Are Private Clubs Booming? What the 2026 Numbers Say

Yes. By the most recent industry surveys, demand for private club membership is still strong, though growth is cooling. The NGCOA’s 2025 Golf Industry Key Trends report found that 58% of golf operators reported membership increases and 53% report full memberships and/or a waiting list. GGA Partners’ 2024 Club Leader’s Perspective survey, however, shows growth slowing, with smaller clubs seeing softer demand than larger ones. That short answer hides a split that matters more than the headline. The 2024 Private Club Industry Economic Impact Report from Club Benchmarking, CMAA and the National Club Association counts approximately 5,659 private clubs in the United States. The estimated 3,887 with more than $1 million in annual revenue generated an estimated $32.6 billion in revenue in 2023, according to the report’s release. Demand is uneven across those clubs. In GGA’s 2024 survey, 49% of clubs said they were at capacity and 40% said they were under capacity. Which group a club sits in should decide how it markets membership.

Do private clubs still have waitlists?

About half do, but waitlists are no longer growing the way they were. The NGCOA’s 2025 Golf Industry Key Trends report found that 53% of golf operators report full memberships and/or a waiting list. In GGA Partners’ 2024 survey, 46% of clubs had a waitlist: 34% said theirs had grown and 12% said theirs had shrunk. Membership growth is cooling as well. In GGA’s 2024 survey, 40% of clubs reported more members than the year before, which GGA describes as a 23-point decline from the prior year’s survey. Another 49% were about the same and 11% reported decreases, according to GGA Partners’ 2024 Club Leader’s Perspective Report. For longer-run context, according to the National Club Association’s research report Navigating the Future: The Outlook for Private Clubs (launched in 2013), 30% of private clubs reported a membership gain, up from 22% in 2012 and 19% in 2011. The two sources use different surveys and samples, so treat them as context rather than one trend line. GGA Partners’ Club Leader’s Perspectives Report (August 2024) shows the momentum cooling underneath. The share of clubs reporting a waitlist that grew during the year fell to 34%, from 55% the year before. The share reporting no waitlist at all rose to 46%, from 32%. Another 12% said their waitlist had shrunk and 8% said it had ended that year. At the top of the market, the queues are still long. Soho House announced in December 2023 that it would stop admitting new members in London, New York and Los Angeles in 2024 to relieve overcrowding. Founder Nick Jones told members the company was “closing the doors to new members” in those cities, The Caterer reported. In its second-quarter 2024 results, the company said its waitlist stood at approximately 111,000, an all-time high, alongside 204,028 Soho House members. Salon (May 30, 2025) reported that Zero Bond in New York keeps a waitlist believed to be at least 10,000 while admitting only a few hundred new members a year, a figure best treated as an estimate. Demand is still high at the top, but for the typical club the queue has stopped getting longer. A waitlist is an asset to manage, because it may not last.

Are private club initiation fees still going up?

Yes, but the increases are getting smaller. GGA Partners’ 2024 report found clubs planning an average initiation fee increase of 8.7%. GGA describes strong growth in initiation fees but a “deceleration in increases,” with this year’s expected increase almost 5 points lower than last year’s reported increase. Most clubs in the survey planned a next increase of less than 5% (57% of respondents). Dues followed the same pattern: GGA puts planned operating dues growth at 6.2%, which is 2 points lower than the prior year’s rate. The run-up behind those numbers was steep. The article “Country Club Initiation Fees Soar With Golf’s Popularity,” published by Front Office Sports in August 2025, reports that median U.S. country club initiation fees rose from $29,000 in 2019 to $50,000 in 2022, a 72% increase. The same article states that Rancho Santa Fe Country Club in California raised its fee from $75,000 to $100,000 in 2024, double the $50,000 it charged in 2021. In Hobe Sound, Florida, the new Apogee Club launched at the top of the market. The article “Miami Dolphins Owner Forms Partnership to Construct Private Club With Three Courses,” published by Club + Resort Business in October 2023, reports, citing The Palm Beach Post, that initial membership prices are $550,000 and above. The article “Country Club Initiation Fees Soar With Golf’s Popularity,” published by Front Office Sports in August 2025, reports that the Apogee Club in Hobe Sound, Florida, charges an initiation fee of up to $650,000. Co-developer Stephen Ross told The Palm Beach Post the aim was to deliver a top-quality golf experience to meet strong demand in South Florida. The fee data also shows how misleading an industry average can be. GGA reports an average initiation fee of $58,000 against a median of $34,000 in its survey, and attributes the gap to some clubs raising their cost of entry substantially. In the survey, 8% of clubs charge more than $165,000 to join, while 33% charge between $5,000 and $24,999 and another 9% charge under $5,000. Six-figure headlines describe the top of the market. A board that benchmarks against the average rather than the median, or against Apogee rather than its real local competitors, may misjudge its own market.

