Community hospitals made up 5,121 of the 6,100 hospitals in the United States in fiscal year 2024, or 84% of the national hospital total. They also accounted for 775,297 staffed beds and 33,553,725 admissions that year. These figures come from the American Hospital Association (AHA) Fast Facts 2026 and describe the FY 2024 U.S. hospital landscape.
Contents
- The size of the community hospital sector
- Ownership and hospital classification
- Beds and admissions
- Rural and urban community hospitals
- System affiliation and organization
- How selected measures changed over time
The size of the community hospital sector
The AHA counted 6,100 total hospitals in the United States in FY 2024. Of these, 5,121 were community hospitals. The community-hospital count represented 84% of all U.S. hospitals, according to AHA Fast Facts 2026.
The same FY 2024 classification included 210 federal government hospitals, 656 nonfederal psychiatric hospitals, and 113 hospitals classified as other hospitals. Those categories are separate from the 5,121 community hospitals in the AHA’s hospital universe.
The community-hospital total is useful because it focuses attention on institutions that provide general hospital services in local markets. It should not be read as a count of every facility that delivers health care. The AHA’s broader total includes several hospital categories outside the community-hospital classification.
For a recent scale comparison, the following FY 2024 measures place community hospitals alongside all U.S. hospitals:
| FY 2024 measure | All U.S. hospitals | Community hospitals |
|---|---|---|
| Hospitals | 6,100 | 5,121 |
| Staffed beds | 907,216 | 775,297 |
| Admissions | 35,658,583 | 33,553,725 |
These counts and totals are reported by AHA Fast Facts 2026. They are national figures for FY 2024, not a forecast and not a measure of one particular state, county, or hospital.
Ownership and hospital classification
Ownership is one of the clearest ways to describe the community hospital sector. In FY 2024, 2,984 community hospitals were nongovernment not-for-profit facilities. Another 1,224 were investor-owned for-profit facilities, while 913 were state and local government facilities. These three ownership groups are reported in AHA Fast Facts 2026.
The figures show that nongovernment not-for-profit hospitals were the largest of the three listed community-hospital ownership groups in FY 2024. Investor-owned for-profit hospitals formed a second group, followed by state and local government facilities. Ownership status describes the operating category used in the AHA data; it does not, by itself, describe a hospital’s quality, services, financial health, or patient experience.
The ownership counts also help explain why a single “community hospital” label covers different kinds of organizations. A nonprofit community hospital, an investor-owned facility, and a state or local government hospital may serve different local populations and operate under different governance structures while remaining part of the same broad community-hospital category.
Earlier AHA Fast Facts releases provide context for the FY 2024 ownership counts. In FY 2023, the AHA reported 2,978 nongovernment not-for-profit community hospitals, 1,214 investor-owned for-profit community hospitals, and 920 state and local government community hospitals. In FY 2022, the corresponding counts were 2,987, 1,219, and 923. These historical figures are reproduced as reported in the cited AHA releases and are not independently rechecked here.
The wider hospital universe also changed across these releases. The AHA reported 207 federal government hospitals in FY 2023 and FY 2022. It reported 654 nonfederal psychiatric hospitals in FY 2023 and 659 in FY 2022. “Other hospitals” numbered 120 in FY 2023 and 125 in FY 2022. The classifications and measurement years should be kept distinct when comparing releases.
Beds and admissions
Staffed beds describe the beds available for use, while admissions describe the number of inpatient admissions recorded during the stated fiscal year. In FY 2024, all U.S. hospitals had 907,216 staffed beds, including 775,297 in community hospitals. All U.S. hospitals recorded 35,658,583 admissions, of which 33,553,725 occurred in community hospitals, according to AHA Fast Facts 2026.
The FY 2024 figures show the large role of community hospitals in both capacity and admissions. The data should not be used to calculate occupancy, average length of stay, or admissions per bed because those measures require additional inputs and definitions that are not included here.
The AHA’s historical community-hospital figures show a different snapshot in FY 2018. Community hospitals had 792,417 staffed beds and recorded 34,251,159 admissions. They also reported $1,010,271,112,000 in expenses that fiscal year. These measures appear in AHA Fast Facts 2020. The FY 2018 expense figure is a reported historical total, not a current estimate or forecast.
