Reading Statistics 2026
Just 9% of Americans read the Bible every day and 38% never use it, while 77% still own one. Bible use fell from 50% of U.S. adults in 2021 to a low of 38% in 2024, then rebounded to 41% in 2025. The full Bible now exists in 805 languages, with 3,229 of the world's 7,396 living languages still having no Scripture at all. The YouVersion Bible App has passed one billion installs and set a single-day record of 19 million users on November 2, 2025.
Below: 65 Bible statistics across 8 categories. Every number links to the research organization that published it. Sources: American Bible Society, Barna Group, Gallup, Lifeway Research, Pew Research Center, United Bible Societies, Wycliffe Bible Translators UK, Wycliffe Bible Translators USA, Wycliffe Global Alliance, YouVersion. Last updated 2026-08-18.
Bible Statistics at a Glance
Bible Reading Habits & Frequency
How often people actually open a Bible, and how much of it they have read.
| Statistic | Source | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Just 9% of Americans read the Bible every day and 25% use it weekly, while 38% never use it. | American Bible Society | 2025 |
| Only 25% of Americans are active Bible users in 2026, with 13% occasional users and 62% not reading Scripture. | American Bible Society | 2026 |
| 22% of U.S. adults read scripture outside of religious services at least once a week, while 61% seldom or never do. | Pew Research Center | 2023-24 |
| 31% of American Protestant churchgoers say reading the Bible is a daily habit, and 9% read it rarely or never. | Lifeway Research | 2026 |
| Daily Bible reading among churchgoers rose from 16% in 2007 to 19% in 2012 to 31% in 2026. | Lifeway Research | 2007-2026 |
| Only 22% of churchgoers have read the entire Bible at least once. | Lifeway Research | 2026 |
| 51% of Americans say they have read at least half the Bible, but only 22% have read it all the way through. | Lifeway Research | 2025 |
| 9% of U.S. adults have never read any of the Bible personally. | Lifeway Research | 2025 |
| 17% of Americans say they have read the Bible in its entirety, while only 10% say they have read none of it. | American Bible Society | 2026 |
| 74% of people who follow a Bible reading plan or guide have read most or all of the Bible. | American Bible Society | 2026 |
| 51% of all Americans wish they read the Bible more, rising to 80% among the “Movable Middle.” | American Bible Society | 2025 |
| Bible readership in America fell from 73% in the 1980s to 59% in 2000. | Gallup | 2000 |
Bible Ownership
Owning a Bible and reading a Bible are two very different numbers. Note the measures differ: American Bible Society counts individuals, Barna counts households.
| Statistic | Source | Year |
|---|---|---|
| 77% of Americans say they own a Bible, up from 74% the previous year. | American Bible Society | 2025 |
| 88% of American households own at least one Bible, and the average household has 4.7 Bibles. | Barna Group | 2014 |
| Bible ownership ranges from 82% of Millennial households to 93% of Elder households. | Barna Group | 2017 |
| 24% of American Bible owners have six or more Bibles in their home. | Barna Group | 2013 |
Bible Translation & Global Availability
How many of the world's languages have Scripture, and how many are still waiting.
| Statistic | Source | Year |
|---|---|---|
| There are 7,396 living languages in the world today. | Wycliffe Global Alliance | 2025 |
| The full Bible has been translated into 805 languages, the New Testament into 1,842 more, and Scripture portions into another 1,520. | Wycliffe Bible Translators UK | 2026 |
| 3,229 languages still have no Scripture at all. | Wycliffe Bible Translators UK | 2026 |
| Roughly 1 in 5 people worldwide is still waiting for the Bible in their own language. | Wycliffe Bible Translators UK | 2026 |
| Bible translation work is currently in progress in 4,440 languages, with a new translation project starting on average every day. | Wycliffe Bible Translators UK | 2026 |
| 535 languages still need Bible translation to begin for the very first time, down from 985 a year earlier. | Wycliffe Bible Translators USA | 2026 |
| The 544 languages still waiting for translation to begin are spoken by 36.8 million people. | Wycliffe Global Alliance | 2025 |
| More than 99% of the world's population now has access to at least some Scripture in a language they understand. | Wycliffe Global Alliance | 2025 |
| Bible translations were published in 100 languages used by about 566 million people during 2025, including 66 languages receiving Scripture for the first time. | United Bible Societies | 2025 |
| More than 1.5 billion people still lack the full Bible in their own language, and 123 million have no Scripture at all in their heart language. | United Bible Societies | 2025 |
| Bible Societies distributed 148.3 million printed Scriptures in 2025, including 22.4 million full Bibles. | United Bible Societies | 2025 |
| Bible Societies have distributed more than 25 billion Scriptures, including 1.1 billion full Bibles, across 80 years in more than 240 countries. | United Bible Societies | 2025 |
Bible Engagement Trends Over Time
The 2022 collapse and the 2025 rebound are the two biggest movements in modern Bible engagement data.
| Statistic | Source | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Bible Use among U.S. adults fell from 50% in 2021 to 40% in 2022, the sharpest single-year drop the survey has recorded. | American Bible Society | 2022 |
| The Bible Disengaged category grew by 45.2 million U.S. adults in one year between 2021 and 2022. | American Bible Society | 2022 |
| Bible Users bottomed at 38% of U.S. adults (99 million) in 2024, down from 49% (124 million) in 2019, then rebounded to 41% (110 million) in 2025. | American Bible Society | 2024-25 |
| Scripture Engaged Americans fell from 25% in 2021 to 18% in 2024, then rose to 20% (more than 52 million) in 2025. | American Bible Society | 2021-25 |
| The Bible Disengaged share jumped from 39% in 2021 to 56% in 2022 and stood at 54% in 2025. | American Bible Society | 2021-25 |
| In 2026 the Movable Middle grew to 28% of the U.S. population, up 9 million since 2024, while Scripture Engaged slipped back to 17%. | American Bible Society | 2026 |
| Bible reading among U.S. adults rose from a 25-year low of 30% in 2024 to 42% in 2025, the highest rate since 2012. | Barna Group | 2025 |
| Only 36% of U.S. adults strongly agree the Bible is totally accurate in the principles it teaches, down from 43% in 2000. | Barna Group | 2025 |
Who Reads the Bible: Demographics
Age, gender, ethnicity, and region all move Bible use by double digits.
| Statistic | Source | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Bible use rises with age in 2025: 36% of Gen Z adults, 39% of Millennials, 42% of Gen X, and 46% of Boomers and older are Bible Users. | American Bible Society | 2025 |
| Gen Z Bible reading jumped from 30% in 2024 to 49% in 2025, and Millennials from 34% to 50%. | Barna Group | 2025 |
| Scripture Engagement among Gen Z rose from 11% to 15% and among Millennials from 12% to 17% between 2024 and 2025. | American Bible Society | 2025 |
| Men closed the Bible-use gender gap from seven points in 2024 (41% women vs 34% men) to one point in 2025 (42% vs 41%). | American Bible Society | 2025 |
| Two out of three Black Americans (68%) are Bible Users, versus 41% of Hispanic, 38% of Asian, and 37% of white Americans. | American Bible Society | 2025 |
| Scripture Engagement among Black Americans rose from 27% to 36% in one year, twice the level of white or Hispanic Americans (18% each). | American Bible Society | 2025 |
| The South leads U.S. Bible use at 48%, with the West and Midwest at 39% and the Northeast at 33%. | American Bible Society | 2025 |
| Americans 65 and older are the age group most likely to have never read any of the Bible, at 15%. | Lifeway Research | 2025 |
Digital Bibles & App Usage
Bible apps are now the fastest-moving channel in Scripture engagement.
| Statistic | Source | Year |
|---|---|---|
| The YouVersion Bible App has been installed on more than one billion devices worldwide. | YouVersion | 2025 |
| YouVersion's 2025 Verse of the Year was Isaiah 41:10, the fourth time in six years it topped the list. | YouVersion | 2025 |
| On November 2, 2025, a single-day record 19 million people opened the YouVersion Bible App. | YouVersion | 2025 |
| YouVersion users complete 40 Bible Plan days and highlight, bookmark, or note 112 verses every second on average. | YouVersion | 2025 |
| 3 million people subscribed to a one-year Bible Plan on New Year's Day 2025 alone. | YouVersion | 2025 |
| The YouVersion Bible App offers Scripture in more than 2,400 languages. | YouVersion | 2025 |
| About 14 million people engaged with the Bible every day across YouVersion's apps in 2024, averaging 11.2 million new device installs per month. | YouVersion | 2024 |
| YouVersion recorded more than 100 million new app installs in 2023, and over 80% were outside the United States. | YouVersion | 2023 |
| Bible chapters were viewed 32.2 billion times digitally in 2025, up 13.8% year over year, alongside 1.4 billion audio Scripture plays. | United Bible Societies | 2025 |
| Two-thirds of U.S. Bible Users access the Bible digitally at least some of the time, and 62% of those use Bible apps. | American Bible Society | 2025 |
| Nearly 80% of Bible Users read a printed Bible at least monthly, while 62% use digital text at least monthly. | American Bible Society | 2026 |
What Americans Believe About the Bible
Gallup has tracked biblical literalism since the 1970s. It is falling.
