How many people are in cryonic storage at the two largest US cryonics providers: about 50, about 500 or about 5,000?
About 500, or about 530 to be closer. Alcor’s homepage counts 263 cryopreserved patients (last edited April 2026), and the Cryonics Institute counted 268 in March 2025. The 530 is our sum of their own counts, taken at different dates.
Cryonics, sometimes called cryogenic freezing, is the practice of cryopreserving a body or brain after death in the hope of reviving it one day. Here “in storage” means people a provider lists as cryopreserved patients. Every count on this page is the provider’s own published figure, not an audited one, and each carries its own date. We found no official or worldwide count in our sources, so the total covers these two providers only.
Who is counting
Both figures are what each provider publishes about itself. Alcor’s homepage shows a counter, “263 Cryopreserved Patients”, with no date of its own, so we date it by the page’s last edit, April 28, 2026. The Cryonics Institute publishes a member statistics table, and its latest row is March 2025, with 268 patients. Its numbered patient list ends at the same number: patient 268, placed in storage on February 27, 2025.
Two counts taken 13 months apart make a rough total, not a census.
Calling Alcor and the Cryonics Institute the two largest US providers is our reading. People stored by other providers, in the United States or elsewhere, are not in the 530.
Signed up is a different number
Alcor lists 1,535 members, in 28 countries. The Cryonics Institute listed 1,995 members in March 2025. The word “member” does not mean the same thing at the two.
Alcor says, “There are two types of Alcor membership.” A Basic Member pays yearly dues and does not need funding arranged, while “a cryopreservation member has approved funding in place and has signed a cryopreservation agreement.” Alcor’s membership page describes its “over 1,500 members” as people who have “secured cryopreservation arrangements”, but none of the Alcor pages we used defines the count of 1,535 or says whether it leaves out dues only members.
At the Cryonics Institute, “Membership is an independent fee and does not include the cost of cryopreservation services.” Arranging the cryopreservation itself is a separate contract, with its own paperwork and payment.
So the two member counts are not like for like, and we do not add them. A member at one provider is not quite a member at the other.
The pets
In March 2025, the Cryonics Institute listed more pets in storage than people: 279 pets and 268 people. Both figures come from the same row of its own table.
Has anyone been revived?
The Society for Cryobiology addressed cryonics in a position statement in November 2018. It takes the position that “the knowledge necessary for the revival of live or dead whole mammals following cryopreservation does not currently exist and can come only from conscientious and patient research in cryobiology and medicine.” The same statement calls keeping a body or brain in storage after death, in the hope that a later generation can revive it, “an act of speculation or hope, not science”. It also says that preferences about what happens to a body or brain after death “are clearly a matter of personal choice”.
We found no report of any cryopreserved person being revived. Alcor’s own description treats it as a hope for later: its mission comes with “the aspirational goal that future advances in medicine may enable restoration to health”.
The nearest laboratory result is much smaller. In a 2023 study in Nature Communications, researchers vitrified rat kidneys, stored them for up to 100 days, rewarmed them by a method called nanowarming and transplanted them, and “all animals survived for the full 30-day study period”. That was one organ, in rats, taken for transplant rather than preserved after death. It was not a whole body brought back.
Data limits
Every count on this page is the provider’s own published figure, not an independent count. The dates differ: the Cryonics Institute’s latest row is March 2025, and Alcor’s figure is dated only by the last edit of its homepage. The total covers two providers only, and we found no world total; people stored by other providers are not in it. “Member” means different things at each provider, so the member counts are given separately. That no revival has been reported is our reading of the sources, backed by the Society for Cryobiology’s statement that the knowledge needed does not currently exist.
The short version
About 530 people are in cryonic storage at the two largest US providers, by their own counts: 263 at Alcor (homepage last edited April 2026) and 268 at the Cryonics Institute (March 2025). Their member counts, 1,535 and 1,995, are defined differently and are not added together. We found no report of any cryopreserved person being revived, and the Society for Cryobiology says the knowledge needed “does not currently exist”. Both counts change over time, and this page will be rechecked when they do.
Last checked: 2026-10-19, against the Alcor and Cryonics Institute websites and the Society for Cryobiology’s 2018 position statement. This article was machine-checked against the sources above and has not been expert-reviewed. Spotted an error or a newer public figure? Please tell us on our contact page with the article link and we will review it.
Sources
- S1 Alcor Life Extension Foundation, homepage, counters “263 Cryopreserved Patients”, “1535 Alcor Members” and “28 Countries” (page last edited Apr 28, 2026). https://www.alcor.org/ . Accessed Oct 19, 2026.
- S2 Alcor Life Extension Foundation, “Membership” (Basic Member and Cryopreservation Member). https://www.alcor.org/membership/ . Accessed Oct 19, 2026.
- S3 Alcor Life Extension Foundation, Press Kit, “Key Facts” and organization description. https://www.alcor.org/press/ . Accessed Oct 19, 2026.
- S4 Cryonics Institute, “Member Statistics” (latest row March 2025). https://cryonics.org/member-statistics/ . Accessed Oct 19, 2026.
- S5 Cryonics Institute, “Patient Details” (numbered patient list). https://cryonics.org/patient-details/ . Accessed Oct 19, 2026.
- S6 Cryonics Institute, homepage (membership terms). https://cryonics.org/ . Accessed Oct 19, 2026.
- S7 Society for Cryobiology, “Position Statement: Cryonics,” November 2018. https://www.societyforcryobiology.org/assets/documents/Position_Statement_Cryonics_Nov_18.pdf . Accessed Oct 19, 2026.
- S8 Zonghu Han, Joseph Sushil Rao, et al., “Vitrification and nanowarming enable long-term organ cryopreservation and life-sustaining kidney transplantation in a rat model,” Nature Communications 14, 3407, June 9, 2023. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-38824-8 . Accessed Oct 19, 2026.
- Method: each patient and member count is the provider’s own published figure at the date shown. The total of about 530 is Book of Odds arithmetic, our sum of two self-reported counts (263 + 268 = 531) taken at different dates; it is not a world total. Member counts are never added.