how many scientologists are there - Scientology Business News - lawsuits, financial records and shell companies

In an article earlier this week on the Underground Bunker, journalist Tony Ortega estimated Scientology “struggles to maintain a membership of perhaps only about 20,000 worldwide” and it got us thinking… how many Scientologists are there in the world, really? People often float numbers between twenty and thirty thousand, so we wanted to run an analysis on all of the data, stat leaks and reports from insiders we could get our hands on to calculate an estimate that is as accurate as possible without direct access to the church's actual membership records. The Church is not exactly known for its reliable statistics, often claiming to be the “fastest growing religion on planet Earth” and offering vastly exaggerated figures, at one point even claiming it had ten million followers. But using a combination of statistics leaked by inside sources, information published in internal propaganda materials and reports from members of the public who regularly send us in updates on how busy their local Org is, we feel confident in our estimate that today, there are only about 15,000 Scientologists in the world. How did we get to that figure? Well let’s start with Scientology’s own reported (and often inflated) numbers. During their application for charity status in the United Kingdom in 1999, the church claimed to have 200,000 adherents across England and Wales however when it came around to the national census two years later only 1,781 individuals recorded their religion as ‘Scientologist.’ Although it is a criminal offence to fail to complete the decennial census, 2001 was the first time the public were asked to record their religion and to this day it remains an optional question. This means there may of course be a small proportion of Scientologists who chose not to declare their faith, but the difference between their claimed membership figures and the census data is staggering at a ratio of 112 followers claimed for every 1 who declared it on the census that year. When they opened a new ‘Ideal Org’ in London in 2006, Scientology spokesperson Janet Laveau told the press Scientology had “10 million followers” worldwide, of which 123,000 were in the UK. No comment was made on what happened to the 73,000 people who had apparently left over the preceding 7 years if the number they gave in 1999 was to be believed. Confusingly, just the following day Ms. Laveau also told The London Evening Standard "We have 118,000 members in the UK, almost half of whom live in London." Did the church lose 3,000 of its followers overnight or are these numbers just pulled out of thin air when put on the spot by a journalist? The 2011 census did suggest Scientology had seen a sizeable growth in followers since 2001 with 2,418 people describing themselves as Scientologists, representing an increase of 36%. However, the numbers still fail to match up with those given in press releases by an order of magnitude. Speaking with the London Evening Standard in 2017, a Scientology representative denounced the census data as misleading and claimed the church has “over a hundred thousand UK residents” on their magazine mailing list though did not mention anybody who visits a church is added to the list, regardless of whether they consider themselves to be a Scientologist, and members of the public have spoken previously about struggling to have their address removed years later. The statement continued, “many Scientologists are also Muslims and Christians so the census figure does not tell you very much.” Looking further afield, in a statement to the Tampa Bay Times in June 2012 international spokesperson Karin Pouw claimed Scientology had seen “unprecedented growth” in recent years and had “doubled in size”. Mike Rinder, who served in the same role at the church before leaving in 2007, shared this insightful infographic produced by Jefferson Hawkins that highlights the discrepancy between Scientology’s figures and those which could be verified by independent sources. Photos released by Scientology after their events appear to have been edited to make the audience appear larger than it was (Source: CSI) Even the number of attendees Scientology claims to attract to its annual events do not appear to match up with reality. In both 2024 and 2025, Scientology published articles on their website claiming 6,500 people went to their new year’s celebration event at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, despite the venue’s capacity being 6,300. Similarly, in an article about an event celebrating the birthday of their founder L. Ron Hubbard earlier this year Scientology claimed to have drawn a crowd of “5,000 Scientologists from 74 countries.” The capacity of Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater, where the event took place, is just 2,180 and after analysing photos of the audience, we spotted rows of empty seats and indicators to suggest the images had been doctored to artificially make the crowd look bigger. Journalist Tony Ortega, who writes at The Underground Bunker and has been reporting on Scientology for over 30 years, says “our usual rule of thumb is to divide any figure Scientology published by seven” and using that formula, the numbers start to look a little more realistic. Take, for instance, UK spokesperson Graeme Wilson who told The Independent there were 15,000 “active participants” in the United Kingdom in 2013. Divide that by 7 and you get 2,142., which aligns almost perfectly with the 2011 census figure from two years prior. 