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114 statistics | 100% primary government sources

Sturgis Motorcycle Rally Statistics (2026)

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

Updated: August 29, 2026 | Highway Patrol Aug. 16 preliminary tally added

448,166

2026 vehicles

-10.0%

vs 5-year avg

537,459

2025 vehicles

3

2026 fatalities*

Impact Summary: The 2026 Rally, and What 2025 Still Shows

The 86th Sturgis Motorcycle Rally counted 448,166 vehicles entering a town of about 7,100 residents from August 7 to 16, 2026. That is 10.0% below the 2021-2025 average of 498,042 and the lowest 10-day total in SDDOT's series since 2011. Opening Saturday, August 8, was the busiest day at 58,519; Wednesday then fell 23.6% below average. The 85th rally in 2025 remains the comparison year: 537,459 vehicles, $1,581,736 in tax from 1,181 licensed vendors, and a Highway Patrol tally of 4 fatalities with injury crashes nearly doubling from 35 to 66. The Highway Patrol\'s published August 16, 2026 tally lists 3 fatalities, 39 injury crashes, and 114 DUI arrests. The agency calls that tally preliminary, so it is presented here as the latest published count rather than a final.

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 114 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(36)
  2. 2.Economic Impact & Tax Revenue(16)
  3. 3.Vendors & Business Activity(8)
  4. 4.Safety, Crashes & Enforcement(26)
  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
2026
448,166

2012: Highest non-anniversary year

2015: 75th anniversary, all-time record

2017: First 10-day rally

2020: 80th anniversary

2023: Previous series low until 2026

2025: 85th anniversary, highest since 2015

2026: Lowest 10-day count in the 2011-onward series

Daily vehicle counts, 2026 rally

Source: SDDOT vehicle count through day ten, August 17, 2026. Change is against the 2021 to 2025 average for that rally day, as published by SDDOT. The agency released the daily percentages and the 10-day total of 448,166 against a five-year average of 498,042 (down 10.0%). The page separates that entering-Sturgis measure from the wider Black Hills traffic datasets, which are reported independently.

Day2026 vehiclesvs 5-yr avg
Fri, Aug 754,515+2.9%
Sat, Aug 858,519+2.5%
Sun, Aug 955,448-7.5%
Mon, Aug 1055,226-8.4%
Tue, Aug 1151,742-11.8%
Wed, Aug 1242,964-23.6%
Thu, Aug 1341,702-18.1%
Fri, Aug 1439,716-14.3%
Sat, Aug 1528,679-17.4%
Sun, Aug 1619,655-5.7%
Total448,166-10.0%

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.

What Is Still Outstanding After the 2026 Rally

The 86th rally closed August 16, 2026. SDDOT has published the 10-day entering-Sturgis vehicle count. Three separate agencies still publish three different datasets on three different cadences, and they are routinely mixed together in news coverage.

Post-rally status, as of August 29, 2026

Vehicle counts for the 10 official days are in, and the Highway Patrol has published its August 16 rally tally. Here is what this page can state from primary sources.

  • Published2026 vehicle counts through day ten. SDDOT counted 448,166 vehicles entering Sturgis from August 7 to 16, 10.0% below the 2021-2025 average of 498,042. Opening Friday and Saturday ran slightly above average; every day after Sunday ran below it.
  • Published through Aug. 162026 crash and arrest totals through August 16. The Highway Patrol's published district total is 3 fatal crashes and 3 fatalities, 39 injury crashes, 31 non-injury crashes, 114 DUI arrests, 221 misdemeanour and 108 felony drug arrests, 1,709 citations, and 4,572 warnings. The agency labels every figure in this tally preliminary.
  • Not yet incorporatedGreater Black Hills traffic, Department of Revenue tax collections, and vendor totals.Those datasets are reported on different schedules and are deliberately kept separate from the entering-Sturgis vehicle count and preliminary Highway Patrol tally above.
  • 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.
  • EndedTemporary speed reductions and signals. Interstate 90 dropped from 75 to 65 mph between exit 55 in Rapid City and exit 30 in Sturgis from August 6 to 16. Temporary signals were scheduled through August 17.

Sources: SDDOT, 2026 day-ten vehicle count, 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 448,166 vehicles entering Sturgis during the 10 days of the 2026 rally. That is 10.0% below the 2021-2025 average of 498,042 and 16.6% below the 2025 count of 537,459. 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?

There is no official headcount. SDDOT counted 448,166 vehicles entering Sturgis from August 7 to 16, 2026, the lowest 10-day total in the series it has published since 2011. That is 10.0% below the previous five-year average of 498,042 vehicles and 16.6% below 2025's 537,459. Opening weekend ran near or above average; counts then dropped through the second week, with Wednesday, August 12, 23.6% below average. The all-time record remains 747,032 vehicles in 2015.

Have there been any deaths at the 2026 Sturgis rally?

The South Dakota Highway Patrol's published August 16, 2026 rally tally records 3 fatal crashes and 3 fatalities, alongside 39 injury crashes and 114 DUI arrests. The agency labels those totals preliminary. Its tally covers a 6am-to-6am window, separates Sturgis zones from the Rapid City District, and should not be mixed with wider reports of motorcycle crashes before or outside the official rally period. For comparison, the 2025 final Highway Patrol tally recorded 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 ran August 7 to 16, 2026. The 87th rally is scheduled for August 6 to 15, 2027, on the official rally dates page. The rally has used a 10-day format since 2017, when it expanded from seven days.

When is the 2027 Sturgis Motorcycle Rally?

The 87th Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is scheduled for August 6 to 15, 2027, according to the official rally dates page.

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 when SDDOT and the Highway Patrol publish new figures.