Industry trends3 min readAs of Q1 2026

The U.S. credit-union system in Q1 2026: size, concentration and credit quality

4,336 credit unions, $2.5T in assets and 147,047,527 members as of Q1 2026. Concentration, growth, credit quality and capital.

Published · Computed from the quarterly panel by the CUSignals pipeline and reviewed before publication.

The system at a glance

MeasureValue
Credit unions in the panel4,336
Total assets$2.5T
Total members147,047,527
Median institution size$66.5M
Mean institution size$578.3M

The gap between the median and the mean is the industry's defining fact. A handful of institutions hold a large share of the assets while the count is dominated by small charters, so any average across the system describes almost none of it.

Concentration

CohortInstitutionsAssets heldShare of system assets
Largest 1%43$854.6B34.1%
Largest 10%434$1.9T77.2%
Smallest 50%2,168$47.7B1.9%

Growth, credit quality and capital

MeasureMedian25th percentile75th percentile
Asset growth YoY2.8%-0.8%6.3%
Loan growth YoY0.6%-5.0%6.2%
Deposit growth YoY2.4%-1.5%6.0%
Member growth YoY-0.5%-3.1%2.0%
Return on assets0.65%0.23%1.12%
Delinquency ratio0.63%0.25%1.19%
Net worth ratio12.4%10.2%16.2%

The quartiles are the point. A median return on assets says what a typical institution earned; the spread between the 25th and 75th says how much of the system is nowhere near typical, and it is the institutions in the tails that merge, borrow and buy.

The size distribution

Asset tierInstitutionsShare of countAssets heldShare of assets
<$10M78918.2%$3.3B0.1%
$10M-$50M1,14226.3%$30.6B1.2%
$50M-$100M57713.3%$41.8B1.7%
$100M-$500M1,07024.7%$247.9B9.9%
$500M-$1B2846.5%$204.8B8.2%
$1B-$10B45010.4%$1.3T52.0%
>$10B240.6%$675.7B26.9%

Method

Computed across all 4,336 credit unions in the panel as of Q1 2026, covering 6 quarters of history. The panel is built from multiple data sources processed through a proprietary data pipeline: each input is resolved to the correct institution, deduplicated and normalized against a verified account-code dictionary into one record per institution per quarter. The specific sources and the pipeline are proprietary; what is published is the transformation.

This post reports the system. It names no institution, by design — the counts and distributions here are the free half, and the ranked, named, exportable list underneath them is what a subscription opens.

Caveats

Every figure above is a model estimate computed from the quarterly panel as of the quarter named at the top of this post. Scores are not investment, credit or merger advice, and nothing here is a recommendation about any institution. The scorecards, their published weights and their known limitations are set out in the disclosures.

See this in your own territory

What the quarterly panel says about the credit-union system as a whole: growth, concentration, credit quality and capital. The ranked, named list behind this analysis — with the reason each institution scored where it did — is what a subscription opens. See the pricing ladder, or email admin@infinidatum.net with a question about this post.

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Figures in this post are model estimates computed from the quarterly panel as of the date shown. They are not investment, credit or merger advice and not a recommendation about any institution. See the disclaimer and disclosures. You may quote and cite this post with attribution and a link — see content use.