For FY 2017, the AHA reported 798,921 staffed beds, 34,305,620 admissions, and $966,204,239,000 in expenses for community hospitals. Those figures come from AHA Fast Facts 2019. The FY 2017 and FY 2018 measures are useful as dated reference points, but they should not be treated as interchangeable with the FY 2024 totals.
Rural and urban community hospitals
Geography is another important dimension of community hospital statistics. In FY 2024, 1,797 community hospitals were rural and 3,324 were urban, according to AHA Fast Facts 2026. These are counts of community hospitals by the AHA’s rural or urban classification for that fiscal year.
The FY 2018 release counted 1,821 rural community hospitals and 3,377 urban community hospitals. The FY 2017 release counted 1,875 rural community hospitals and 3,387 urban community hospitals. Both historical sets are reported in AHA Fast Facts 2020 and AHA Fast Facts 2019, respectively.
These figures place local access in a national context, but they do not measure travel distance, service availability, emergency department volume, or the number of people living in rural or urban areas. A hospital count alone cannot show how evenly facilities are distributed across geography.
The historical series also demonstrates why the measurement year matters. The rural count was 1,805 in FY 2020 and the urban count was 3,336 in FY 2020, as reported in AHA Fast Facts 2021. The FY 2020 community-hospital series also recorded 787,995 staffed beds and 34,078,100 admissions.
System affiliation and organization
Many community hospitals operate within broader organizational structures. In FY 2024, 3,567 community hospitals were system-affiliated. The number was 3,491 in FY 2018 and 3,494 in FY 2017. The FY 2024 figure is from AHA Fast Facts 2026; the historical figures are from AHA Fast Facts 2020 and AHA Fast Facts 2019.
The FY 2017 release also reported 1,749 community hospitals in a network. “System-affiliated” and “in a network” are the labels supplied for those measures, so they should not be assumed to mean exactly the same organizational arrangement.
For readers comparing hospitals, system affiliation can be a useful organizational descriptor, but it does not identify the services available at an individual site. The provided statistics contain no hospital-by-hospital breakdown of specialties, staffing, quality outcomes, or patient demographics.
How selected measures changed over time
The AHA releases provide a dated series of hospital and community-hospital counts. In FY 2019, the AHA reported 6,146 hospitals in the U.S. total hospital universe and 5,141 community hospitals. In FY 2020, it reported 6,093 total hospitals and 5,139 community hospitals. In FY 2022, it reported 6,093 total hospitals and 5,129 community hospitals. In FY 2023, it reported 6,093 total hospitals and 5,112 community hospitals. In FY 2024, the figures were 6,100 total hospitals and 5,121 community hospitals.
| Fiscal year | Total U.S. hospitals | Community hospitals | Source label |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY 2019 | 6,146 | 5,141 | AHA Fast Facts 2021 |
| FY 2020 | 6,093 | 5,139 | AHA Fast Facts 2022 |
| FY 2022 | 6,093 | 5,129 | AHA Fast Facts 2024 |
| FY 2023 | 6,093 | 5,112 | AHA Fast Facts 2025 |
| FY 2024 | 6,100 | 5,121 | AHA Fast Facts 2026 |
The releases also report earlier community-hospital counts: 5,198 in FY 2018 and 5,262 in FY 2017. The FY 2018 number appears in AHA Fast Facts 2020, while the FY 2017 number appears in AHA Fast Facts 2019.
The count series should be read as a set of year-specific AHA statistics. The supplied historical research is identified as legacy research and was not independently verified for this article. Differences between releases may reflect the stated fiscal year, hospital-universe definitions, classification practices, or the reporting process; the figures alone do not establish the cause of any change.
Other dated measures add detail to the series. Community-hospital expenses were $966,204,239,000 in FY 2017 and $1,010,271,112,000 in FY 2018. Intensive-care capacity reported for FY 2018 included 46,825 medical-surgical intensive care beds, 14,439 cardiac intensive care beds, 22,860 neonatal intensive care beds, 5,131 pediatric intensive care beds, 1,198 burn care beds, and 7,323 other intensive care beds. These category counts are reported in AHA Fast Facts 2020 and refer specifically to community hospitals in FY 2018.
The most recent figures in this overview are FY 2024 measures. Earlier values remain useful for historical context, provided that each number is interpreted with its fiscal year, geography, hospital category, and AHA source label intact.