Chess statistics online are often copied from other statistics pages, and the trail tends to end at a number nobody can source. The figures on this page come from one place: the rating lists FIDE publishes every month. We downloaded the full 1 September 2026 lists for standard, rapid and blitz, the September list of every year back to 2015, and counted every player in them. The tables are free to download at the end of the page, and the methodology section says exactly how each number was counted.
Key figures
- 566,829 players hold a FIDE standard rating on the 1 September 2026 list. 220,503 of them (38.9%) are active, meaning they played a rated game in the last year.
- 785,986 players are rated in at least one of standard, rapid or blitz, and 192,441 are rated in all three.
- Rapid ratings grew 8.7 times since September 2015, from 54,733 to 473,538 players. Standard grew 2.6 times.
- Active rapid players (202,723) now number almost as many as active standard players. In 2015 standard led by 91,083; the gap is now 17,780.
- India has the most rated players: 56,957 standard-rated, 19,692 active. Spain (18,969) and France (17,518) follow on active players.
- Croatia has the most active standard players per head of population: about 625 per million people.
- Women are 10.7% of active standard players, up from 9.6% in 2015.
- The women's share falls from 22.1% in the 1400–1499 band to 2.5% at 2500–2599. None of the 149 active players rated 2600 or more is a woman.
- 34.0% of active standard players are under 18, up from 25.6% in 2015. The median active player is 26 years old.
- The median active standard rating is 1700. A rating of 2000 is in the top 12.6%; 2200 is in the top 3.8%.
- 1,899 players hold the grandmaster title; 44 of them are women. Russia has the most, with 184.
- 52,371 players appear on the standard list who were not on it a year earlier.
How many FIDE-rated chess players are there?
FIDE rates standard (classical), rapid and blitz games separately, and a player can hold any combination of the three ratings. On the 1 September 2026 lists:
| Standard | Rapid | Blitz | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rated players | 566,829 | 473,538 | 314,681 |
| Active players | 220,503 | 202,723 | 120,957 |
| Active share | 38.9% | 42.8% | 38.4% |
| Women, share of active | 10.7% | 11.0% | 11.7% |
| Under 18, share of active | 34.0% | 42.7% | 42.5% |
| Median age of active players | 26 | 20 | 20 |
| Median active rating | 1700 | 1623 | 1671 |
| Players with games rated for this list | 50,283 | 37,290 | 24,748 |
| Federations with a rated player | 207 | 204 | 204 |
Three other counts are worth knowing, because each is quoted somewhere as "the number of chess players":
- 785,986 players are rated in at least one category. 192,441 hold all three ratings, and 219,157 have a rapid or blitz rating but no standard one.
- 1,916,978 player records carry a FIDE ID in FIDE's combined download. Most of them have no rating in any category, for example because they have not yet played enough rated games, or their rating fell below the 1400 floor.
- 220,503 is the figure to use for "active FIDE-rated players". It counts standard only, the rating that FIDE titles are built on.
None of these is the number of people who play chess. A FIDE rating comes from games in FIDE-rated events, nearly all of them over the board. Online ratings are not on the list, and neither are the many club players whose events are rated only by a national federation.
How fast is the number of rated players growing?
The number of rated players has risen every year in all three categories. Active players are more sensitive: in 2020, when over-the-board events stopped, they fell by 17% in standard, 20% in rapid and 25% in blitz. Rapid was back above its 2019 level by 2021 and blitz by 2022, but active standard players did not pass the 2019 figure until 2024. Rapid has been the fastest-growing category throughout.
