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Sturgis Motorcycle Rally Statistics (2026)

Attendance, economic impact, crashes and arrests, every figure traced to the South Dakota agency that published it

Updated: August 11, 2026 | Rally week: day 5 of 10, first 2026 Highway Patrol crash and DUI figures added

537,459

2025 vehicles

$1.58M

2025 rally tax

1,181

Licensed vendors

4

2025 fatalities

Impact Summary: The 2025 Rally in Six Numbers

The 85th Sturgis Motorcycle Rally drew 537,459 vehicles into a town of about 7,100 residents, the highest count since the 2015 record of 747,032. South Dakota collected $1,581,736 in tax from 1,181 licensed vendors, both up sharply year over year. The Highway Patrol recorded 4 fatalities, and while total crashes barely moved, injury crashes nearly doubled from 35 to 66 as non-injury crashes halved. Meanwhile Deadwood gaming stayed flat and Mount Rushmore was quieter in August than in July, two findings that contradict the usual assumptions about how far the rally economy reaches.

This page exists because the single most-asked question about Sturgis, how many people actually go, has no official answer. There is no ticket gate and no headcount. What South Dakota does have is one of the longest continuous event-measurement programs in the country, running since the 50th rally in 1990, plus detailed tax, enforcement and gaming data that almost nobody assembles in one place.

Every one of the 103 statistics below links directly to the state agency, federal agency or founding organization that published it. There are no secondary roundups, no aggregator sites and no recycled figures. Where we have calculated something ourselves from two published numbers, we say so.

On this page

  1. 1.Attendance & Crowd Size(29)
  2. 2.Economic Impact & Tax Revenue(16)
  3. 3.Vendors & Business Activity(8)
  4. 4.Safety, Crashes & Enforcement(22)
  5. 5.Regional Ripple Effects(17)
  6. 6.History: 1936 to 2026(7)
  7. 7.Motorcycle Industry Context(4)
  8. 8.Tracking the 2026 Numbers
  9. 9.Frequently Asked Questions
  10. 10.Sources & Methodology

Attendance & Crowd Size

South Dakota does not count people, it counts vehicles. SDDOT places portable road tube counters at the nine roads that enter Sturgis and totals the vehicles crossing them across the 10 official rally days. That number is a consistent year-over-year index, but it is not an attendance figure, and conflating the two is the most common error in rally coverage.

Vehicles entering Sturgis during the rally, 2011 to 2025

Source: SDDOT Sturgis Rally Traffic Counts 2016-2025. Figures are 10-day totals across nine entry points.

2011
580,601
2012
584,611
2013
516,378
2014
563,650
2015
747,032
2016
463,941
2017
469,103
2018
505,969
2019
499,564
2020
462,182
2021
525,768
2022
497,835
2023
458,161
2024
470,987
2025
537,459

2012: Highest non-anniversary year

2015: 75th anniversary, all-time record

2017: First 10-day rally

2020: 80th anniversary

2023: Lowest of the decade

2025: 85th anniversary, highest since 2015

Daily vehicle counts, 2025 rally

Source: SDDOT final vehicle counts, August 12, 2025. Change is against the 2020 to 2024 average for that rally day. SDDOT publishes the daily averages rounded, so the average column sums to 482,986 against a published total of 482,987. The 2025 column sums exactly.

Day2025 vehicles5-yr avgChange
Fri, Aug 156,00051,769+8.2%
Sat, Aug 262,50055,551+12.5%
Sun, Aug 360,49559,072+2.4%
Mon, Aug 468,90657,928+19.0%
Tue, Aug 563,86356,449+13.1%
Wed, Aug 659,41454,165+9.7%
Thu, Aug 754,69749,220+11.1%
Fri, Aug 850,67244,740+13.3%
Sat, Aug 938,15833,583+13.6%
Sun, Aug 1022,75420,509+10.9%
Total537,459482,987+11.3%

Economic Impact & Tax Revenue

The South Dakota Department of Revenue publishes rally tax collections every August. This is the hardest economic number available, because it is money actually remitted rather than a modelled impact estimate. It is also a floor, not a ceiling: it captures tax from licensed temporary vendors, not total visitor spending on fuel, lodging and permanent businesses.