What new private clubs are opening, and is golf still driving demand?

Golf remains the core of the industry. In the Club Benchmarking/CMAA Economic Impact Report, 82% of the clubs analyzed are golf and country clubs, with city and athletic clubs at 9%, yacht clubs at 7% and other clubs at 2%. The R&A’s Global Golf Participation 2024 report, which covers markets outside the USA and Mexico, found that 80% of young people engage with golf through formats other than 9 or 18 holes. That suggests many future members may meet the game somewhere other than a traditional 18-hole round. A fast-moving part of the market is outside golf. The Global Wellness Institute’s 2024 Global Wellness Economy Monitor identifies “an emerging niche sector of exclusive wellness clubs” in top metro regions. Continuum Club in New York’s West Village is an example. Its flagship caps membership at 250 and launched with an invitation-only founding tier at the highest price point. It announced a January 2026 rollout of a final entry tier at $25,000 per year, with tiers running as high as $100,000, according to Continuum’s December 22, 2025 press release on PR Newswire. Those are company-reported claims, not audited figures. “We designed Continuum to scale deliberately,” founder and CEO Jeff Halevy said. City social clubs are expanding too. Zero Bond opened its first major expansion outside New York, a space of more than 15,000 square feet at Wynn Las Vegas, on March 10, 2026, per Resident. Private motorsport clubs apply the same membership model to another passion: Monticello Motor Club in New York lists initiation fees from $45,000 to $175,000 across its membership options. The sources reviewed here do not offer a reliable count of new openings in these categories, and anyone quoting one should be asked where it came from. The supply of prospects is clear, though: Knight Frank’s The Wealth Report 2025 finds that almost 39% of the world’s wealthy, which it defines as people with a net worth of $10 million or more, live in the United States.

Are private clubs booming everywhere, or is demand soft in places?

The softness is concentrated among smaller clubs. GGA Partners’ 2024 report states it directly: clubs with less than $5 million in revenue show softer demand in membership and waitlist growth, while clubs with $10 million to $25 million in revenue were more likely to maintain strong demand. The surveys cited here split demand by club size rather than by region, so a claim that a particular market is hot or cold needs local evidence. Other warning signs appear in the data:

• More than one in ten clubs are shrinking. In GGA’s 2024 survey, 11% of clubs reported decreasing member numbers, up 7 points from the prior year’s survey.
• Almost half of clubs have no waitlist. In GGA’s 2024 survey, 46% of club leaders reported none, and another 8% said their waitlist had ended during the year.
• Value perception is splitting by generation. GGA Partners’ 2025 Club Leaders’ Perspectives research, conducted with CMAA, finds that concern over the value received from dues is concentrated among older members, while younger members are more satisfied and more engaged with non-golf and dining amenities.
• Demand is not profit. In the same quarter that Soho House posted its record waitlist, according to Soho House & Co’s second-quarter 2024 results release, it reported a net loss attributable to the company of $33.9 million. The article “Soho House & Co Inc (SHCO) Q2 2024 Earnings: EPS of -$0.17 Misses Estimates, Revenue of $305.1M Beats Expectations,” published by GuruFocus in August 2024, reports that the loss was predominantly due to $27 million of higher non-cash foreign exchange losses.

What does this mean for a club’s membership marketing?

The honest answer to “are private clubs booming” is “some of them.” A club’s marketing should start from where it actually sits.

• If you have a waitlist, work it. Communicate with candidates, track how many are still interested, and keep them warm. In GGA’s 2024 survey, 12% of clubs said their waitlist had shrunk and 8% said it had ended within the year.
• Price against your market. Benchmark initiation fees against the median and your real local competitors.
• Market the whole club. Wellness, dining and social programming are what clubs like Continuum and Zero Bond sell at membership prices, and GGA finds younger members are more engaged with non-golf and dining amenities.
• Build the pipeline before you need it. Lead capture and follow-up are far easier to put in place while demand is strong.

So, are private clubs booming? Yes, but the explosive post-COVID growth has slowed, and the clubs that keep growing will be the ones that manage demand deliberately. Private Club Marketing helps clubs do that, with membership marketing and a CRM built for private clubs. Talk to our team about where your club stands and what your pipeline should look like in 2026.