| Statistic | Source | Year |
|---|---|---|
| A record-low 20% of Americans say the Bible is the literal word of God, down from around 40% in the early 1980s. | Gallup | 2022 |
| A record-high 29% of Americans call the Bible a collection of fables, legends, history, and moral precepts recorded by man, while 49% call it the inspired word of God not to be taken entirely literally. | Gallup | 2022 |
| 30% of Protestants take the Bible literally, versus 15% of Catholics. | Gallup | 2022 |
| Biblical literalism among Americans aged 18-29 fell from 32% in 1976 to 12% in 2017. | Gallup | 2017 |
| Three-quarters of U.S. Christians say the Bible is the word of God, and 39% say it should be taken literally. | Pew Research Center | 2017 |
| 42% of U.S. Christians say reading the Bible is essential to what being Christian means to them. | Pew Research Center | 2017 |
Church & Global Christianity
The worldwide context the reading numbers sit inside.
| Statistic | Source | Year |
|---|---|---|
| The number of Christians worldwide rose by 122 million between 2010 and 2020, reaching 2.3 billion, but fell 1.8 points as a share of world population, to 28.8%. | Pew Research Center | 2020 data, published 2025 |
| 30.7% of the world's Christians live in sub-Saharan Africa, 24% in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 22.3% in Europe. | Pew Research Center | 2020 data, published 2025 |
| The United States has more Christian residents than any other country, about one-tenth of the world's Christians. | Pew Research Center | 2020 data, published 2025 |
| 68% of Practicing Christians are Scripture Engaged, and only 12% of Scripture Engaged Americans are unchurched. | American Bible Society | 2025 |
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<a href="https://www.biblesaysabout.com/bible-statistics">Bible Reading Statistics 2026 - Bible Says About</a>Bible Statistics FAQ
How many people read the Bible daily?
Just 9% of Americans read the Bible every day, according to the American Bible Society's State of the Bible 2025. Among Protestant churchgoers specifically the figure is far higher: Lifeway Research found 31% read the Bible daily in 2026, up from 16% in 2007.
What percentage of Americans own a Bible?
77% of Americans say they personally own a Bible (American Bible Society, 2025). At the household level Barna Group has measured 88% of American households owning at least one Bible, with an average of 4.7 Bibles per household.
How many languages has the Bible been translated into?
The full Bible exists in 805 languages, the New Testament in 1,842 more, and Scripture portions in another 1,520 (Wycliffe Bible Translators UK, 2026). 3,229 of the world's 7,396 living languages still have no Scripture at all.
Is Bible reading going up or down?
Both, depending on the window. Bible use collapsed from 50% of U.S. adults in 2021 to 38% in 2024, then rebounded to 41% in 2025 (American Bible Society). Barna measured an even sharper rebound, from a 25-year low of 30% in 2024 to 42% in 2025, driven by Gen Z and Millennials.
Which generation reads the Bible most?
Boomers and older adults, at 46% Bible use in 2025, versus 36% of Gen Z adults (American Bible Society). But the growth is inverted: Barna found Gen Z Bible reading jumped from 30% to 49% and Millennials from 34% to 50% between 2024 and 2025.
How many people use Bible apps?
The YouVersion Bible App has passed one billion device installs and set a single-day record of 19 million users on November 2, 2025. Two-thirds of U.S. Bible Users access Scripture digitally at least some of the time, and 62% of those use a Bible app (American Bible Society, 2025).
Do Americans believe the Bible is literally true?
A record-low 20% of Americans say the Bible is the literal word of God, down from around 40% in the early 1980s. 49% call it the inspired word of God not to be taken entirely literally, and a record-high 29% call it a collection of fables and moral precepts recorded by man (Gallup, 2022).
Where do these Bible statistics come from?
Every statistic on this page is attributed to a named research organization with a direct link to its published source: American Bible Society, Barna Group, Gallup, Lifeway Research, Pew Research Center, United Bible Societies, Wycliffe Bible Translators UK, Wycliffe Bible Translators USA, Wycliffe Global Alliance, YouVersion. No figure on this page is estimated, modeled, or rounded from memory.
Read the Bible by Topic
Statistics say 51% of Americans wish they read the Bible more. These topic collections are a place to start.