AmateurRadioData

U. S. Amateur Radio Data

Next update will be after June 30, 2026

-- Amateur Radio Data

This page presents data about United States amateur radio operators. The data include historical totals and trends, demographics including name and gender, and distributions by state. The primary source is the FCC license file.

Year-end license totals
Historical license totals at six-month intervals
License expirations in future years
First-names of license-holders
Gender of license-holders
Geographic distributions of license-holders
Geographic distributions of recent licensees

-- The Amateur Radio Service

Amateur Radio is a public service that encourages people to learn more about wireless communication via radio, television, computer, satellite, and other experimental activities. Operators must pass a test and become licensed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). They operate under regulations published in Part 97 of the U. S. Code of Federal Regulations. The data include five classes of licenses. Listed from the beginner-level to the most advanced, the classes are; Novice, Technician, General, Advanced, and Amateur Extra. In April, 2000, the FCC stopped issuing new Novice and Advanced class licenses, but allowed the license-holders to continue to renew. Therefore the current license structure is Technician, General, and Amateur Extra.

Some refer to amateur radio as a "hobby", but in Part 97 of the US Code of Federal Regulations, it is a "service". Here is a link to the very important introductory statements at 47USC97.1. The service has been part of the American culture since 1915, and is often referred to as "ham" radio. Practitioners have contributed substantially to public safety, international goodwill, and the growth of advanced technology. Modern cell-phone technology, for example, was first created by amateur radio operators. The first video game was created by an amateur radio operator. For information on how to become a licensed amateur radio operator, visit this link.

-- Historical Licensed Amateur Radio Operators

While the first amateur radio operators were active at the beginning of the 20th Century, publicly available numbers begin in 1948 with 78,705. Growth through the century and on to the 21st century is shown in the following graph that was assembled from sources that either directly come from the FCC or that lead back to the FCC. The distant historical numbers are incomplete and often inaccurate. The chart includes reliable numbers wherever possible and includes estimates where needed to complete a continuous graphical line. Numbers for 1997 and later, are from my tabulations of active licensees in the FCC license files. The recent decline isn't the first time the series has experienced downward trends. The number of licensed operators as a percent of total population peaked in 1997 with amateur radio operators at 0.25% of all persons in the U. S.

-- Recent History

Cell values and totals for the tabulations and graphs shown on this site will vary depending on the selection criteria for the table. All tabulations are limited to active operators, which means they have an “A” in the field reserved for active status. All tabulations are limited to an expiration date that is after the date of the file downloaded for analysis. The FCC files contain some records that are listed as active but have an expiration date that is prior to the date of the download. Those are excluded. Tabulations for license class, expiration date, and state of residence are limited to valid entries in the appropriate field.

In 2019 I re-evaluated the criteria for selecting and tabulating data in the FCC files and arrived at the results shown here. The current selection criteria are believed to reflect the most accurate count possible of licensees who are active on the date on which the file was downloaded from the FCC site. Other tabulations with other criteria will undoubtedly arrive at different totals. These, numbers, however, are believed to be the most accurate possible.

The tables in this document are best viewed in a laptop or desktop browser. On mobile devices you might not see all columns on the right.

Amateur Radio Table 1

The graph shows the historical number of U. S. licensed amateur ratio operators, by license class, since 1997.

In an August 2016 USPS mailing to 238 licensed operators listed as active on the FCC files, 62 were returned with bad addresses, indicating they were no longer ham operators. An examination of names suggested most were likely to be deceased. The 62 are 26.05% of the total list. If that list can be projected to the entire FCC data file, we can expect that the total number of amateur radio operators may be closer to 558,000. Additional research is necessary on this topic that is essential to the understanding of the present and future of amateur radio.

Click here to see a table of historical licenses from 1997 through 2025

Amateur Radio Table 2

Table 2 shows an estimate of the changes in licenses by class from December 31, 2024 through December 31, 2025. I call it an estimate because there are some unknowns.

These numbers were obtained by looking at each individual record from active license-holders on December 31, 2024, and using the UI number to look up the license holders of December 31, 2025. The table shows only those that were seen as having a higher class in 2025 than in 2024. Previous analyses of the change in license classes used a variety of methods including a look up by call sign. The call sign is an inaccurate reference point because applicants may change call signs. With this method, it is still possible to have inaccuracies in the values. The numbers in this table may change as additional tabulation methods are explored.

So until I see a better method, this is the one i'll use for this report. Updated December 31, 2025.

Amateur Radio Table 2.1

Table 2.1 shows an estimate of the changes in licenses by class from December 31, 2015 through De cember 31, 2025. I call it an estimate because there are some unknowns.

These numbers were obtained by looking at each individual record from active license-holders on December 31, 2015, and using the UI number to look up the license holders of December 31, 2025. The table shows only those that were seen as having a higher class in 2025 than in 2015.

Percentage of Licenses Beginning with A, K, N, and W

U. S. Amateur Radio Licenses may begin with any of four letters, A, K, N, and W. Table 3 shows the percentage of licenses beginning with each of those letters.

Amateur Radio Table 3

General Issue vs. Vanity Call Signs

U. S. amateur radio operators can use a call sign that is assigned by the FCC or they may apply for a specific call sign that is known as a "vanity" call signs. The following table shows the percentage of call signs that are in each of the two groups.

Amateur Radio Table 4.

The above image shows the distribution of active amateur radio operators on June 30, 2025. Each dot represents a zip code with at least one amateur radio operator. Dot size represents the relative number of operators in the zip code. Areas with merged dots represent areas with larger geographic density of operators. Zip codes with the greatest density are in the Salt Lake City, Utah area.

The above image shows the location of the 20 zipcodes having the greatest number of active amateur radio operators. If you count the dots, you'll find fewer than 20 because some zip codes are close together and display as one on this map. Merged dots are in the Northwest Washington and Northern Utah areas.

Amateur radio operators are a reflection of the entire population. That means that they move from state to state. The map on the left shows the relative number of net migration of amateur radio operators between June 30, 2024 and June 30, 2025. The map includes only those who have the same UI record on file with the FCC, and who changed the address field to show a different state. I calculated the directional change for each state and then summarized that as the net change per state. California, Washington and Oregon are the most notable among those with losses, while the southeastern states are most notable for the net increases. The map shows pieces of Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands; all of which had minor net changes.

-- Iowa Amateur Radio Data

Follow this link to amateur radio data for Iowa (Updated for 2024)

-- Expirations by Future Year

Click here to see a table of expirations by future year. (Updated December 30, 2023)

-- State Distributions

Click here to see a table of licenses by state (Updated December 31, 2024)

New York Times -- On the Loss of the Morse Code Requirement

Click here to read a New York Times article on the removal of the Morse Code requirement.

Fee implemented for U. S. Amateur Radio Licenses

On April 19, 2022 a fee of $35 was implemented for all new and renewal amateur radio licenses in the U. S. See this link for details.

-- Sources

Sources include the following: