Latter-day Saint growth tops 66% since 2000, after 2025 shattered old record for convert baptisms

The Church of Jesus Christ saw 54,000 more convert baptisms last year than the previous record year of 1990

Published: April 5, 2026, 4:38 p.m. MDT

Conferencegoers join The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square in singing a congregational hymn during the Saturday morning session of the 196th Annual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, held at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City on Saturday, April 4, 2026. Isaac Hale, Deseret News

Tad Walch covers religion with a focus on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

This article was first published in the ChurchBeat newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox each Wednesday night.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has grown 66% this century, fueled in part by a record-breaking number of convert baptisms in 2025.

The church had 10,752,986 members at the end of 1999. The church had 17,887,212 at the end of 2025, according to an annual statistical report released Saturday during the church’s 196th Annual General Conference.

That’s an increase of 66.4%.

For context, the Catholic Church grew 40% from the turn of the century to early 2025, totaling 1.406 billion members, according to Medium and other news reports.

Latter-day Saint convert baptisms numbered 385,490 in 2025, shattering the old record set in 1990 by 16.51%.

The following chart shows the five-largest years for convert baptisms in Latter-day Saint history.

Year	Convert baptisms
2025	385,490
1990	330,877
1996	321,385
1989	318,940
1997	317,798

Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said last July that the church had experienced a record-breaking period in convert baptisms from mid-2024 to mid-2025.

“We thank the Lord for allowing us to witness his hand in these remarkable outcomes,” he said then.

The growth is not isolated to Africa or Latin America, he said then.

Every region of the world had seen at least a 20% increase in convert baptisms in the first quarter of 2025, he reported.

Elder Cook credited the “spiritual momentum” to three principles — missionaries focusing on the doctrine of Christ, finding the right people to teach and inviting them to sacrament meeting the first week they start to become curious about the church.

“We are blessed to live and serve in a precious time, when the gathering of Israel is accelerating across the earth,” he said.

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted missionary work during the nearly eight years President Russell M. Nelson was the church’s prophet and president.

Church membership grew by 11% from January 2018, the month he became the church’s leader, through the end of 2025. He died on Sept. 27, 2025.

The following chart shows the number of convert baptisms during the years of President Nelson’s presidency.

The 2020 pandemic year, when the church sent many missionaries home or had them shelter in place for months, is marked by an asterisk (*).

Year	Convert Baptisms	Pct. Change
2018	234,332	0.3%
2019	248,835	6.2%
2020*	125,930*	-49.4%*
2021	168,283	33.6%
2022	212,172	26.1%
2023	251,763	18.7%
2024	308,682	22.6%
2025	385,490	24.9%

The total number of convert baptisms during those eight years was 1,935,487.

The church also saw trend-busting engagement from young people. It recently announced last week that a record 1 million students are now enrolled in its Seminaries and Institutes programs.

Seminary and institute enrollment surpasses 1 million

Nearly 200,000 new students joined the programs in the past two years, while other faiths are seeing declining membership and declining participation among teens and young adults.

The seminary program is for high school students and institute is for college-age adults.

“Counter to the narrative sometimes heard that young people are leaving their faith, the numbers actually show that youth and young adults in the Church Educational System are flocking to their faith,” Elder Clark G. Gilbert of the Quorum of the Twelve said in late 2024, when he was the church commissioner of education.