Largest Electric Cooperatives in the US, Ranked by Customers

The largest electric cooperative in the United States is Pedernales Electric Cooperative in Texas, with 474,954 customers in the U.S. Energy Information Administration's 2025 data. Middle Tennessee Electric Membership Corporation is second with 348,660 customers, and Denton County Electric Cooperative in Texas is third with 337,015. The ranking below covers the 20 largest.

Every number on this page comes from Form EIA-861, the annual survey of US electric utilities. The data year is 2025 and the tables were added up from the spreadsheets in the 2025 final release. If you came here to learn what an electric cooperative is, start with that page. If you came to see which ones are biggest and by how much, read on.

What counts as an electric cooperative in this ranking

EIA's glossary defines a cooperative electric utility as "an electric utility legally established to be owned by and operated for the benefit of those using its service." EIA's survey instructions give the ownership code for the same group in two words: "Member-owned organizations." In the data file, every utility carries an ownership type, and this page keeps only those marked Cooperative.

Two choices shape the list:

• Retail distribution co-ops only. The ranking covers cooperatives that sell electricity to end customers: homes, farms, businesses and industry. Generation and transmission cooperatives, which sell wholesale power to the local co-ops, are a separate tier and are not ranked here. America's Electric Cooperatives (NRECA) counts 60 of them alongside 830 distribution co-ops.
• Customers, not members. EIA counts customers, and for each one the instructions ask utilities to enter "the average of the 12 close-of-month customer accounts." A co-op's own annual report may count members or meters instead, so its figure can differ from the one in this table.

Where a utility reports customers in more than one state, the customers are added together and every state is shown. Names are EIA's abbreviations: "Elec" is Electric, "Coop" is Cooperative, "E M C" is Electric Membership Corporation.

The 20 largest electric cooperatives by customers

The table ranks retail distribution co-ops by total customers, which is the sum of residential, commercial, industrial and transportation customers. Sales are the megawatt-hours (MWh) the co-op sold to those customers during 2025.

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Form EIA-861, data year 2025, files Sales_Ult_Cust_2025.xlsx ("States" sheet, bundled service, ownership "Cooperative") and Short_Form_2025.xlsx. Customers and sales are the "Total" columns. The 20 rows add up to 4,463,359 customers, which is 19.6% of the 22,823,056 customers reported by all cooperatives in the same files.

What the ranking shows

Texas, Georgia and Florida dominate the top of the list. Georgia has five of the 20 (Jackson, Cobb, Sawnee, GreyStone and Walton), Texas has four (Pedernales, Denton County, Magic Valley and Bluebonnet) and Florida has four (Lee County, Sumter, Withlacoochee River and Clay). Virginia has two, and Tennessee, Colorado, Maryland, Minnesota and North Carolina have one each.

Several of the biggest names carry "Membership Corporation" in their legal name. That is a naming label from state law, covered on the electric membership corporation page, and it describes the same member-owned model.

The first place is not close. Pedernales has 126,294 more customers than Middle Tennessee, the number two. Below the top three, the gaps are small: ranks 8 through 15 sit within about 70,000 customers of each other, and ranks 11 and 12 are separated by only 317.

The 10 largest by energy sold

Customers and sales do not rank the same. A co-op with a few very large commercial or industrial customers can sell far more energy than a larger co-op serving mostly homes. Ranked by 2025 sales to end customers, the top 10 are:

Source: same files as above, data year 2025.

Two co-ops in this table show the effect clearly. Umatilla Electric Cooperative in Oregon serves 16,862 customers and sold 9,969,504 MWh. In the file, its commercial customers account for 9,071,660 MWh of that, about 91%, and its residential customers for 182,705 MWh. Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative ranks 12th by customers but first by sales: its commercial class bought 12,333,428 of its 14,649,199 MWh, about 84%. The file records what each co-op sold to each class; it does not say who the commercial customers are.

How big is the typical electric co-op?

The ranking above sits at the top of a long list. In the 2025 federal files, 807 cooperatives report retail customers. Of these, 551 appear in EIA's long-form sales file and 256 in its short-form file, which reports only totals for each utility. Together they report 22,823,056 customers and 533,021,034 MWh sold.

The average is 28,281 customers per co-op, but the median is much lower, at 15,724, because a small number of large systems pull the average up. The table shows how the 807 are spread.

Source: Form EIA-861, data year 2025, long and short form files, cooperatives with bundled retail service.

Two readings follow. First, most electric co-ops are small: 549 of the 807 serve fewer than 25,000 customers, and the 43 that serve 100,000 or more account for 31% of all co-op customers. Second, the biggest co-ops are not the typical member's co-op. Most members belong to a mid-sized or small system run by a local board.

Which states have the most electric co-ops

A co-op is counted in every state where it reports customers, so a cooperative that crosses a state line appears in both. These ten states have the most co-ops reporting retail customers in 2025.

Source: Form EIA-861, data year 2025, long and short form files. Customers are those reported in the state, not the co-op's total.

