Organ Donor Statistics in US 2026 | Organ Donor Facts

Organ Donor in America?

Organ donation in America is the life-saving act by which a person consents — either during their lifetime or through their estate after death — to give one or more of their organs or tissues to someone in critical medical need. The United States operates the largest organ transplantation system in the world, governed by the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN), a public-private partnership administered under the authority of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) through the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). The national system connects Organ Procurement Organizations (OPOs), transplant hospitals, and donor registries across all 50 states to ensure that when a donor becomes available, a compatible recipient can be identified within hours. A single organ donor can save up to 8 lives through organ donation alone, and can heal more than 75 additional people through tissue donation — a legacy of impact that few other individual acts can match.

In 2026, organ donation in the United States sits at a historic crossroads. The year 2024 set an all-time record for transplants performed — 48,149 in a single year — marking the 12th consecutive year that deceased donor transplant records were broken. Yet despite this progress, more than 100,000 Americans remain on the national transplant waiting list, and 13 people die every single day while waiting for an organ that never arrives in time. The 2025 National Survey of Organ Donation Attitudes and Practices (NSODAP), published directly by HRSA in July 2025 and based on 10,008 respondents, found that 93% of Americans support organ donation — yet only 53% are actually registered as donors. Understanding the full picture of organ donor statistics in the US in 2026 — from who is waiting, to who is donating, to what the public truly believes — is essential for anyone engaged with this critical national issue.

Interesting Organ Donor Facts in the US 2026

These are the most compelling, fully verified organ donor facts in the US 2026, drawn entirely from official U.S. government sources — HRSA, OPTN, organdonor.gov, the 2025 NSODAP, and Donate Life America citing OPTN data. Every data point is traceable to a named, published federal source.

Source: HRSA organdonor.gov (last reviewed May 2025); OPTN National Data (October 2024); 2025 National Survey of Organ Donation Attitudes and Practices (NSODAP), published July 2025, HRSA; National Donate Life Month 2025 Statistics, Donate Life America — U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

Two numbers in this table define the organ donation challenge in America in 2026. The first is 93% — the share of Americans who told HRSA’s own 2025 survey they support organ donation. The second is 53% — the share who have actually registered. That 40-percentage-point gap between stated support and demonstrated action is not born from opposition or indifference. The 2025 NSODAP found that of the 46% who are not signed up, nearly half — 47% — said they still want their organs donated. And of those who wanted to donate but had not registered, 66% said they would be willing to sign up. The pipeline of potential donors is massive. The barrier is largely structural: people haven’t been prompted, haven’t prioritized it, or hold specific, addressable misconceptions about the process.

The “3 in 1,000” statistic is equally critical to understand. Of every 1,000 deaths in the United States, only 3 occur in medically suitable circumstances for organ donation. This is exactly why the size of the registered donor pool matters so profoundly — every eligible donor who becomes available is genuinely irreplaceable. With over 5,600 Americans dying annually while waiting for a transplant, and a new name added to the list every 8 minutes, the system’s achievement of growing transplant volumes by 23.3% over five years is remarkable — yet the list has not been eliminated. Demand continues to outpace even record-setting supply.

National Transplant Waiting List Statistics in the US 2026

The national transplant waiting list, maintained in real time by the OPTN, is the most direct and unambiguous measure of the organ shortage crisis in the United States. These figures are verified from the 2025 NSODAP and organdonor.gov, both official HRSA sources.

Source: OPTN National Data as of October 2024, cited in the 2025 National Survey of Organ Donation Attitudes and Practices (NSODAP) published July 2025 by HRSA; organdonor.gov Detailed Description of Data (September 2024 snapshot) — U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

The kidney waiting list at 89,792 patients — representing approximately 86% of every person waiting for a transplant in the entire country — is an extraordinary concentration of need. This figure directly reflects the scale of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and end-stage renal disease (ESRD) in America, conditions driven heavily by diabetes and hypertension. The National Donate Life Month 2025 statistics confirmed that the average wait time for a kidney from a deceased donor is 3 to 5 years — years during which patients typically survive only through dialysis, a physically demanding treatment that severely limits quality of life. Living donation offers a meaningful alternative: when a living donor is available, wait times often fall to months rather than years. The liver list, at 9,424 patients, is the second-largest category and has been the focus of significant OPTN policy reform since 2023 designed to close equity gaps for female and minority candidates.

The smaller organ categories — heart, lung, pancreas, and VCA — carry lower numbers but often the highest-urgency patients. Individuals waiting for a heart or lung transplant are frequently at the most critical end of the medical spectrum, with extremely limited time and almost no alternative treatment pathways. The 240 patients awaiting vascularized composite allografts (VCAs) such as face and hand transplants represent a newer but rapidly growing surgical frontier, now formally recognized in OPTN policy. The combined kidney/pancreas list of 2,177 primarily serves patients with Type 1 diabetes and simultaneous kidney failure who benefit from receiving both organs together. Across all organ types, the scale of unmet need remains immense, and it is the driving force behind every organ donation awareness and registration initiative in the US in 2026.

