How many hospitals are in the US: the official counts, VA hospitals, trauma centers and the free lists

This page is for anyone who needs the number of hospitals in America, and for companies that sell to them: device and supply makers, health IT, staffing, facilities and services. It sets out each official count and why they differ, breaks the hospitals down by type, size and state, covers VA hospitals and trauma centers, and shows where to download the lists. For how a hospital buys, see selling to hospitals.

How many hospitals there are in the US

The AHA total breaks down into 5,121 community hospitals, 210 federal hospitals, 656 nonfederal psychiatric hospitals and 113 other hospitals, such as long-term care hospitals and prison infirmaries. Of the community hospitals, 2,984 are nonprofit, 1,224 investor-owned and 913 run by state or local government; 1,797 are rural, and 3,567 belong to a health system. Together all US hospitals staff 907,216 beds.

Why the counts differ

• Medicare publishes rehabilitation and long-term care hospitals separately. The main Hospital General Information file has only 5 long-term care hospitals and no freestanding rehabilitation hospitals. Add the 412 freestanding rehabilitation hospitals and the 306 long-term care hospitals that appear only in their own files, and Medicare's count (6,137) lands close to the AHA's (6,100). The rehabilitation file also lists 803 rehabilitation units inside general hospitals; those aren't separate hospitals.
• Federal hospitals drop out of some files. None of the 132 VA or 32 Department of Defense hospitals in Medicare's list appears in the cost report file, so a count built from cost reports leaves out federal hospitals.
• Census counts locations. County Business Patterns counts each establishment, so a hospital with several campuses can count more than once.
• Commercial databases count more facility types. Definitive Healthcare reported more than 7,500 active US hospitals in October 2026, from its own database.

Hospitals by type

Five of the 311 long-term care hospitals also appear in the main file, which is why the combined total is 6,137. By ownership, the main file has 2,939 nonprofit hospitals, 1,143 for-profit (including 80 physician-owned), 1,114 run by state or local government (including hospital districts), 206 federal and 17 tribal. 4,495 offer emergency services. Long-term care hospitals are mostly for-profit (217 of 311).

Hospitals by size

These counts come from CMS's 2024 cost report file, for the 5,907 hospitals that reported beds:

Bed counts are concentrated: the 271 largest hospitals hold 26% of the beds, while the 3,585 hospitals under 100 beds hold 17%. The cost report counts beds as Medicare defines them, which is lower than the AHA's staffed-bed total.

Hospitals by state

CMS Hospital General Information, July 2026. The file covers 5,354 hospitals in the 50 states and DC and 65 in the territories, 59 of them in Puerto Rico.

Texas also has the most long-term care hospitals (38). Rural states have the most critical access hospitals after Texas: Kansas (83), Iowa (82) and Minnesota (76).

How many VA hospitals there are

The Veterans Health Administration runs 170 VA medical centers and 1,193 outpatient sites, 1,380 health care facilities in all, for over 9.1 million enrolled veterans. Medicare's list includes 132 VA hospitals with an address and phone number for each. VA hospitals buy through federal procurement rather than a health system's supply chain, so the process is closer to selling to the government than to selling to a community hospital.

How many Level 1 trauma centers there are

On 30 October 2026, the American College of Surgeons' directory listed 615 verified US trauma centers:

A hospital can hold an adult and a pediatric level, so the levels add up to more than 615. Adult Level I centers are in 44 states, led by New York (22), California (20), Texas (19) and Ohio (12).

ACS verification isn't the whole picture. States designate trauma centers under their own rules, and some use their own accreditation: Pennsylvania, where the Pennsylvania Trauma Systems Foundation accredits trauma centers, has none in the ACS directory. For a complete list in one state, use the state EMS or trauma office's list as well.

How to download a list of hospitals

Join the CMS files on the CCN to get type, phone, beds and fiscal year end on one row. The files list hospitals, not people.

Who buys inside a hospital

As general guidance, these are the usual owners by what you sell:

At the 3,567 community hospitals in a health system, many of these decisions sit at system headquarters.

Worked example: trauma registry software in the Southeast

Illustrative example. The company and its rates are invented; the counts come from the ACS directory on 30 October 2026.

The seller: Harbor Registry (harbor-registry.example) makes trauma registry software for the data that verified centers report. The territory: Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Alabama.

1. Count the market. The ACS directory lists 34 adult Level I centers in the six states (Florida 10, North Carolina 7, Georgia 6, South Carolina 5, Tennessee 4, Alabama 2) and 21 adult Level II centers, 55 in all.
2. Add what ACS misses. Check each state's trauma office list for designated centers that aren't ACS-verified.
3. Enrich from CMS. Match each hospital to the CMS file by name and ZIP code for its CCN and phone, then to the cost report for beds and fiscal year end.
4. Do the arithmetic. If an illustrative one in five centers reviews its registry software each year, that's 11 evaluations a year. Winning a third of them gives 3 or 4 new customers a year.
5. Find the buyer. Write to the trauma program manager, who runs the registry team day to day. Finding that person and what's changed at each center (a new level, a new trauma director) is the slow part; Bebop finds the contacts and researches each hospital in the list.

Next step: profile each target hospital with the account research template before you write.