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Table of Contents
Licence Statistics
Some countries do not issue individual amateur radio licences, instead the hobby is licence-exempt (known as a Class licence in Australia and New Zealand). To be able to operate individuals must first achieve an amateur radio qualification, they can then apply either to the regulatory authority or the national society to get a callsign. For example in Sweden, which became licence-exempt in 2004, amateur callsigns are issued by the National Society the SSA.
When looking at statistics bear in mind that in some countries the published total of licences or authorisations is cumulative e.g. up until October 2025 the UK figure included every licence ever issued since October 2006.
United Kingdom
In June 2023 there were a total of 101,172 valid UK amateur radio licences held by an estimated 83,000 individual amateurs (individual amateurs figure derived from 2018 data and subsequent new Foundation exam passes). The licences were made up of:
- 32,127 Foundation
- 13,109 Intermediate
- 54,186 Full
- 1,750 Club
On 1 August 2018 Ofcom stated in response to a Freedom of Information request that “the total number of individuals holding one or more current UK Amateur Radio Licences is 75,660.”
AH0A complied this table of UK licence totals from 1993-2016
The January 1938 RSGB T&R Bulletin published these licence figires for 1933-1937
Worldwide
Historic statistics up until mid-2010's compiled by AH0A:
From 1998-2000 the IARU published an annual table showing the number of amateurs in each country and how many members each national society had:
On the 10 April 2021 the ARRL posted about the gross inaccuracy of the frequently quoted figure of 3 million amateurs worldwide. 1.5 million might be nearer the mark.
ARRL articles: