How many rhinos are left in 2026? The latest counts for all five species

Published September 28, 2026

About 26,700 rhinos survive: an estimated 15,752 white, 6,788 black, 4,075 greater one-horned, about 50 Javan and 34 to 47 Sumatran. Those estimates, made by IUCN specialists and TRAFFIC for CITES and repeated in the International Rhino Foundation's State of the Rhino 2026, run to the end of 2024 in Africa and early 2025 in Asia. No new global count was published in 2026. South Africa has a newer national figure: at least 15,096 rhinos at the end of 2025.

World Rhino Day fell on September 22 and brought a round of rhino numbers. The global ones still rest on estimates from August 2025, because rhinos are not all recounted every year. National counts fill the gaps, each on its own schedule and by its own method, which is why careful sources can disagree.

Where does the figure of 26,700 come from?

It comes from one report, African and Asian Rhinoceroses: Status, Conservation and Trade, by TRAFFIC and the African and Asian Rhino Specialist Groups of the IUCN Species Survival Commission, commissioned by the CITES Secretariat for the treaty's 20th Conference of the Parties in November 2025. According to the IUCN press release of August 7, 2025, reported estimates put Africa at 22,540 rhinos at the end of 2024, down 6.7% in a year, and Asia at 4,159 to 4,172 by early 2025. Together that is roughly 26,700.

The International Rhino Foundation (IRF) publishes a State of the Rhino report every September, and its 2026 edition carries that same total, taken from the 2025 report. It also warns that many range states skip years or keep counts private, and that there is no single standard counting method.

So any 2026 article quoting 26,700 is quoting estimates made well over a year ago.

How many black rhinos are left?

An estimated 6,788 black rhinos lived in 12 African countries at the end of 2024. The species is Critically Endangered. IUCN's 2022 report put them at 6,195 at the end of 2021; after a dip of about 1% in 2023, they grew 5.2% in 2024, by IUCN's figures. The three surviving subspecies stood at about 2,597 south-western (D. b. bicornis), 2,720 south-central (D. b. minor) and 1,471 eastern (D. b. michaeli). A fourth, the western black rhino, was declared extinct in 2011.

Why is a growing species still Critically Endangered? Because criterion A of the Red List measures decline over 10 years or three generations, whichever is longer, not over the last few years. For the black rhino, the 2020 Red List assessment set that window at 44 years. It estimated 37,807 black rhinos in 1973 and 5,495 at the end of 2017, a fall of 85%, enough for Critically Endangered. If current conservation work continues, IRF reports, IUCN projects the population could reach 8,943 by 2032.

How many white rhinos are left, and is the northern white extinct?

An estimated 15,752 white rhinos lived in 13 countries at the end of 2024, making this the most numerous of the five species. It is listed as Near Threatened. It is also the species that fell: IUCN put the drop at 11.2% in 2024 alone. IRF lists heavier poaching in South Africa and Namibia, provinces and countries that had not updated their counts, and a possible overestimate in earlier years.

The northern white rhino, a subspecies, is functionally extinct. The last male died in 2018, leaving two females, Najin and Fatu, guarded by rangers at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. The BioRescue consortium of Kenyan, German, Czech and Italian partners is trying assisted reproduction instead. In an April 22, 2026 update posted by Ol Pejeta, it said an egg collection from Fatu early in the year had produced one more embryo, for 39 pure northern white embryos in all. Three transfers into southern white surrogates in the second half of 2025 did not become lasting pregnancies; six transfers had been made by April 2026.

How many greater one-horned rhinos are left?

An estimated 4,075 by the end of March 2025: 3,323 in India and 752 in Nepal. The species (Rhinoceros unicornis), also called the Indian rhinoceros, is Vulnerable. IUCN says it has kept growing since 2007, when there were 2,565. IRF says neither Assam nor Nepal recorded a single known case of the species being poached in 2025.

Nepal's 752 is older than it looks. It comes from the 2021 national census, which found 694 rhinos in Chitwan, 38 in Bardiya, 17 in Shuklaphanta and three in Parsa, according to a September 23, 2026 report in the Kathmandu Post. No national count has been held since. Nepal called off the 2025 census, citing a funding shortfall after the US withdrew USAID support, Mongabay reported in May 2025.

