Presbyterian Church (USA), the largest Presbyterian denomination in the United States, reported another year of membership decline, losing nearly 27,000 members and 128 congregations in 2025.
A “Narrative Summary” of statistics showed that PCUSA membership dropped by 26,845 from 2024 to 2025, leaving the denomination with 1,019,003 members at the end of last year.
The summary was included in the Annual Statistical Report, which was prepared by the Office of Statistics and Rolls in collaboration with Research Services.
Although the denomination continued its long-running decline, the report described the 2025 decrease as its “slowest rate in a decade.” Membership fell by about 2.6% last year, a smaller decline than the average annual decrease of 4.6% recorded over the previous 10 years.
The report also highlighted the denomination’s aging membership. Sixty percent of PCUSA members were over age 55, including 35% who were 71 or older, while only 4% were 18 or younger.
PCUSA also ended 2025 with 8,304 congregations, a decrease of 128 from the previous year. According to the report, most of the losses came through church dissolutions.
The denomination reported adding 11 “newly organized congregations” in 2025, while 12 congregations were “dismissed to other denominations.”
The latest numbers continue a decades-long decline for the PCUSA, which had more than 2.5 million members in 2000 but has now fallen to just over 1 million.
The denomination’s theologically liberal direction has contributed to the decline, prompting hundreds of congregations to leave in protest over the past two decades.
In 2010, the PCUSA General Assembly voted to allow regional bodies to ordain non-celibate homosexuals. In response, about 300 congregations left the denomination and helped form the theologically conservative ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians.
PCUSA membership fell below 2 million in 2011, according to figures released the following year.
In May 2025, the denomination’s Interim Unified Agency reported that PCUSA lost nearly 49,000 members in 2024, falling from about 1.094 million members in 2023 to roughly 1.045 million.
The Rev. Tim Cargal, who oversaw last year’s report, told Presbyterian News Service that if the rate of decline continued, PCUSA would fall below 1 million members by the end of 2025.
While the denomination has not yet crossed that threshold, the latest report shows PCUSA remains close to dropping below 1 million members as it continues to face congregational losses, aging membership and long-term institutional decline.