Total Organ Transplants Performed Statistics in the US 2026

In 2024, the United States broke its own all-time transplant record. The 48,149 transplants performed represent a national milestone and the 12th consecutive year of deceased donor record-breaking.

Source: HRSA / OPTN Preliminary 2024 Data, published January 15, 2025, hrsa.gov/optn/news-events/news — U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

The 48,149 transplants completed in 2024 mark a threshold that the American transplant community worked toward for decades. For the first time ever, deceased donor transplants alone surpassed 40,000 in a single year — a threshold once considered aspirational. The 23.3% increase over five years demonstrates genuine, sustained capacity expansion. Lung transplants showed the most dramatic proportional growth at +10.4%, driven primarily by the adoption of improved donation after circulatory death (DCD) protocols that have made DCD lungs more clinically viable in recipients. Liver transplants followed with a 7.5% increase, partly attributable to a July 2023 OPTN policy change designed to close a long-standing equity gap for female liver transplant candidates — with female liver recipients increasing 12.4% in 2024 as a direct consequence of that reform.

Kidney transplants at 27,759 remain the single largest category, accounting for nearly 58% of all transplants performed — a proportion that closely tracks the kidney’s 86% share of the national waiting list. Heart transplants held relatively steady at 4,572, reflecting stable donor availability within the narrow clinical criteria for cardiac donation. The 7,030 living donors who enabled transplants in 2024 represent the second-highest living donor total in US history, surpassed only in 2019. Taken together, these numbers confirm the US transplant system is operating at its highest-ever efficiency — yet the gap between 103,223 waiting and 48,149 transplanted makes clear that even doubling transplant volume would not fully close the list. The need to grow donor registration and broaden the eligible pool remains the defining challenge.

Deceased Organ Donor Statistics in the US 2026

Deceased donors — individuals from whom organs are recovered after death — are the primary engine of the US transplant system, accounting for more than 85% of all transplants performed each year.

Source: HRSA / OPTN Preliminary 2024 Data, published January 15, 2025, hrsa.gov/optn; National Donate Life Month 2025 Statistics, Donate Life America — U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

A major structural shift is underway in how deceased donors are classified in the United States in 2026. The surge of DCD donors to 7,280 — a 23.5% increase — against the first decline of DBD (brain death) donors since 2013 marks a turning point in the system. This shift is not a sign of failure — it reflects clinical progress. Improvements in normothermic perfusion technology — which keeps recovered organs metabolically active during preservation and transport — have made DCD organs, particularly livers and lungs, increasingly viable for transplant, expanding the effective donor pool without requiring more deaths. The 23.5% DCD increase is one of the single most consequential operational developments in US organ donation in recent years, and it is one of the primary reasons lung transplants grew by 10.4% in 2024 alone.

The growing share of older deceased donors reinforces a message that public health advocates have long tried to communicate: there is no age limit for organ donation. With donors aged 50 and older now exceeding 40% of all deceased donors — and donors aged 65 and older at 9% — the system is clearly no longer dependent on a narrow band of younger donors. The dramatic 23.9% drop in drug intoxication deaths as a cause of donor death — falling to 2,066, the lowest since 2021 — is a meaningful public health signal, likely reflecting broader progress in opioid epidemic response and naloxone availability. Each of these trends will continue to shape organ donation procurement policy and clinical practice well into 2026 and beyond.

Living Donor Statistics in the US 2026

Living donation — where a healthy individual voluntarily donates a whole kidney, a segment of liver, or in rare cases a uterus — is a growing and vital part of the American transplant system.

Source: HRSA / OPTN Preliminary 2024 Data, published January 15, 2025, hrsa.gov/optn; 2025 National Survey of Organ Donation Attitudes and Practices (NSODAP), published July 2025 by HRSA — U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

Living donation offers one of the most powerful solutions to the kidney shortage in the United States. A patient who receives a kidney from a living donor typically avoids the 3-to-5-year wait associated with deceased donor kidneys, often transplanting within months. The 7,030 living donors in 2024 — the second-highest total in US history — reflect the ongoing success of paired kidney exchange programs, which allow biologically incompatible donor-recipient pairs to match with other incompatible pairs in simultaneous chains of donation, dramatically expanding the reach of living donation. These programs have removed the biological compatibility barrier that once made living donation impossible for many willing donors.