Now Nepal is preparing to change the method itself. The Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation is weighing genetic sampling, camera traps or both, with pilot studies first, the Post reported. Past counts divided the habitat into blocks and sent teams through on elephant back, about 40 elephants a day with two counters on each. During the 2021 census, a wild bull elephant ran into one of the survey elephants, which bolted, throwing a technician; he remains disabled, said Haribhadra Acharya, a senior ecologist at the department. "Risk is high, and it is also difficult to obtain the actual data," Acharya told the paper.

How many Javan rhinos are left?

About 50, according to IUCN, and every one of them lives in Ujung Kulon National Park at the western tip of Java. The Javan rhinoceros is Critically Endangered. That figure reflects a poaching disaster. Poachers killed 26 Javan rhinos between 2019 and 2023, a third of the known population, according to IUCN; IRF, citing the gangs' own confessions, gives 18 to 26. IRF says that after a 2024 investigation, Indonesian courts convicted one gang's leader and six members, with sentences of up to 12 years.

The count itself is disputed. At a World Rhino Day event in 2025, Satyawan Pudyatmoko, a director general at Indonesia's Ministry of Forestry, put the population at 87 to 100, Antara reported. Mongabay points out that the official tally has been questioned since 2023, when the Indonesian NGO Auriga Nusantara reported that animals missing from camera-trap footage for years, some of which turned out to be dead, had stayed on the books. The last formal Red List assessment, made in May 2019 and published in 2020, estimated 68 animals from camera trap data.

A species with one address is fragile. Indonesia's first attempt to move a Javan rhino, a male named Musofa, ended when he died on November 7, 2025, two days after reaching a study and conservation area inside the park. A necropsy found a significant parasitic infection affecting his stomach, intestines and brain, and park head Ardi Andono said the animal had long suffered from chronic illness before the move, the Jakarta Post reported. Then on September 4, 2026, Anak Krakatau, a volcanic island about 50 kilometers from the park, began erupting. Andono said on September 7 that the rhinos' habitat had been only minimally affected, Mongabay reported. IRF cites a population viability analysis forecasting possible extinction within five decades, though five new calves have been confirmed in recent years.

How many Sumatran rhinos are left?

An estimated 34 to 47, all in Indonesia, according to IUCN. On IUCN's figures that makes it the rarest of the five species. IRF puts the number around the turn of the millennium at nearly 300. The Sumatran rhinoceros is Critically Endangered. According to IRF, the survivors on Sumatra and in Kalimantan live in at most four isolated populations, divided into no more than 10 subpopulations, and only the population in Gunung Leuser is thought large enough to be viable. IRF cautions that counts from the 1990s and early 2000s may have run high, so the real fall may be smaller.

The Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Way Kambas National Park, a semi-wild breeding center, held 10 rhinos at the time of IRF's September 2026 report and has produced five calves since it opened in 1996. In August 2025, Bibhab Kumar Talukdar, who chairs the IUCN SSC Asian Rhino Specialist Group, cited the Javan poaching losses and the lack of any confirmed Sumatran rhinos in Sumatra's south in calling for a time-bound recovery plan for both species.

What changed on World Rhino Day 2026?

Two governments added national figures.

South Africa. The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) said on September 22 that the country's minimum national population at the end of 2025 was an estimated 15,096 rhinos, at least 2,565 black and 12,531 white, a rise of 4.9% on 2024. That rise lines up with IRF's country table, which had South Africa at 14,389 at the end of 2024, 2,307 black and 12,082 white, so on these figures both species grew in 2025. Poachers killed 230 rhinos nationally from January through August 2026, against 248 in the same months of 2025. In Kruger National Park the figures were 114 and 123. The department put 2025 poaching at 2.2% of the population, below an estimated sustainability threshold of 3.5%.

The September figures follow a February statement in which Minister Willie Aucamp reported 352 rhinos poached in 2025, 266 on state land and 86 on private land, down from 420 in 2024. The national fall hid a shift: Kruger's losses nearly doubled, from 88 to 175, while Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park fell from 198 to 63.