Vendors & Business Activity

Temporary vendor licenses are the most sensitive leading indicator of commercial confidence in the rally, because vendors commit months ahead and pay for the privilege. The 32% jump into 2025 was larger than the rise in either traffic or tax.

  • 1,181 temporary vendors licensed for the 2025 rally, a 32% increase over 2024 and the clearest commercial signal of the year. (SD Dept of Revenue, 2025)
  • 896 temporary vendors in 2024 which was 17 fewer than 2023, implying about 913 vendors that year. (SD Dept of Revenue, 2024)
  • 1,069 vendors in the Northern Black Hills in 2025, against 112 in the Southern Black Hills. (SD Dept of Revenue, 2025)
  • 699 northern and 197 southern vendors in 2024 so the northern share grew sharply in 2025 while the southern count fell. (SD Dept of Revenue, 2024)
  • About $1,339 in tax per vendor across the 2025 rally, dividing total collections by licensed temporary vendors. This is our calculation from the two published figures. (SD Dept of Revenue, 2025)
  • A new license application every single year is required of every rally vendor. Prior-year licenses do not carry over. (SD Dept of Revenue)
  • Permanent license holders still need a temporary license if they operate from a temporary rally location, which is why the vendor count captures established Black Hills businesses too. (SD Dept of Revenue)
  • A temporary Department of Revenue office opens at Sturgis City Hall for the duration of the rally to process vendor licenses on site. (SD Dept of Revenue)

Safety, Crashes & Law Enforcement

The South Dakota Highway Patrol publishes a running rally tally each day of the event and a final tally afterward, broken into Sturgis zones and Rapid City zones. All figures below come from the final 2025 tally, compiled from 6 a.m. on August 2 to 6 a.m. on August 10, 2025.

A note on rally death counts. The Highway Patrol tally counts crashes it handled in the designated rally area during the official rally window. Wider counts that include every motorcycle crash across South Dakota, including the days immediately before and after the rally, produce higher totals. Both are legitimate, and they are not interchangeable. Please specify which one you are citing.

Regional Ripple Effects

The rally is routinely described as lifting the entire Black Hills economy. The primary data tells a more specific story. Mount Rushmore is busier in July than in rally-month August, and Deadwood gaming handle has been close to flat for three years despite swings in rally traffic. The rally clearly moves Sturgis and Meade County. Its effect further out is smaller than commonly assumed.

History: 1936 to 2026

Motorcycle Industry Context

National motorcycle safety data provides the backdrop against which rally crash figures should be read.

  • 6,228 motorcyclists killed nationally in 2024 one of the highest annual totals NHTSA has recorded since at least 1975. (NHTSA, 2024)
  • 16% of all US traffic fatalities were motorcyclists in 2024, far above their share of vehicle miles traveled. (NHTSA, 2024)
  • 40% of motorcyclists who died in single-vehicle crashes in 2024 were alcohol-impaired. (NHTSA, 2024)
  • South Dakota has no universal helmet law which is why Highway Patrol crash narratives from the rally routinely record whether riders were helmeted. (SD Highway Patrol, 2025)

Planning around these numbers

The daily count table above is the single most useful planning tool on this page. Traffic entering Sturgis peaks on the first Monday and Tuesday, not the opening weekend, and drops by roughly two thirds by the closing Sunday. If you want the rally without the worst of the congestion, the back half of the week is measurably quieter.

Those counts also explain why rally-week drive times bear no resemblance to a normal August. Our Black Hills driving distances guide gives the ordinary numbers between every base town and attraction, which is the baseline to pad against when I-90 is carrying an extra 60,000 vehicles a day. And if these figures are what convinced you to travel outside the rally entirely, our best time to visit the Black Hills guide works through the quieter windows month by month.

For dates, the daily rhythm of the ten days, the official rides, and August weather, see our Sturgis Motorcycle Rally 2026 guide.

For lodging, see our guide to Sturgis Rally hotels, or the wider Rapid City hotels and Deadwood hotels options, which is where a large share of rally visitors actually sleep.

If the crash and arrest numbers above brought you here because you are wondering whether the rally is safe to attend, our Sturgis first-timer guide puts these figures in context for visitors who do not ride.

Tracking the 2026 Numbers as They Land

Every figure on this page above is 2025 or earlier, because those are the numbers that exist. The 86th rally runs August 7 to 16, 2026, and the 2026 counts get published on a schedule that is worth understanding before you go looking for them. Three separate agencies publish three different datasets, on three different cadences, and they are routinely mixed together in news coverage.

Rally week status, as of August 11, 2026

The rally is on day 5 of 10. The Highway Patrol has now published three daily tallies, so 2026 enforcement and crash figures exist. Attendance does not yet. Here is exactly what has been published and what has not.

  • Published2026 crash and arrest totals through the morning of August 11. The Highway Patrol's running district totals stand at 3 fatal crashes and 3 fatalities, 21 injury crashes, 8 non-injury crashes, 54 DUI arrests, 108 misdemeanour and 46 felony drug arrests, 742 citations and 2,024 warnings. The tally is cumulative, not daily, and its own "last year to date" column is the honest comparison: injury crashes are well down (21 against 35 at the same point in 2025) while fatalities are level at 3 and DUI arrests are essentially flat (54 against 53).
  • Not yet published2026 attendance and vehicle counts. SDDOT publishes daily counts on weekdays only during the rally, then a final total after it ends. The 2025 final was 537,459 vehicles. No comparable 2026 number exists until SDDOT releases one.
  • Counted separatelyDeaths before the rally opened. Several fatal Black Hills motorcycle crashes happened in the days before the August 7 start. Those fall outside the Highway Patrol's rally tally window, so they are not inside the 3 above. Totals that merge the two are not comparing like with like.
  • ConfirmedRoad measures are in effect now. SDDOT reduced Interstate 90 from 75 to 65 mph between exit 55 in Rapid City and exit 30 in Sturgis from August 6 to 16. SD Highway 34 drops to 35 mph for about four miles east of Blanche Street in Sturgis, and SD Highway 79 drops to 45 mph across two segments totalling roughly three miles. Eight temporary traffic signals run from July 31 through August 17, including at SD 34 and Ft. Meade Way by the Buffalo Chip and at the Interstate 90 exit 55 eastbound ramp.

Sources: SDDOT, 2026 rally traffic measures, SD Highway Patrol daily rally tally. Live counts post to the SDDOT Rally Travel Information page as they are released.

Where 2026 Sturgis Rally statistics are published and how often
SourceWhat it measuresCadence
SDDOTVehicles entering Sturgis at nine monitoring locations. This is the number that becomes the headline attendance proxy.Weekdays only, next business day. SDDOT states plainly that counts are "released on weekdays, not weekends," so the opening Friday through Sunday arrive together in one release. The full Black Hills report follows the week of August 18.
SD Highway Patrol / DPSCrashes, injuries, fatalities, DUI and drug arrests, split into Sturgis zones and Rapid City zones.Daily, including weekends, posted the following morning on news.sd.gov. Each tally covers a 6am-to-6am 24-hour window, so a "Saturday" figure is not a calendar Saturday.
Monument HealthRally-related inpatients and 24-hour emergency visits across its Custer, Lead-Deadwood, Rapid City, Spearfish, and Sturgis hospitals.Daily each morning, announced to run August 8 through 16, 2026. A separate dataset from the Highway Patrol crash counts, and not interchangeable with them.

The crash numbers undercount, and the reason is structural

The Highway Patrol's rally tally counts crashes in western South Dakota only. A rider killed heading home through eastern South Dakota, Wyoming, or Nebraska does not appear in it, even though the trip was the rally. South Dakota News Watch has documented this directly. So when you see a headline fatality figure for any rally year, including every one in the table above, read it as a floor rather than a total. We report the official numbers because they are the official numbers, not because they are complete.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many people attend the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally?

There is no official headcount. The most reliable public measure is the South Dakota Department of Transportation vehicle count, which recorded 537,459 vehicles entering Sturgis during the 10 days of the 2025 rally. The City of Sturgis separately estimated 739,000 attendees for the record 75th anniversary rally in 2015 and describes the town of about 7,100 residents as becoming a city of more than 450,000 during a typical rally. Vehicle counts and attendance estimates are different measures and should not be used interchangeably.

How many people attended the 2026 Sturgis rally?

