Somewhere between 3.45 and 5.5 million, and about 1 percent of the country. There is no official figure, because the US Census Bureau is barred from asking about religion, so every number you see is an estimate built from surveys or mosque counts.
| Source | Muslims in the US | What it counts |
|---|---|---|
| Pew Research Center (2017) | 3.45 million | Survey-based estimate of adults and children |
| US Religion Census (2020) | 4.45 million | Counted from mosque and congregation records |
| Higher recent estimates | up to 5.5 million | Allow for undercounted converts and new arrivals |
The gap is not a mistake. Counting a religious minority without a census question is genuinely hard: surveys in English and Arabic miss different people, and mosque-based counts miss Muslims who do not attend. Naseeb Odds uses 4.5 million as its default and lets you switch between the conservative and generous ends of the range.
American Muslims are young. Roughly 2.8 million are adults and about 1.7 million are under 18, so nearly four in ten Muslims in America are children, a much larger share than in the general population.
Among adults, surveys consistently find more men than women, at roughly 56 to 44. Immigration explains most of it, and it has a real consequence for marriage: there are simply more single Muslim men than women in the US.
No single survey measures Muslim ethnicity cleanly, so the mix below blends several. Roughly a quarter each are Arab, Black and South Asian, with the rest spread across Persian, Turkish, Afghan, Balkan, white, Hispanic and other backgrounds.
| Background | Adults | Share |
|---|---|---|
| South Asian | 701,000 | 25% |
| Arab | 645,000 | 23% |
| Black | 645,000 | 23% |
| White (Persian, Turkish, Afghan, Balkan, converts) | 477,000 | 17% |
| Other | 337,000 | 12% |
By generation, about 56 percent of Muslim adults are immigrants, 18 percent are the US-born children of immigrants, and roughly 26 percent are third generation or beyond. That last group is mostly Black American Muslims, the oldest established Muslim community in the country.
| Measure | Share of Muslim adults |
|---|---|
| Aged 18 to 29 | 35% |
| Aged 60 or older | 9% |
| Bachelor's degree or higher | 44% |
| Pray all five daily prayers | 42% |
| Attend mosque weekly or more | 43% |
| Converts to Islam | 22% |
Two things stand out. American Muslims are more likely than the average American to hold a college degree, and roughly one in five is a convert, a share far higher than in most Muslim-majority countries.
Roughly 3.45 to 5.5 million, depending on who is counting. The US Religion Census put the figure at about 4.5 million in 2020, and Pew Research Center estimated about 3.45 million in 2017. There is no official count because the US Census Bureau does not ask about religion.
About 1 percent. Pew's 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study found that roughly 1 percent of US adults identify as Muslim, which lines up with a total population of a few million in a country of more than 330 million.
About 2.8 million of the 4.5 million, or roughly 62 percent. American Muslims are younger than the country as a whole, so a larger share of the population is under 18.
Slightly more than half. About 56 percent of Muslim adults were born outside the United States, 18 percent are the US-born children of immigrants, and roughly 26 percent are third generation or beyond, a group that includes most Black American Muslims.