Kenya. The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) announced on September 22 that the expanded Tsavo West Rhino Sanctuary had been launched, covering 3,200 square kilometers, and called it the largest rhino sanctuary in the world. According to KWS, nearly 150 rhinos had been crowded into 92 square kilometers, where breeding slowed and fights increased. The project added 240 kilometers of fencing and 47 new water points.

Why do rhino counts differ between sources?

• Different dates. The IUCN figures stop at the end of 2024 for Africa and early 2025 for Asia. South Africa's 15,096 is a year newer.
• Minimums and ranges. DFFE calls its figure a minimum; the Sumatran figure is a range.
• Different methods. Nepal has counted from elephant back, Indonesia relies on camera traps, and African range states use methods suited to their own landscapes.
• Gaps. Several African countries in IRF's table still show estimates from 2023, and Nepal's figure dates from 2021.
• Revised baselines. IUCN's September 2024 release gave 17,464 white rhinos at the end of 2023. A drop from there to 15,752 would be 9.8%, not the 11.2% reported in 2025, so the newer report appears to use revised 2023 figures.
• Disputes. For the Javan rhino, IUCN's figure of about 50, which Mongabay describes as a minimum, sits far below the ministry's 87 to 100, and Auriga Nusantara's findings suggest the official method can overstate the living population.
• Stale text. Encyclopedia population lines, including the extracts our dossiers draw on, can lag years behind. When they disagree with a dated source, trust the dated source.

What is the difference between a rhino count and "mature individuals"?

A head count such as 6,788 includes every animal: calves, young adults and old bulls. Under the IUCN Red List guidelines, population size for the criteria "is measured as numbers of mature individuals only," meaning animals thought capable of breeding. That is why the black rhino's 2020 assessment gives 3,142 mature individuals while its own population section puts the total at 5,630 at the end of 2018. The Javan assessment inferred that perhaps a third of its 53 adults might breed, which gave 18 mature individuals out of about 68 animals. The Sumatran one lists 30 mature individuals against a total it put at fewer than 80.

Our guide on how to read an IUCN assessment shows where each kind of number appears.

Why are only three rhino species in this catalog?

This catalog lists animals whose IUCN category, as recorded on Wikidata, is Critically Endangered, Endangered or Extinct in the Wild; the page on what "in crisis" means explains the cutoff. The black, Javan and Sumatran rhinos are all Critically Endangered, so each has a dossier. The white rhino is Near Threatened and the greater one-horned rhino is Vulnerable, so neither qualifies. The northern white rhino, for all its fame, is a subspecies of the white rhino and has no dossier of its own.

Is poaching still the biggest threat to rhinos?

For the black rhino, the 2020 Red List assessment names poaching for the illegal horn trade as the main threat. Poaching has eased, but IUCN warns that the gains are fragile. Africa's poaching rate fell to 2.15% in 2024, the lowest since 2011. The rate divides a year's illegal killings by the number of rhinos at risk when that year began. Yet IUCN also reports that poaching surged in some range states between January and March 2025. In Chad, two black rhino cows were poached, and only two males remain in the country.

The horn trade behind it has not gone away. Seizure data in IUCN's summary still put horn at the top of the rhino products intercepted, though both the weight seized and the estimated horn count have been falling since a 2019 peak. South Africa is the country hit hardest by illegal horn trade, and Malaysia and Vietnam are the countries most often linked to it in that trade. The treaty side is covered in our pages on wildlife trade and the catalog and CITES and the pet trade.

Poaching is not the only pressure. IUCN's 2025 headline was that drought and other threats were driving losses even as poaching fell, and IRF argues that rhinos moved to new ranges only thrive where grazing and water are adequate and invasive plants are kept down. Degraded range is a form of habitat loss.

Key facts and dates

• August 7, 2025: IUCN publishes the figures prepared for CITES CoP20: 22,540 rhinos in Africa, 4,159 to 4,172 in Asia.
• November 7, 2025: Musofa, the first Javan rhino Indonesia has tried to translocate, dies two days after his move.
• February 10, 2026: South Africa reports 352 rhinos poached in 2025, down from 420.
• September 2026: IRF's State of the Rhino 2026 gives about 26,700 rhinos worldwide.
• September 22, 2026: World Rhino Day; South Africa reports at least 15,096 rhinos, and the Kenya Wildlife Service announces the launch of the expanded Tsavo West sanctuary.