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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.”
2006 saw the introduction of the Lifetime licence in the UK, this means the licence total figures from that point are cummulative, a similar situation occurs in other countries such as Canada, Sweden, Norway, France etc. In the UK those who have long since given up the hobby and even those who've been dead since 2006 are still listed as holding valid amateur radio licences.
AH0A complied this table of UK licence totals from 1993-2016
The January 1938 RSGB T&R Bulletin published these licence figures for 1933-1937
1992-93 was a turning point for UK amateur radio - the first time in 20 years that licence numbers had declined, falling by 2,200. Licence totals for the year ending March 31, 1993 were:
- 32,410 Full Class A
- 25,791 Full Class B
- 106 Novice Class A
- 935 Novice Class B
- 59,242 Total
Worldwide
OARC Amateur Statistics Pages
Current National Statistics
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 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.
Articles: