Jose Sanchez
Research expert covering society, economy, & politics for Latin America
Museums in the United States - statistics & facts
While it is difficult to put a price on the importance of museums, these organizations are an important contributor to the economy of the United States – the country with the highest number of museums worldwide. In 2024, the market size of the U.S. museum industry was estimated at over 18 billion U.S. dollars, growing by roughly two percent over the previous year. This figure was approximately three times higher than the market size of the theater industry in the United States.
Although bigger institutions like New York’s Museum of Modern Art and the Art Institute of Chicago saw revenue from admissions exceeding pre-pandemic levels in 2024, half of surveyed U.S. museums still reported lower visitation compared to 2019. Something that could help stimulate visitation to U.S. museums is promoting exhibitions and programs that appeal to a wider range of communities, encouraging more diverse attendance in the future.
What are the most popular museums in the U.S.?
The United States is home to one of the largest museum and research complexes in the world, the Smithsonian Institution, which is also the U.S. charity-based organization with the highest revenue. In 2024, the combined number of visits to Smithsonian museums and institutions in the U.S. totaled almost 17 million. That said, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., among the most visited museums worldwide, recorded more visitors than most individual Smithsonian museums, both before and after the impact of COVID-19.Museum visitors in the United States
In a Statista’s Consumer Insights Global survey on event ticket bookings in the United States, six percent of the sample reported purchasing tickets for museums and art exhibitions in 2024. While museum bookings were as common as theater ticket sales that year, bookings for sporting events were roughly twice as popular. Meanwhile, in a 2024 survey on the ethnicity of museum visitors in the U.S., Asians and Asian Americans were the most likely to have visited a museum in the past 12 months, with almost half of respondents from this group doing so. In contrast, less than 30 percent of African American and Black respondents mentioned having made a museum visit in the previous year.Although bigger institutions like New York’s Museum of Modern Art and the Art Institute of Chicago saw revenue from admissions exceeding pre-pandemic levels in 2024, half of surveyed U.S. museums still reported lower visitation compared to 2019. Something that could help stimulate visitation to U.S. museums is promoting exhibitions and programs that appeal to a wider range of communities, encouraging more diverse attendance in the future.
