How Many Banks Are There in the US? (2026)

There are about 4,300 FDIC-insured banks in the United States as of the end of 2025 — roughly 3,900 of them commercial banks, with the rest savings institutions. It sounds like a lot, but it’s the smallest number in modern history: the country had more than 14,000 banks at its mid-1980s peak.

What stands out is that the decline never really stops. Banks disappear almost entirely through mergers, not failures, while brand-new bank charters are rare — so the total shrinks by roughly a hundred a year. Meanwhile the giants keep growing: the four largest banks now hold more than $12 trillion between them, a large and rising share of all U.S. banking assets.

This is a companion to our how many credit cards are in the US breakdown — and if you want to convert a statement from any of these institutions, our supported banks page lists the ones with a dedicated guide.

What counts as a “bank”?

The exact count depends on what you’re counting. The FDIC tracks insured institutions — about 4,300 at the end of 2025, combining commercial banks (~3,900) and savings institutions (~400). Every branch of a bank counts as part of that one bank, so the ~81,000 branch offices don’t add to the total.

Separately, bank holding companies — the parent firms that own the banks — number a few thousand and often share a name with the bank they own. This article uses the FDIC’s insured-institution count, the standard figure.

How has the number of US banks changed over time?

The direction has been one way for forty years: down. The U.S. had more banks than any comparable country, a legacy of old rules that limited banks from crossing state lines. As those rules loosened, thousands of banks merged.

From a mid-1980s peak of roughly 14,400, the count fell past 8,300 by 2000 and kept sliding to about 4,336 by the end of 2025. Very few banks actually fail — the shrinkage is almost entirely healthy banks merging into larger ones.

Which are the largest banks in the US?

A handful of banks tower over the rest. The “Big Four” — JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo — together hold more than $12 trillion in assets and serve a large share of all U.S. households.

Holding-company total assets, 2025. Figures for the banks’ insured subsidiaries are somewhat smaller.

JPMorgan Chase alone holds about $4.6 trillion — more than the next two banks combined, and it’s the most valuable bank in the world by market value. This concentration at the top is the flip side of the shrinking bank count: fewer banks, but far bigger ones.

How many banks vs. credit unions are there?

Banks aren’t the only place Americans keep their money. Credit unions — member-owned, not-for-profit institutions — number about 4,300 as of the end of 2025 (4,287, to be exact), almost the same as the number of banks. They serve roughly 145 million members and hold about $2.4 trillion in assets. Like banks, their numbers are falling through consolidation (down from 4,455 a year earlier). So counting both, there are roughly 8,600 bank and credit-union institutions in the U.S. — though banks are far larger, holding about ten times the assets. (One of them, Navy Federal, is the largest U.S. credit union, and we convert its statements too.)

Nearly all U.S. households now have an account at one of these institutions — see our how many bank accounts the average American has breakdown for the banked-rate details.

Why are there fewer banks every year?

• Mergers, not failures. Most of the decline is healthy banks combining — over 2,000 fewer banks in 2023 than a decade earlier.
• Deregulation. Old limits on interstate banking were removed in the 1990s, letting regional banks merge into national ones.
• Technology costs. Building apps, security, and compliance favors scale, squeezing small community banks.
• Few new banks. New “de novo” bank charters nearly stopped after 2008, so almost nothing replaces the banks that merge away.

US banks at a glance

Key facts

• The number of U.S. banks has fallen by roughly 70% since the mid-1980s and by about half since 2000.
• The four largest banks hold more than $12 trillion between them — an ever-larger share as the bank count falls.
• Only a handful of banks fail in a typical year; the FDIC’s “problem bank” list held only a few dozen banks in 2025.
• All branches of a bank count as one institution, so ~81,000 branches map to ~4,300 banks.
• Bank deposits are insured by the FDIC up to $250,000 per depositor, per ownership category.