| Year | Standard rated | Standard active | Rapid rated | Rapid active | Blitz rated | Blitz active |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 220,658 | 128,191 | 54,733 | 37,108 | 45,561 | 29,061 |
| 2016 | 254,785 | 147,072 | 82,285 | 55,065 | 64,743 | 38,866 |
| 2017 | 287,002 | 159,061 | 110,272 | 67,901 | 84,483 | 47,197 |
| 2018 | 316,934 | 165,461 | 139,925 | 79,867 | 104,345 | 53,097 |
| 2019 | 346,034 | 169,810 | 175,022 | 93,953 | 128,069 | 61,338 |
| 2020 | 361,543 | 141,620 | 193,822 | 75,223 | 139,656 | 45,972 |
| 2021 | 370,660 | 159,974 | 204,378 | 94,032 | 146,561 | 58,604 |
| 2022 | 396,310 | 156,212 | 236,999 | 104,226 | 168,592 | 67,400 |
| 2023 | 430,068 | 168,822 | 286,641 | 127,044 | 198,959 | 76,672 |
| 2024 | 475,031 | 188,194 | 341,020 | 149,850 | 233,581 | 92,563 |
| 2025 | 518,064 | 204,153 | 399,844 | 170,063 | 271,512 | 105,767 |
| 2026 | 566,829 | 220,503 | 473,538 | 202,723 | 314,681 | 120,957 |
"Rated" grows faster than "active" because a rating stays on the list after its holder stops playing. The trend in the rest of the standard list looks like this:
| Year | Women, share of active | Under 18, share of active | Median active rating | Grandmasters | New to the list |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 9.6% | 25.6% | 1784 | 1,504 | – |
| 2016 | 9.9% | 27.8% | 1735 | 1,531 | 34,545 |
| 2017 | 9.9% | 28.4% | 1698 | 1,571 | 32,594 |
| 2018 | 10.0% | 28.6% | 1670 | 1,625 | 30,688 |
| 2019 | 10.1% | 29.3% | 1641 | 1,687 | 30,080 |
| 2020 | 9.8% | 27.7% | 1651 | 1,720 | 16,374 |
| 2021 | 10.0% | 26.3% | 1634 | 1,739 | 9,720 |
| 2022 | 10.1% | 26.5% | 1618 | 1,771 | 26,595 |
| 2023 | 10.0% | 28.0% | 1581 | 1,810 | 34,621 |
| 2024 | 10.4% | 31.1% | 1725 | 1,836 | 46,587 |
| 2025 | 10.3% | 32.6% | 1714 | 1,867 | 45,975 |
| 2026 | 10.7% | 34.0% | 1700 | 1,899 | 52,371 |
"New to the list" counts players on this year's September standard list who were not on the previous year's. Most are first ratings; a few are players returning above the floor. The jump in the median rating in 2024 is not a sudden improvement in play; the next section on ratings explains it.
Which countries have the most FIDE-rated players?
A player is counted under the federation they are registered with at FIDE, which is usually but not always their country of citizenship. Ranked by active standard players:
| # | Federation | Active standard | Standard rated | Women | Under 18 | GMs | Active rapid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | India | 19,692 | 56,957 | 14.0% | 62.7% | 96 | 22,306 |
| 2 | Spain | 18,969 | 40,111 | 5.2% | 19.2% | 60 | 9,985 |
| 3 | France | 17,518 | 37,662 | 7.7% | 26.5% | 60 | 18,342 |
| 4 | Germany | 14,060 | 36,602 | 8.0% | 17.0% | 103 | 4,656 |
| 5 | Italy | 7,259 | 16,437 | 5.6% | 20.2% | 18 | 6,518 |
| 6 | Russia | 6,921 | 44,071 | 20.4% | 64.7% | 184 | 14,306 |
| 7 | Poland | 6,441 | 16,777 | 13.1% | 36.3% | 56 | 9,876 |
| 8 | Czechia | 5,722 | 10,545 | 6.1% | 17.9% | 33 | 2,794 |
| 9 | United States | 5,174 | 12,485 | 8.7% | 42.9% | 115 | 1,034 |
| 10 | Netherlands | 4,746 | 7,089 | 3.7% | 6.6% | 43 | 641 |
| 11 | Iran | 4,164 | 16,244 | 13.1% | 49.3% | 16 | 9,778 |
| 12 | Türkiye | 3,681 | 11,954 | 11.4% | 51.3% | 18 | 626 |
| 13 | Switzerland | 3,411 | 5,786 | 4.7% | 14.0% | 13 | 1,048 |
| 14 | Hungary | 3,269 | 7,614 | 8.2% | 17.7% | 53 | 1,448 |
| 15 | Brazil | 3,169 | 9,077 | 13.0% | 29.6% | 15 | 6,199 |
| 16 | Serbia | 3,137 | 6,693 | 6.9% | 12.4% | 58 | 3,391 |
| 17 | Sri Lanka | 3,108 | 7,118 | 26.4% | 76.4% | 0 | 2,103 |
| 18 | Austria | 3,087 | 5,349 | 6.0% | 10.7% | 14 | 1,262 |
| 19 | Greece | 3,085 | 8,005 | 13.2% | 30.6% | 17 | 2,361 |
| 20 | Slovakia | 3,073 | 5,398 | 6.1% | 19.3% | 17 | 1,224 |
Women and under-18 columns are shares of the federation's active standard players. The full table for all 210 federations is in the download.