The 2025 NSODAP captures the most current American attitudes toward living donation in any federal government publication. A strong 81% of survey respondents said they would donate an eligible organ while living to a family member, and 74% would do so for a close friend. Willingness to donate to strangers reached 50% in 2025 — up from 46% in 2019 — suggesting growing social acceptance of altruistic, non-directed living donation. The surge of living donors aged 65 and older to 476 in 2024 — more than double pre-2016 annual levels — confirms that older Americans are increasingly both willing and clinically cleared to step forward as living donors, expanding the eligible pool in ways that could meaningfully reduce wait times for kidney patients across the US.

Organ Donor Registration and Public Attitudes Statistics in the US 2026

The gap between American attitudes toward organ donation and actual registration rates is the defining public health challenge — and the 2025 NSODAP, the most authoritative and current federal study on this subject, provides definitive data.

Source: 2025 National Survey of Organ Donation Attitudes and Practices (NSODAP), published July 2025, Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), U.S. Department of Health & Human Services — organdonor.gov

The 2025 NSODAP — the most current and comprehensive federal survey on this topic, conducted among 10,008 respondents between September 2024 and February 2025 — fundamentally updates the data that many prior articles have cited. The 93% support figure is the highest recorded in the survey’s five-wave history going back to 1993, rising from 90% in 2019. Yet the 53% registration rate confirms that support alone does not translate into action. The most important insight the survey delivers is that the unregistered population is not a population of opponents. Of the 46% who are not registered, nearly half actively want their organs donated. Among those who want to donate but have not registered, two-thirds say they would be willing to sign up — meaning they are effectively one prompt or one conversation away from becoming registered donors.

The three most common barriers among non-registrants reveal specific, addressable concerns. The top reason — health issues (30%) — reflects a widespread but largely incorrect belief that pre-existing conditions disqualify someone from donation; in reality, medical suitability is always assessed at the time of death. The second reason — needing more information (21%) — is a direct call for better public education. The third — fear that doctors will not treat them as aggressively if they are a registered donor (16%) — is a persistent myth that HRSA and the medical community have repeatedly and clearly debunked. Critically, even among those who said they did not want their organs donated, 71% said they could sign up if certain conditions were met, and only 4% said nothing would ever change their mind. The potential to grow the US donor registry meaningfully in 2026 and beyond remains substantial.

Organ Donor Statistics by Organ Type in the US 2026

Each organ type presents a distinct picture of supply, demand, and clinical evolution. This breakdown is drawn exclusively from OPTN and HRSA verified sources as of 2024–2025.

Source: HRSA / OPTN Preliminary 2024 Data, published January 15, 2025, hrsa.gov/optn; organdonor.gov Detailed Description of Data (September / October 2024 snapshot) — U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

The kidney-liver-heart-lung hierarchy of US transplantation has remained stable for decades, but 2024 saw clear performance shifts within it. Lung transplants experienced the most dramatic surge — a 10.4% increase directly attributable to clinical expansion of DCD lung transplantation, enabled by advances in ex vivo lung perfusion (EVLP) technology. Prior to these advances, DCD lungs were frequently considered too high-risk and were often discarded. The liver category benefited from OPTN’s deliberate equity reform: the 12.4% increase in female liver recipients in 2024 is direct evidence that policy change can correct systemic access disparities at scale. These two developments together — clinical innovation and policy reform — represent the two primary levers available to continue growing transplant volumes in 2026.

Heart transplants at 4,572 remain constrained by the narrow criteria for cardiac donation and the brief cold ischemia tolerance of the heart — typically measured in hours. The kidney-pancreas segment is the focus of active OPTN policy work in 2025, with proposals aimed at improving equitable access for simultaneous pancreas-kidney (SPK) candidates. The OPTN’s 2025 Multi-Organ Allocation Policy public comment process specifically identified that of 92,942 kidney candidates listed in 2025, only 2,328 are SPK — demonstrating how small but critical this population is. The VCA field, covering face, hand, larynx, and uterus transplants, now has formal OPTN policy recognition following the 2025 NSODAP’s first-ever collection of public attitude data on uterus donation, where 50% of female respondents said they would be willing to donate their uterus.

Organ Donor Statistics by Race and Ethnicity in the US 2026

Racial and ethnic equity in organ donation and transplantation is a central policy priority for HRSA and OPTN, with persistent disparities in both disease burden and transplant access well-documented across the federal literature.

Source: HRSA / OPTN Preliminary 2024 Data, published January 15, 2025, hrsa.gov/optn; National Donate Life Month 2025 Statistics, Donate Life America, citing OPTN data as of January 2025 — U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

The 6.5% increase in transplants for Hispanic/Latino patients in 2024 — the largest rate of increase among any racial or ethnic group — signals meaningful progress in closing access gaps that have persisted for years. The fact that nearly 60% of the national transplant waiting list comes from multicultural communities reflects the documented higher prevalence of conditions like Type 2 diabetes and hypertension in Black, Hispanic/Latino, and Native American populations — diseases that are the leading drivers of end-stage renal disease and consequentially of kidney transplant need. The 10,990 transplants for Black, Non-Hispanic recipients in 2024 represent a 1.5% increase, reflecting incremental but continued progress.

It is essential to note — as HRSA explicitly states on organdonor.gov — that shared ethnicity is not a medical requirement for organ matching in the United States. The vast majority of transplants occur across racial and ethnic lines. However, a more diverse donor registry statistically benefits minority patients by increasing the probability of finding a compatible genetic match for patients with rare HLA (human leukocyte antigen) markers — markers more commonly shared among people of similar ancestral background. This is the primary medical rationale behind HRSA’s sustained outreach efforts to increase donor registration in historically underrepresented communities. Reducing the equity gap in transplant outcomes in the US in 2026 requires simultaneous progress on expanding the donor pool, improving allocation policy, and addressing the underlying disease burden in affected communities.

Organ Donor Statistics by Age in the US 2026

The age profile of donors — both deceased and living — has shifted markedly in recent years, consistently expanding the definition of who contributes meaningfully to the US transplant system.

Source: HRSA / OPTN Preliminary 2024 Data, published January 15, 2025, hrsa.gov/optn; National Donate Life Month 2025 Statistics, Donate Life America; organdonor.gov (HRSA documented 95-year-old donor case); 2025 NSODAP published July 2025 by HRSA — U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

Age-related data from the US organ donation system in 2026 delivers one of the clearest public health messages possible: there is no upper age limit for organ donation. With more than 40% of all deceased donors now aged 50 or older, and 9% aged 65 or older, the system is no longer dependent on a narrow band of younger donors. HRSA’s own website documents the case of a 95-year-old man who donated a functioning liver — the most vivid possible illustration that donor eligibility is determined by the condition of individual organs at the time of death, not the age on a registration card. Advanced predictive tools such as the Kidney Donor Profile Index (KDPI) have allowed the transplant community to accurately assess the likely function of organs from older donors, enabling them to be used successfully where they once might have been declined.

Among living donors, the surge of those aged 65 and older to 476 in 2024 — a 14.2% increase year over year and more than double any pre-2016 annual total — reflects a generational shift in both awareness and willingness among older Americans. The 2025 NSODAP found that adults aged 35 to 64 are the most likely age group to be registered donors, with registration climbing through middle age. For younger Americans — particularly those under 35 — registration gaps remain a persistent challenge across the national system, pointing to the continued importance of targeted outreach, digital registration pathways, and public education directed at Millennials and Gen Z in the United States in 2026.

Tissue and Cornea Donation Statistics in the US 2026

Beyond organs, the United States operates a large and largely under-recognized system for tissue and cornea donation that saves and heals millions of Americans every year.

Source: National Donate Life Month 2025 Statistics, Donate Life America, citing OPTN data as of January 2025; National Tissue Recovery through Utilization Survey (NTRUS), AATB; 2022 Eye Banking Statistical Report, Eye Bank Association of America; 2025 NSODAP published July 2025 by HRSA — U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

Tissue donation is the quiet giant of the American donation system. While organ donation captures the most public attention — understandably, given the life-or-death urgency of the waiting list — more than 2.5 million tissue transplants are performed in the US every year, dwarfing the roughly 48,000 organ transplants by a factor of more than 50. Tissue transplants include bone grafts for orthopedic surgeries, skin grafts for burn victims, heart valves, tendons, ligaments, and blood vessels — procedures that restore function, mobility, and quality of life for millions. A single tissue donor can contribute to the healing of more than 75 separate people, making each donor’s impact in this category extraordinary. Despite this scale, tissue donation remains far less visible in public health messaging than organ donation, representing a significant opportunity to broaden public understanding of what registration actually means.

Cornea donation deserves particular attention. More than 78,000 corneal transplants were performed in the United States in 2023, each one restoring or meaningfully improving the sight of a patient with corneal blindness or disease. Unlike solid organs, corneas can be donated by the vast majority of people who die — age, blood type, and most health conditions do not affect corneal suitability. The 2025 NSODAP’s first-ever collection of data on VCA donation attitudes — finding 68% willing to donate their larynx and 50% of women willing to donate their uterus — demonstrates that the public’s willingness to donate extends meaningfully beyond traditional organ categories when they are informed and asked. The 170 million Americans already registered as organ, eye, and tissue donors represent an extraordinary foundation upon which the US donation system in 2026 continues to build.

Disclaimer: This research report is compiled from publicly available sources. While reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, no representation or warranty, express or implied, is given as to the completeness or reliability of the information. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions, losses, or damages of any kind arising from the use of this report.

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