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DROP IN U.S. RELIGIOSITY AMONG LARGEST IN WORLD  
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Benedict Vigers and Julie Ray
November 13, 2025
Gallup
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_ About half of Americans now say religion is not an important part
of their daily life, a 17 point drop over the last decade. Such large
declines in religiosity are rarely seen. _

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — The 17-point drop in the percentage of U.S.
adults who say religion is an important part of their daily life —
from 66% in 2015 to 49% today — ranks among the largest Gallup has
recorded in any country over any 10-year period since 2007.

About half of Americans now say religion is not an important part of
their daily life. They remain as divided on the question today as they
were last year.

Such large declines in religiosity are rare. Since 2007, only 14 out
of more than 160 countries in the World Poll have experienced drops of
over 15 percentage points in religious importance over any 10-year
period.

Only a small number of mostly wealthy nations have experienced larger
losses in religiosity, including Greece from 2013-2023 (28 points),
Italy from 2012-2022 (23 points), and Poland from 2013-2023 (22
points). Other countries, including Chile, Türkiye and Portugal, have
seen declines similar in magnitude to the U.S. decline.

U.S. Lags Behind Global Median for Religiosity, Closes Gap With OECD

As religiosity has declined in the U.S., the gap between the U.S. and
the global median has widened. The global median for religiosity has
remained stable for nearly two decades, averaging 81% since 2007 and
reaching 83% last year, the most current full-year data available.

At the same time, attitudes in the U.S. are drawing closer to those in
other advanced economies. Across the 38 OECD (Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development) countries in 2024, a median of
36% of adults said religion is important to their daily lives. The gap
between the U.S. and the median for these countries is now narrower
than at any point in Gallup’s trend.

 
U.S. Now Occupies Unique Spot in Global Religiosity

The long-term decline in religiosity places the U.S. in a unique
position on the global religious landscape. Most countries fall into
one of four patterns: high religiosity with Christian identity; high
religiosity with another religious identity (often Muslim majority,
although there are several countries in the Middle East where Gallup
does not ask religious identity questions); low religiosity with
Christian identity; or low religiosity with no religious identity.

The U.S. no longer fits neatly into any of these categories, having a
medium-high Christian identity but middling religiosity. In terms of
religious identity, the percentage of Americans now identifying as
Christian is similar to those of Western and Northern European
countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, Finland and Denmark,
nations with strong Protestant traditions. Yet religion continues to
play a larger role in daily life for Americans than for people in
those countries.

Conversely, the importance of religion in daily life in the U.S.
resembles that of countries such as Argentina, Ireland, Poland and
Italy — where Catholicism is more influential — but significantly
fewer Americans now identify as Christian compared with those
populations.

 
This marks a shift from 2008, when Gallup began consistently tracking
people’s religious identity and religion’s role in daily life in
most of the world. At that time, the U.S. aligned more closely with
countries where religion was widely practiced and most adults
identified as Christian.

Bottom Line

The steady decline in U.S. religiosity
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the past decade has been evident for years. Fewer Americans identify
with a religion, church attendance and membership are declining, and
religion holds a less important role in people’s lives than it once
did. But this analysis of World Poll data puts the decline in a wider
context, showing just how large the shift has been in global terms.
Since 2007, few countries have measured larger declines in
religiosity.

This means the U.S. lags further behind the global median for
religiosity and is drawing closer to the median for other advanced
economies. The U.S. increasingly stands as an outlier: less religious
than much of the world, but still more devout than most of its
economic peers.

_Stay up to date with the latest insights by following @Gallup __on X_
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and __on Instagram_
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_For complete methodology and specific survey dates, please review
__Gallup's Country Data Set details_
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Learn more about how the __Gallup World Poll_
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_Benedict Vigers is a senior global news writer at Gallup. Benedict's
primary area of expertise is in Gallup's global public opinion
research via The Gallup World Poll. He has published more than 50 news
articles on global public opinion, focusing on a wide range of issues
and countries from around the world._

_Julie Ray has been writing and editing for more than 30 years —
more than 20 of them for Gallup. She analyzes and writes about
Gallup's global research — with an emphasis on migration — for
international clients, leaders and the media._

 

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