No official figure exists yet. The 86th rally runs August 7 to 16, 2026, and the South Dakota Department of Transportation does not publish a final vehicle count until after it closes. SDDOT releases daily counts on weekdays only during the rally, so opening-weekend numbers arrive together in one release rather than in real time. For scale, the 2025 rally finished at 537,459 vehicles and the all-time record is 747,032 from the 75th anniversary in 2015.

Have there been any deaths at the 2026 Sturgis rally?

The official count is the South Dakota Highway Patrol rally tally. Through the morning of August 11, 2026 it recorded 3 fatal crashes and 3 fatalities, alongside 21 injury crashes and 54 DUI arrests. It appears daily on news.sd.gov, covers a 6am-to-6am window, separates Sturgis zones from the Rapid City District, and reports running totals rather than single-day counts, with a "last year to date" column for comparison. Local news outlets reported several fatal motorcycle crashes in Pennington and Lawrence counties in the days before the August 7 opening, but crashes before the official rally window, or outside the western South Dakota rally area, do not appear in the Highway Patrol rally tally at all. Those are different measures and they are routinely conflated in headlines, so compare the tally against the tally: 2025 finished with four fatalities.

What was the biggest Sturgis rally ever?

The 75th anniversary rally in 2015. SDDOT counted 747,032 vehicles entering Sturgis, which remains the all-time record and sits about 39% above the strong 2025 count of 537,459. Attendance that year was estimated at 739,000 by the City of Sturgis.

How many people died at the 2025 Sturgis rally?

The South Dakota Highway Patrol final rally tally recorded four fatalities in four fatal crashes during the 2025 rally, up from three in 2024. Three of the four fatalities occurred in Rapid City patrol zones rather than Sturgis zones. That figure counts only crashes handled by the Highway Patrol in the designated rally area during the official rally window, so wider counts that include all South Dakota motorcycle crashes before and after the rally are higher.

Were there more crashes at the 2025 Sturgis rally?

Barely, but they were far more serious. Total crashes rose only from 89 to 93, yet injury crashes nearly doubled from 35 to 66 while non-injury crashes fell by exactly half from 54 to 27. The severity shift is the real story of the 2025 rally, and most coverage missed it.

How much money does the Sturgis rally generate?

The South Dakota Department of Revenue collected $1,581,736 in state sales, tourism and municipal taxes from the 2025 rally, a 13% increase over 2024. That is tax collected from licensed temporary vendors, not total visitor spending, so it is a floor rather than a full economic impact figure. Of that, $1,169,300 came from the Northern Black Hills and $412,436 from the Southern Black Hills.

How many vendors are at the Sturgis rally?

The 2025 rally had 1,181 licensed temporary vendors, a 32% increase over the 896 licensed in 2024. Vendors must apply for a new South Dakota temporary sales tax license every year, and businesses that already hold a permanent license still need a temporary one to trade from a rally location.

When is the 2026 Sturgis Motorcycle Rally?

The 86th Sturgis Motorcycle Rally runs August 7 to 16, 2026. The rally has used a 10-day format since 2017, when it expanded from seven days.

How does South Dakota actually count Sturgis rally traffic?

SDDOT uses portable road tube counters at nine entry points into Sturgis, including both ramps at I-90 Exits 30 and 32, US 14A, SD 34 near the Buffalo Chip, SD 79 north of Bear Butte, Vanocker Canyon Road and Ft Meade Way. Each counter records one vehicle for every two axles that strike the tube, and crews verify the counters daily. Counting began at the 50th rally in 1990, and from 2025 onward only the nine entering locations are counted.

Sources & Methodology

Every statistic on this page is drawn from one of the primary sources below. We do not cite secondary roundups, aggregator sites or other statistics pages. Where a figure required arithmetic on two published numbers, it is labeled as our calculation in the statistic itself.

Two measurement notes matter for anyone citing this page. First, SDDOT vehicle counts and City of Sturgis attendance estimates are different measures and should never be presented as the same figure. Second, the Highway Patrol rally tally covers the designated rally area during the official rally window only, so it is not a count of all motorcycle deaths in South Dakota during August.

Citing this page

Journalists and researchers are welcome to cite these figures. Please credit the underlying agency for the number itself, and link here if the compilation was useful. This page is updated daily during the August 7 to 16, 2026 rally as SDDOT and the Highway Patrol publish running counts.