The pattern matters for reading the first table. Georgia has fewer co-ops than Texas but more of the very large ones: five of the top 20, against four for Texas. Iowa has as many co-ops as Georgia and Missouri, but about a tenth of Georgia's customers, an average of about 5,900 per co-op against about 55,000 in Georgia.

Why the federal data and other counts disagree

Counts of US electric co-ops vary by source. America's Electric Cooperatives (NRECA) says 830 distribution cooperatives and 60 generation and transmission cooperatives. NRECA also says it represents "more than 900 consumer-owned, not-for-profit electric cooperatives, public power districts, and public utility districts," a wider group that includes public power. The EIA files list 807 cooperatives with retail customers in 2025, a narrower test: a cooperative must report customers in the survey, and EIA must classify it as a cooperative.

NRECA also says its co-ops "serve 42 million people" and "power more than 23 million businesses, homes, schools and farms in 48 states." The second figure is close to the 22.8 million customers in the EIA files. The first counts people, not accounts.

None of these numbers is wrong. Each answers a slightly different question, which is why a ranking should always name its source and its year.

How to look up your own co-op

Your electric co-op's name is printed on your bill, along with an account number and a phone number. That is the quickest way to know which utility serves you, and the name on the bill is the name to look for in the tables above.

If you want to see where your co-op sits in the federal data, you can open the public file yourself:

1. Go to the EIA-861 page and download the 2025 data zip.
2. Open Sales_Ult_Cust_2025.xlsx, then the "States" sheet.
3. Filter the "Ownership" column to Cooperative and the "State" column to your state.
4. Read the "Customers" column under TOTAL for your co-op's row.

Small co-ops that file the short form appear in Short_Form_2025.xlsx instead, on its "861S" sheet, with total customers in the "Total Customers" column.

Touchstone Energy also publishes a finder for the co-ops that belong to its network. See Touchstone Energy Cooperatives for what that network is and what it does not cover.

Once you know your co-op, the questions that matter most to a member are usually financial: whether it pays capital credits, how its board is elected and how its rates compare with the utility next door. The electric cooperative vs investor-owned utility guide covers the comparison.

Limits of the ranking

• It is a snapshot of one year. Customer counts change as co-ops grow, and the 2025 file reflects 2025 only.
• Customers are not members. A co-op's own report may use a different count.
• Names are abbreviated. EIA shortens names, as in "Elec Coop" for Electric Cooperative.
• Only co-ops with retail service are ranked. Generation and transmission co-ops, which are large businesses, are not in this table.
• Ownership comes from the file. A utility is a cooperative here if EIA's ownership type says so.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the largest electric cooperative in the United States?

By customers, it is Pedernales Electric Cooperative in Texas, with 474,954 customers in EIA's 2025 data. By energy sold, the largest is Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative, with 14,649,199 MWh. The two measures give different answers because a co-op with a few very large commercial customers can sell more energy than a co-op with more households.

How many electric cooperatives are there in the US?

It depends on the source. The EIA-861 files for 2025 list 807 cooperatives with retail customers. America's Electric Cooperatives says 830 distribution co-ops and 60 generation and transmission co-ops. Each count uses its own definition of who is included.

How many customers do electric cooperatives serve?

The 2025 EIA files show 22,823,056 customers across the 807 cooperatives that report retail service. America's Electric Cooperatives says its members power more than 23 million businesses, homes, schools and farms in 48 states and serve 42 million people.

Is the biggest electric co-op the one with the most members?

Not necessarily. This ranking counts customers as reported to EIA, using the average of the 12 close-of-month customer accounts. A co-op may count members or meters in its own reports, so its stated figure can differ.

Which state has the most electric cooperatives?

Texas, with 67 cooperatives reporting retail customers in the 2025 data, followed by Minnesota with 46. Georgia, Missouri and Iowa each have 42. A co-op that serves customers in two states is counted in both.

Are the largest electric co-ops still member-owned?

Yes. EIA defines a cooperative electric utility as one "legally established to be owned by and operated for the benefit of those using its service." Size does not change the ownership model. The biggest co-ops still answer to members, who elect the board.

Do the biggest co-ops pay the most capital credits?

Capital credits depend on each co-op's margin, on how much each member paid for electricity and on when its board decides to retire older allocations. Size alone does not set any of those. The capital credits page explains the steps.

How do I find out which electric co-op serves my home?

Look at your electric bill for the utility's name, or ask the utility directly. The federal data tables above show co-op names by state, but address-level service areas are set by each co-op, so the bill is the reliable answer.

Where to go next

• Electric Cooperatives: the full guide to how electric co-ops work
• Electric Membership Corporations: the EMC form and the largest EMCs
• Generation and Transmission Cooperatives: the wholesale tier behind the local co-ops
• Capital Credits: how members get their share of the margin
• Touchstone Energy Cooperatives: the national brand network of electric co-ops
• Energy Cooperatives: electric, community solar and fuel co-ops compared