The two rankings, by rated and by active players, tell different stories. Russia has the second-largest standard list (44,071) but only 15.7% of it is active, and it has twice as many active rapid players as active standard ones. Iran, Poland and Brazil also have more active rapid than standard players. Spain and Germany are the opposite: large, mostly adult standard lists with comparatively little rated rapid.
Some strong chess countries sit low in the table. The United States has 5,174 active standard players, and China 1,742, yet by the average of their ten highest-rated active players they rank first (2725) and third (2664); India is second (2705). A small FIDE list usually means most domestic events are rated by a national system instead, as they are in the United States, and says little about how many people play.
Which countries have the most rated players per capita?
Among countries with at least a million people, using the World Bank's 2025 population estimates:
| # | Country | Active standard players per million people | Active standard players |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Croatia | 625 | 2,422 |
| 2 | Slovakia | 568 | 3,073 |
| 3 | Czechia | 526 | 5,722 |
| 4 | Serbia | 479 | 3,137 |
| 5 | Denmark | 430 | 2,586 |
| 6 | Spain | 384 | 18,969 |
| 7 | Switzerland | 375 | 3,411 |
| 8 | Norway | 367 | 2,061 |
| 9 | Slovenia | 344 | 734 |
| 10 | Hungary | 344 | 3,269 |
| 11 | Austria | 335 | 3,087 |
| 12 | Greece | 296 | 3,085 |
| 13 | Sweden | 277 | 2,940 |
| 14 | Armenia | 266 | 820 |
| 15 | Netherlands | 262 | 4,746 |
The million-person cutoff keeps out places where a handful of players produces an absurd rate: Iceland has 465 active players, about 1,185 per million. England, Scotland and Wales are separate FIDE federations without separate World Bank figures, so they are not ranked, and neither is Chinese Taipei. For comparison, India has 14 active standard players per million people, the United States 15 and China 1.2.
Where has growth been fastest since 2015?
| Federation | Active standard, Sept 2015 | Active standard, Sept 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spain | 9,370 | 18,969 | +9,599 |
| India | 10,153 | 19,692 | +9,539 |
| France | 10,755 | 17,518 | +6,763 |
| Germany | 10,541 | 14,060 | +3,519 |
| United States | 1,839 | 5,174 | +3,335 |
| Italy | 4,065 | 7,259 | +3,194 |
| Netherlands | 2,182 | 4,746 | +2,564 |
| Poland | 3,917 | 6,441 | +2,524 |
| Switzerland | 1,291 | 3,411 | +2,120 |
| Mexico | 530 | 2,310 | +1,780 |
Mexico more than quadrupled its active list, and the United States nearly tripled. Russia moved the other way, from 10,500 active standard players in 2015 to 6,921, the largest fall of any federation. The rating list records the change but not its causes.
What share of FIDE-rated players are women?
Women are 10.7% of active standard players, 11.0% of active rapid players and 11.7% of active blitz players. The standard share has crept up by about a percentage point in eleven years, from 9.6% in 2015.
