More than half of America's credit unions are designated low-income lenders

America's credit-union system is bigger than most people picture, and more of it is formally organized around low-income communities than almost anyone assumes. The NCUA's 2026 Q1 roster counts 4,250 federally insured credit unions — 2,672 federal charters and 1,578 federally insured state charters — holding $2.48 trillion in assets, $1.73 trillion in loans outstanding, and 145.8 million memberships.

A few giants, a long tail

The median institution holds about $66 million in assets — the balance sheet of a small community lender, not a bank. The top of the distribution is somewhere else entirely: 466 credit unions, about 11 percent, hold more than $1 billion, and Navy Federal Credit Union alone holds $203.6 billion — 8.2 percent of the whole system's assets, 3.4 times the second-largest, State Employees' Credit Union of Raleigh, North Carolina, at $59.8 billion.

The low-income majority

Here is the under-appreciated fact: 2,379 of the 4,250 institutions — 56 percent — carry the NCUA's low-income designation, granted when a majority of a credit union's membership qualifies as low-income under the agency's rules. This is not just the long tail, either: designated institutions hold $1.35 trillion, 54.5 percent of system assets. The designation matters because of what it unlocks — a designated credit union may accept non-member deposits, issue subordinated debt that counts toward its regulatory net worth, and lend to member businesses beyond the aggregate cap that binds other credit unions. Those program rules are public record offered as context; the roster itself records only the flag. And the low-income designation is an NCUA regulatory status, not the same thing as CDFI certification, a separate Treasury Department designation with its own criteria.

New York, up close

New York's slice comes to 269 federally insured credit unions holding $133.8 billion. The largest is FourLeaf Federal Credit Union in Bethpage at $14.4 billion, followed by ESL in Rochester ($10.6 billion — one of the designated majority) and United Nations Federal Credit Union ($10.5 billion). The Hudson Valley's giant, Hudson Valley Credit Union in Poughkeepsie, holds $8.1 billion — sixth-largest in the state — and is not low-income designated. For how the region's small-business credit actually flows, see our county-by-county SBA breakdown.

The question this roster can't answer

For small-business lenders the designation is a gateway, because the member-business-lending exemption removes exactly the constraint that keeps most credit unions marginal in commercial credit. But this roster carries no business-lending fields at all: it can say who holds the designation, not who uses it. Sizing credit-union small-business lending takes the NCUA's 5300 call-report data — a future piece. What the designation share establishes now is the footprint: more than half of the credit-union system is formally oriented toward low-income membership, the same communities where SBA microloan intermediaries do their work — and building lending capacity for community institutions like these is the problem CircumFi works on.

About the data

All figures come from the NCUA's roster of federally insured credit unions for the 2026 Q1 reporting cycle — a single-quarter snapshot, which is why this piece draws no trend chart. Dollar figures are as reported to the NCUA, in whole dollars. The universe is federally insured institutions only: privately insured and state-insured credit unions — including most of Puerto Rico's cooperativas, insured by COSSEC rather than the NCUA — sit outside it. State figures slice the roster by mailing address, so each institution counts wholly in one state regardless of where its members live. Member counts are memberships as filed, and one person can be counted at more than one institution.