Every few months a headline announces that “nobody reads anymore”. Others claim a reading boom driven by BookTok. Both are partly right, and the reason is that they measure different things. This guide pulls together the most reliable surveys available in 2026 and explains what each one tells us.
The headline numbers
| Measure | Latest figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| US adults who read all or part of a book in the past 12 months | 75% | Pew Research Center, Oct 2025 |
| Read a print book | 64% | Pew, 2025 |
| Read an ebook | 31% | Pew, 2025 |
| Listened to an audiobook | 26% | Pew, 2025 |
| Read at least one book for pleasure (excluding work/school) | 48.5% | NEA, 2022 |
| Read for pleasure on an average day | 16% (down from 28% in 2004) | American Time Use Survey analysis, 2025 |
| Average books read in a year | 12.6 | Gallup, 2021 |
Those numbers look contradictory until you notice the questions. Pew counts reading any part of any book, including for work or school. The NEA asks only about reading for pleasure. The time-use data asks whether people read on a specific day. The broader the question, the higher the number.
How many people read books?
Pew Research Center’s latest survey, run in October 2025 with more than 8,000 US adults, found that 75% had read at least part of a book in the previous 12 months. That figure has been remarkably steady for over a decade. The share of non-readers hasn’t grown much since 2011.
The National Endowment for the Arts tells a less cheerful story about reading for pleasure. In its 2022 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, 48.5% of adults said they’d read at least one book for pleasure in the past year, down from 52.7% in 2017. The share reading novels or short stories fell to 37.6%, the lowest since the survey began in 1992.
How many books do people read?
Pew’s 2025 data shows how uneven reading is:
A quarter of adults read no books at all. Another 38% read between one and five. Meanwhile, 14% read more than 20 books a year. A relatively small group of heavy readers accounts for a large share of all books read, which is why averages can mislead.
Gallup’s long-running poll found Americans read an average of 12.6 books in 2021, down from 15.6 in 2016 and the lowest since Gallup began asking in 1990. The share reading more than ten books fell from 35% to 27%. The biggest drops were among college graduates and adults over 55, groups that had historically read the most.
Print, ebook or audio?
Print still dominates. Almost two in three adults read a print book in the past year. But the digital formats have grown a lot since 2011: ebook reading nearly doubled from 17% to 31%, and audiobook listening more than doubled from 11% to 26%. Pew notes that the format shift mostly happened before 2021 and has slowed since. (One caveat: Pew moved from phone-only surveys to a web and phone mix in 2025, which can affect comparisons.)
Most readers don’t pick one format. If you’re weighing them up, our comparison of ebooks, print and audiobooks looks at comprehension, cost and convenience.
Who reads the most?
Education is the strongest predictor in Pew’s data:
Other patterns from the same survey:
- Women read more than men: 78% versus 71% read a book in the past year, and women are twice as likely to be in a book club (10% versus 5%).
- Younger adults are not the problem: 78% of 18 to 29-year-olds read a book, the highest of any age group. They’re also the heaviest ebook (41%) and audiobook (32%) users.
- Book clubs are small: only 7% of adults took part in one in the past year. If you’d like to join that 7%, here’s how to start a book club.
The worrying trend: daily reading for pleasure
The most striking recent study was published in iScience in August 2025 by researchers at University College London and the University of Florida. Using American Time Use Survey diaries from more than 236,000 people between 2003 and 2023, they found that the share of Americans reading for pleasure on a given day fell from 28% in 2004 to 16% in 2023. That’s a drop of about 40%, or roughly 3% a year.
The decline was steepest among people with lower incomes or less formal education, Black Americans compared with white Americans, and people in rural areas. Interestingly, the researchers found that reading with children hadn’t changed over the twenty years, although it was much less common than reading alone.
This is consistent with the NEA’s numbers. Many people still pick up books during a year, but fewer make reading a daily habit.
So, are people reading less?
The honest answer is: people still read books, but fewer read often. Book reading across a year has held steady. Daily reading for pleasure has fallen sharply. Competition from phones and streaming is the obvious suspect, though none of these surveys can prove cause and effect.
For individual readers, the takeaway is encouraging rather than gloomy. The habit is what’s disappearing, and habits can be rebuilt. Twenty minutes a day adds up to roughly 18 books a year, enough to put you in about the top quarter of readers by volume. Our guide on how to read more books shows how, and our reading goal calculator works out what your target means per day.
How we used these sources
We’ve quoted figures as published by each organisation and linked to the original releases below. Surveys use different questions, samples and methods, so we compare trends within a single source rather than mixing numbers across them.
Sources: Pew Research Center, April 2026 · Gallup, January 2022 · National Endowment for the Arts, 2022 SPPA · University College London, August 2025
Frequently asked questions
What percentage of Americans read books?
According to Pew Research Center's October 2025 survey, 75% of US adults read all or part of at least one book in the previous 12 months.
How many books does the average person read per year?
Gallup's most recent measure found an average of 12.6 books in 2021. The median is much lower, because a minority of heavy readers raises the average. In Pew's 2025 data, 38% read one to five books and 25% read none.
Is reading for pleasure declining?
Daily reading for pleasure is. An analysis of American Time Use Survey data found the share reading for pleasure on a given day fell from 28% in 2004 to 16% in 2023.
Do more people read print books or ebooks?
Print. In 2025, 64% of US adults read a print book, compared with 31% who read an ebook and 26% who listened to an audiobook.