The share depends heavily on age and rating. It is highest among juniors and at the bottom of the rating range, and it thins out as ratings rise:
| Standard rating | Active players | Women | Women's share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1400–1499 | 32,549 | 7,185 | 22.1% |
| 1500–1599 | 39,814 | 6,063 | 15.2% |
| 1600–1699 | 37,543 | 3,641 | 9.7% |
| 1700–1799 | 33,648 | 2,373 | 7.1% |
| 1800–1899 | 28,474 | 1,740 | 6.1% |
| 1900–1999 | 20,659 | 1,205 | 5.8% |
| 2000–2099 | 12,158 | 675 | 5.6% |
| 2100–2199 | 7,327 | 397 | 5.4% |
| 2200–2299 | 4,205 | 215 | 5.1% |
| 2300–2399 | 2,421 | 112 | 4.6% |
| 2400–2499 | 1,116 | 36 | 3.2% |
| 2500–2599 | 440 | 11 | 2.5% |
| 2600–2699 | 117 | 0 | 0% |
| 2700+ | 32 | 0 | 0% |
The highest-rated active woman is 162nd among all active standard players. Of the 1,899 grandmasters, 44 (2.3%) are women.
Federations differ widely. Among the 46 federations with at least 1,000 active standard players, the women's share is highest in Vietnam (29.7%), China (26.6%), Sri Lanka (26.4%), Malaysia (21.0%) and Russia (20.4%), and lowest in Denmark (2.9%), the Netherlands (3.7%), Sweden (4.0%), Belgium (4.6%) and Switzerland (4.7%). The federations with many women also tend to have young lists, which is the age pattern above showing up country by country.
How old are FIDE-rated players?
The median active standard player is 26, and the mean is 33.5. The list is shaped like a camel: a tall hump of juniors, a dip through the twenties, and a long, flat plateau from the thirties to the late sixties. Players aged 10 to 19 alone make up 37% of active players.
| Age | Active players | Share | Women's share | Median rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 or younger | 4,480 | 2.0% | 19.1% | 1498 |
| 10–14 | 41,683 | 19.0% | 19.7% | 1541 |
| 15–19 | 40,320 | 18.4% | 16.7% | 1650 |
| 20–24 | 18,871 | 8.6% | 12.4% | 1758 |
| 25–29 | 13,902 | 6.3% | 9.4% | 1778 |
| 30–34 | 11,544 | 5.3% | 7.4% | 1796 |
| 35–39 | 10,598 | 4.8% | 6.4% | 1795 |
| 40–44 | 9,838 | 4.5% | 5.5% | 1792 |
| 45–49 | 10,247 | 4.7% | 4.5% | 1783 |
| 50–54 | 10,529 | 4.8% | 3.7% | 1799 |
| 55–59 | 11,269 | 5.1% | 3.4% | 1809 |
| 60–64 | 11,316 | 5.2% | 2.7% | 1809 |
| 65–69 | 10,537 | 4.8% | 2.2% | 1781 |
| 70 or older | 14,302 | 6.5% | 2.2% | 1739 |
The list is getting younger. Players under 18 were 25.6% of active standard players in 2015 and are 34.0% now; in rapid and blitz they are already 43%. The junior share is highest in China (77.2%), Sri Lanka (76.4%), Vietnam (70.5%), Kazakhstan (69.0%) and Azerbaijan (68.0%), and lowest in Denmark (6.3%), the Netherlands (6.6%) and Austria (10.7%).
At the top the picture is different. The 100 highest-rated active players have a median age of 29. The youngest grandmaster on the list was born in 2013.
What is a typical FIDE rating?
The median active standard rating is 1700 and the mean is 1735. The distribution starts abruptly at 1400, because FIDE removes a rating from the list when it falls below that floor, and has a long thin tail toward the top.
| Percentile of active players | Standard rating |
|---|---|
| 10th | 1472 |
| 25th | 1556 |
| 50th (median) | 1700 |
| 75th | 1873 |
| 90th | 2041 |
| 95th | 2155 |
| 99th | 2373 |
| 99.9th | 2574 |
Read the other way round, as "how many players are at or above this rating":
| Rating | Active players at or above | Share of active players | All rated players at or above |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 27,816 | 12.6% | 72,762 |
| 2200 | 8,331 | 3.8% | 20,574 |
| 2300 | 4,126 | 1.9% | 8,616 |
| 2400 | 1,705 | 0.8% | 2,958 |
| 2500 | 589 | 0.3% | 850 |
| 2600 | 149 | 0.07% | 197 |
| 2700 | 32 | 0.01% | 35 |
| 2800 | 1 | – | 2 |
Ratings from different years are not directly comparable. The median active rating fell in every year but one, from 1784 in 2015 to 1581 in 2023. On 1 March 2024 FIDE raised the rating floor from 1000 to 1400 and gave every player rated below 2000 a one-time increase of 0.40 × (2000 − rating). A player at 1500 became 1700. That is the jump between the 2023 and 2024 rows in the trend table. To see what a result would do to your own rating, the FIDE rating calculator applies the current formula.
