Not everyone who is included in the official Mormon membership number regularly attends LDS Church services. Attendance rates per country as calculated by Mormon researcher Matt Martinich were used for the chart below to distinguish "active" from "less active" members. Updates to these percentages are discussed at the bottom of this page.
Moreover, LDS researchers estimate that "no fewer than 20% of LDS members worldwide are on the 'lost address file'. The true number may be as high as 25-28%" (source). An average of 24%, therefore, was applied to calculate the number of members whose address is unknown to the Mormon Church in the following chart:
Percentage church-attending members per region:
Actual attendance per country (excl. USA):
Actual attendance per US state:
Congregation size per region:
Congregation size per country (actual attendance):
Updates to the attendance rates
April 20, 2019
Based on a 2015 Missionary Department statistical report published by MormonLeaks, the following adjustments were made:
- Costa Rica 15.29%
- El Salvador 14.93%
- Guatemala 17.88%
- Honduras 16.18%
- Nicaragua 11.74%
- Panama 12.42%
The average attendance rate for these Central American missions comes to 15.70%.
Attendance rates in the other Central American countries, as calculated by Matt Martinich (see top of this page), range from 19% to 70%, with a weighted average of 23%. These numbers are likely to overstate actual attendance by as much as 123,000 active members. However, in the absence of hard country-by-county data, there is no reliable way to adjust the other Central American attendance rates.
If you have such data, please consider sending them to mormonisme@gmail.com (make sure there is enough information for us to verify the reliability of the source data). We treat every submission with the utmost confidentiality, unless, of couse, you would like to be credited.