2021’s census data, however paints a different story with the number of Scientologists falling by 24% to just 1,844. By contrast, the number of people identifying as Satanists grew from 1,893 to 5,054 over the same period and equates to three times the number of Scientologists. The number of Druids also rose from 4,189 to 6,574. Of the 58 religions separately categorised by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), Scientology actually represented the greatest decline in number of followers between 2011 and 2021. But what other data can we look at to gain a sense of how many Scientologists there are in the world? We contacted the Pew Research Center in the United States, who run the American Religious Identification Survey and in 2008 established there were 25,000 Scientologists in the US. When asked for an updated figure, they told us "unfortunately, there is no data on Scientologists in the Religious Landscape Study due to the extremely small size of that group." So we'll have to look elsewhere. There is a Facebook group specifically for Scientologists which currently has 21.4k members. However, back in 2019 on his blog, Mike Rinder pointed out this is not an accurate figure as some Scientologists (such as Sea Org staff and those not on social media) won’t be in the group; and being a member does not mean you are actively enrolled in services at a Church of Scientology. He suggested there was evidence a “significant percentage” are click farm followers and the group also likely includes Scientology critics and journalists using false credentials. It might be worth noting, however, that the group has only gained 2,000 new members since Mike published his article seven years ago, which doesn’t align with what one might expect from the ‘fastest growing religion on planet earth’. There’s also the magazines Scientology puts out every few months listing Scientologists who have donated to their membership body, the IAS. We’ve been keeping a track of the number of different names and since 2016, there have only been 2,223 individual donors named in their publications. 708 of them are couples who donated together and 168 are families of varying sizes. Even if we liberally assume the average family consists of 4 people, that still gives us less than 4,000 Scientologists worldwide. It must, however, be considered the list of names published by the Church only feature people who have progressed to their next donation tier and the minimum listed donation is $1,000. It’s entirely possible there are many people who have been making regular, small donations over the last 10 years but haven’t contributed enough to change status. Nonetheless, it’s an interesting data point to take into account. Next, there are service completions which are occasionally published by individual Orgs in their own local magazines. Not every Church produces one, however the latest editions offer a snapshot into how many people are on services at different locations. An edition of Advance! UK, which is produced by Scientology’s UK headquarters, Saint Hill, was distributed last year and it lists just 155 individuals as having completed services since the prior issue. In 2024, we saw AOLA (Advanced Org Los Angeles) publish 193 individuals’ names in their completions list; the Advanced Org for Europe, located in Denmark listed 194 individuals and ASHO (American Saint Hill Org) led the way with 606 different names appearing on their list. The Church of Scientology in London also published a rare completions list in September 2025, which named just 40 people. This of course doesn’t give us a number for Scientology worldwide, but it’s 1,148 active Scientologists and a useful gauge on how busy the Advanced Orgs are, which are supposed to act as continental hubs with city-level churches like London feeding them parishioners as they progress onto the confidential ‘OT’ materials. Scientology's 'Mecca' is known as the Flag Land Base and is located in Clearwater, Florida There’s also the reports we receive from Scientologists currently under the radar and members of the public who visit their local Org from time to time and let us know how many people they saw in the course rooms. In May 2026, we had an inside source tell us there were only 25 staff, with several essential executive posts unfilled at the Org in Las Vegas. Our source said their weekly turnover was about $2,000. In January we found out the Hubbard Academy of Independence (HAPI), Scientology’s branch in Edinburgh, has about 103 people showing up intermittently but only 43 attended the screening of their most recent international event. And in February, we were sent a list of all the current staff members in London, which consisted of just 57 people. Our inside source there told us the course rooms are empty, and during a peak study time towards the end of the day there were only 30 or so names in the daily guest book, which you are required to sign on arrival. This paints a dire picture for the state of Scientology internationally. London Org has always been one of the busiest ‘Ideal