How many grandmasters are there?
The standard list records each player's highest title, and separately any women's title a woman holds.
| Open title | Holders | Active | Of whom women |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grandmaster (GM) | 1,899 | 1,329 | 44 |
| International Master (IM) | 4,308 | 2,468 | 145 |
| FIDE Master (FM) | 9,771 | 5,088 | 75 |
| Candidate Master (CM) | 3,852 | 2,459 | 30 |
| Women's title | Holders | Active |
|---|---|---|
| Woman Grandmaster (WGM) | 539 | 326 |
| Woman International Master (WIM) | 977 | 470 |
| Woman FIDE Master (WFM) | 2,244 | 911 |
| Woman Candidate Master (WCM) | 1,364 | 697 |
Because only the highest open title is recorded, an IM who becomes a grandmaster moves from the IM row to the GM row. A woman who holds both the WGM and the GM title counts in both rows.
The number of grandmasters has grown from 1,504 in 2015 to 1,899, or about 36 a year. Russia has the most (184), followed by the United States (115), Germany (103), India (96), Ukraine (85), Spain and France (60 each), Serbia (58), China (57) and Poland (56). The 100 highest-rated active players come from 29 federations, led by the United States (16), India (15), China and Russia (7 each).
Methodology and definitions
- Source. FIDE's fixed-width text rating lists: the 1 September 2026 standard, rapid and blitz lists; the September list of each year from 2015 to 2026, so that every year is compared at the same point in the season; and FIDE's combined download of the same month, for players registered without a rating. All were downloaded on 13 September 2026 from the FIDE download page.
- Rated. A rating in that category on that list. FIDE shows a player whose rating falls below 1400 as unrated on the next list (Rating Regulations 7.2.1).
- Active. Rated and not flagged inactive. FIDE flags a player who has played no rated game in one year, per category (Rating Regulations 7.2.2).
- Players with games rated for this list. Players with a non-zero games count on the list, meaning games rated in the period that list covers.
- Women. The list's sex field.
- Age. 2026 minus the birth year, the only date FIDE publishes, so "under 18" means born in 2009 or later. The 1,067 active standard players without a plausible birth year are left out of age figures only.
- Federation. The federation shown on the list. FID, players under the FIDE flag, is counted like a federation.
- Titles. From the standard list's title and women's title fields.
- Per capita. Active standard players divided by the World Bank's total population for 2025, for countries with at least one million people.
- Not included. Online ratings, national rating systems, and FIDE Online Arena titles. The count of people who play chess is far larger than any number here.
The counts were produced by a script that reads FIDE's files directly and was checked against a second, independent implementation. Every figure on this page is in the JSON file below.
Download the data
- Federations, September 2026 (CSV): all 210 federations, with rated and active counts per category, women and under-18 shares, titles, 2015 comparison and players per million
- Trend 2015–2026 (CSV): the September list of each year
- Standard rating distribution (CSV): active players and women by 100-point band
- Age distribution (CSV): active players, women's share and median rating by age group
- Every figure on this page (JSON)
The tables are published under CC BY 4.0: use them for anything, with a link back. To cite this page:
ScanChess, "FIDE Rated Players in 2026: Statistics by Country, Age, Gender and Rating", data from the FIDE rating list of 1 September 2026, https://scanchess.com/blog/fide-rated-players-statistics
The date at the top of the page changes when the figures are refreshed from a newer list.
Nearly every standard game behind these ratings was written down move by move on a paper scoresheet. ScanChess turns a photo of that sheet into a PGN you can analyze; our guide to FIDE's scoresheet rules covers what the arbiter expects to see on it.
