The Federation of Free Evangelical Churches in Germany said it counted 504 congregations and 40,933 members as of Dec. 31, 2025, and reported a rise in baptisms that it called the clearest change in its recent statistics.
According to the federation's press release, issued Aug. 28, the number of people baptized on profession of faith rose from 1,491 to 2,624 over four years, an increase of about 76%. The number of baptismal services in the same period rose from 554 to 822.
The figures cover a small segment of German Christianity. Evangelicals are estimated at roughly 2% to 3% of Germany's population of about 84 million. The direction of travel, however, runs against that of the country's two largest churches, which reported a combined loss of about 1.2 million members during 2025.
The federation, known in German as the Bund Freier evangelischer Gemeinden (FeG), draws its data from internal statistics rather than state registers. Member churches are asked to report their figures every two years; the returns are checked for plausibility and reviewed by regional officers before being compiled. Several of the comparisons in the release are measured from 2021, when public health restrictions in Germany limited gatherings, baptisms and worship services.
Reported conversions and baptisms
The federation said member churches reported some 2,700 "decisions for faith in Jesus Christ" in the most recent two-year reporting period. It described this as higher than any comparable period in recent years, adding that the figure was regularly below 2,000 up to 2021 and stood at about 2,400 in 2023.
"These figures fill us with great joy and gratitude," Guido Sadler, the federation's managing director, said in the release. He said the churches were seeing people ask about God "whether for the first time or once again," and that the pattern showing itself in baptisms in particular was an encouragement.
Free evangelical churches practice baptism on profession of faith rather than infant baptism, so their baptismal totals reflect a different category of decision than those published by Germany's Protestant regional churches, which baptize infants as well as adults.
Attendance measured as a ratio
Worship attendance in the federation's churches is reported not as a headcount but as a ratio of attendances to membership. That ratio fell to 62% in 2021, recovered in 2023 and stood at 92% at the end of 2025, according to the release. The federation said regular worship life had returned almost entirely to its pre-pandemic level.
"We are glad and grateful that we have overcome the coronavirus dip," said Henrik Otto, who has served as the federation's president since 2024. "At the same time, we are not yet satisfied. The return to the earlier level is no reason for us to sit back."
The federation also said the number of "friends of the church" (people connected to a congregation without holding membership) has risen continuously in relation to membership in recent years and continued to rise even in years when membership fell. The release likewise stated that membership is again growing slightly after a dip in 2023.
Church planting and congregation size
The average size of a free evangelical congregation has fallen over the past six years from 84 members to a little more than 81, the federation said, attributing the decline largely to a growing number of new congregations, which typically begin small.
"Church planting is firmly part of the DNA of our federation of churches," said Sascha Rützenhoff, director of the federation's home mission arm. He said the aim was not only to maintain existing congregations but to keep founding new ones.
Sadler said the figures confirmed a decision to continue directing resources toward new congregations.
The federation reported that the average age of its members has risen by 1.2 years over six years and now stands at a little over 53 — a slower increase than demographic trends alone would suggest, it said, and one it linked to new congregations.
"We have overcome the coronavirus dip — and that is good. But we want more," Sadler said. "Behind every figure stand people who are discovering faith, experiencing fellowship, being baptized or setting out to found a new church."
The wider German picture
Germany's two large state-recognized churches have been losing members for decades, with a decline of roughly 3% a year since 2022. The Evangelical Church in Germany, the mainline Protestant umbrella body known as the EKD, reported about 17.4 million members at the end of 2025, down 3.2% from the previous year, with roughly 350,000 formal departures and about 330,000 deaths set against some 105,000 baptisms and 16,000 admissions. The Catholic Church in Germany reported about 19.2 million members, down from 19.8 million, with around 307,000 departures.
Together the two churches accounted for about 36.6 million people at the end of 2025, or roughly 44% of the population. This is a steep decline from over 90% of the population since the 1970s.
The Federation of Free Evangelical Churches was founded in 1874 and consists of independent local congregations, which do not receive the church tax collected by the state on behalf of the Protestant and Catholic churches. It is associated with the German Evangelical Alliance and belongs to both the Association of Evangelical Free Churches and the Council of Christian Churches in Germany.