Orgs’ internationally and as Mike Rinder explained on his blog, “outside the US, the United Kingdom is the most established area for Scientology in the world. LRH personally ran London Org. Personally opened a PE in Dublin. Made his home at St Hill.” We were also given insight into the current Birthday Game standings - a competition played between Orgs where points are awarded based on their weekly statistics. Although the numbers do not give us any insight into how many Scientologists are receiving services at each Org, it gives us a general idea of which Orgs are busy and which ones aren’t. In the UK, London was top of the leaderboard with 2,618 points and Plymouth sat last with just 588 when we were sent the figures before the game reset back in March. The difference between the number of points awarded to the Orgs in first place and those in last across each continent is telling, with most areas having just one or two Orgs scoring points in the thousands and the majority of smaller Orgs in 8th place or below generally having 300-600 points or less. Yes, there will of course be busier Orgs than London, but if the number of active Scientologists regularly doing services there has shrunk to just 30-40 people and they are still maintaining their position in the top 10-15 of the worldwide Birthday Game rankings, it tends to suggest the vast majority of Orgs are also facing dire straits. Let's not forget the UK is also home to the annual IAS event, which celebrates the anniversary of Scientology’s official membership body (the International Association of Scientologists) and sees thousands of followers travel from across the world to hear reclusive leader David Miscavige update them on the latest ‘expansion’ news. Since its founding in 1984 there hasn’t been a single IAS event at which Captain Miscavige reported a decline - or even stagnation - in Scientology’s global statistics. According to Scientology’s website, there are 69 ‘Ideal Orgs’ around the world and 267 smaller Orgs or Missions. There are 6 Advanced Orgs, and of course Flag which makes a total of 343 churches of Scientology internationally. Though, bear in mind the majority of Missions and smaller Orgs often take the form of a weekly get together in somebody’s living room to practice auditing rather than being a fully fledged, permanent and nicely renovated building. Sunderland for instance, had just three staff members when we visited in 2023 and the course room was only open for a few hours a day and even then, we were told, only if someone shows up to study. If we’re generous and assume most non-Ideal Orgs and Missions have an average of 5 staff members and 10 public, that gives us 4,005 Scientologists. Based on London and Las Vegas’ statistics it seems right to estimate each Ideal Org has between 20 and 50 staff and about the same in terms of active public. That’s 2,680. The Advanced Orgs tend to be much better staffed, with our last report from Saint Hill telling us there were about 250 Sea Org staff there (including the Continental Liaison Office, CLO and Continental Management Office, CMO), though only about 100 public regularly receiving services. The AO standings that were published earlier this week on The Underground Bunker seems to corroborate just how quiet the AOs are. Since May 2024, only 593 people have started OT V.. worldwide! That’s an average of just 5 a week, split across 6 AOs. A recent leak of Scientology's Advanced Org standings revealed less than 600 people have reached OT V since 2024. Until recently, the AO in South Africa was the busiest in the world but even then, public would never have trouble finding a parking spot - and they have 310 of them. If we base our estimates on each of the 6 AOs having a generous 250 staff and 200 active public that gives us another 2,700. And then there’s international management and Sea Org executives not otherwise counted, which again, if we’re generous isn’t likely to be more than another 1,000 worldwide. Add those numbers up and we arrive at 10,385 Scientologists. Now, there's Flag - Scientology’s ‘Mecca’ in Clearwater, Florida. Over recent years we have seen Captain Miscavige begin to consolidate power at Flag and tighten his grip on the local town with land and property acquisitions. Only last weekend, work began on the construction of a new 3,500 seat auditorium that will one day be the home of Scientology’s annual events. Social media is filled with posts from Scientologists buying apartment blocks and housing developments to rent out to fellow Scientologists. In their application for tax exemption with the IRS back in 1991, the church claimed to have “approximately 750 staff” at Flag, though we understand it may be nearer to the 1,000 mark these days. Based on our estimates, there are likely somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 public Scientologists living in and around Clearwater, which brings us to a grand total of just 14,385 Scientologists worldwide... and that's being generous. The church claims 9,523 Scientologists live in the Tampa Bay area and even if we accept this as an accurate figure instead of using our estimate, we arrive almost bang on the 20,000 mark. But based on the insight we have garnered from insiders, reports and leaked internal documents we would place the global population of Scientologists somewhere in the 15,000 region. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t care about Scientology's global influence. There might not be many left, but their manipulative tactics, coercive control techniques and what ex-members describe as widespread abuse remain in full force… and the organisation continues to turn over hundreds of millions of dollars a year, with several billion in the bank. So let’s take a brief look at how Scientology compares to other religions when you look at things from a financial perspective? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints reported an annual UK turnover of £87.8 million in their latest accounts, filed with the Charity Commission. Between 2011 and 2021, the number of Mormons in the UK grew by 15%. Assuming growth has continued at the same rate (7.5% in the last 5 years), we can estimate there are roughly 166,500 Mormons in the UK today. Using these figures, we can calculate the average donation per capita (per parishioner) works out to be £2,195. Despite Scientology’s decline between the 2011 and 2021 census, in the interests of fairness if we assume their following has also grown at the same rate as the LDS Church we can estimate there are around 1,982 Scientologists in the UK as of today. Scientology reported annual revenues of £20.5 million in their latest accounts, which means on average, a Scientologist will donate £10,345 a year to the Church. According to their most recent membership roll data, the Church of England claims to have just over 1 million regular worshippers and their latest accounts show an annual income from parishioner donations of £521 million. The average annual donation per follower is therefore just £521. This means that for the average person, being a Scientologist costs just under 20x more than being a Christian. Although some religious groups enforce tithing, this is typically set at 10% of your income or less. Most churches in the UK, however, operate on a voluntary donation basis and ask parishioners to donate only when they can afford it. Taking part in acts of worship or a religious service typically doesn’t cost anything and as such, they are granted charity status and can claim tax relief on the donations they receive. Scientology on the other hand is often described as a ‘pay-to-play’ religion and followers are required to pay by the hour for their main practices of training and auditing (‘spiritual counselling’). In their 1999 report detailing the reasons for refusing Scientology tax exemption, the Charity Commission noted “The Commissioners considered that a further distinguishing characteristic from established religions is that Scientology’s normal practices require prepayment in the form of requested donations for participation in its central practices of auditing and training. Although organised donations are a feature of some religions, it was not clear that such donations extended to access to the core or central religious practices of such religions.” The model appears to be working though as Scientology ranks number one when compared against other religious groups in the UK, based on the amount of wealth extracted per parishioner. The Mormons and the Church of England may generate more revenue annually, but Scientology would surpass them by an order of magnitude if it had a similar number of followers. If they adopted Scientology’s financial model, with their current membership figures the LDS Church would rake in an extra £1.62 billion a year. The Church of England would generate £10.43 billion. So Scientology may no longer have a substantial following and it may lack charity status, but it has developed a uniquely effective method of extracting extraordinary amounts of wealth from the members it does have left. According to the ONS, the average UK salary as of May 2026 was £38,948. This suggests on average, after tax Scientologists are giving a third of their total annual earnings to the church in return for religious services.. and that’s before taking into account the annual $500 membership fee due to the International Association of Scientologists (IAS) and donations made towards social betterment programs and David Miscavige’s ‘Ideal Org’ real estate scheme. Is Scientology expanding? No.. it’s shrinking at a rate of knots, and it’s clear to see for anyone who walks through the doors at any one of their city-level churches. But is it going away? No. The followers that remain are mostly hardcore believers and while Miscavige is able to continue tapping the wealthiest handful of Scientologists for multi-million dollar donations, he can keep up the façade that his church is growing by purchasing, renovating and - in Clearwater’s case even erecting - brand new buildings as evidence. As long as everybody just stays in Clearwater and never ventures out to Orgs like Sunderland… they’ll never know. And it seems like Miscavige is hoping they won't.

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How many Scientologists are there in the world, really?

RECENT NEWS

‘Our focus is to protect people, not religions’ – UK Government responds to calls for Scientology inquiry

Scientology demands apology and threatens The Times newspaper after investigation uncovers UK child labour

The horrors of Hubbard’s Scientology slave ship

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