Bridges

The National Bridge Inventory counted 41,685 of 624,193 highway bridges rated poor: a condition rating, not a safety finding in 2025, according to FHWA.

A poor rating is the lowest of FHWA’s four condition ratings for a bridge. It says how the bridge is rated, not that it is unsafe, and the pages never say that it is.

The year’s bridges, by condition rating

6.7% 41,685 of 624,193 bridges
Rated poor: 2025; The lowest rating is 0 to 4 on FHWA’s scale.; 49.6% 309,729 of 624,193 bridges
Rated fair: 2025; The lowest rating is 5 or 6.; 43.7% 272,779 of 624,193 bridges
Rated good: 2025; The lowest rating is 7 to 9.

About these figures

Rated poor: The lowest rating is 0 to 4 on FHWA’s scale.
Rated fair: The lowest rating is 5 or 6.
Rated good: The lowest rating is 7 to 9.

What stands out

Five findings. Figures from the 2025 inventory.

Iowa had the highest share of bridges rated poor in 2025: 18.6%, 4,423 of 23,716 bridges in that jurisdiction. Iowa →
Nevada has the smallest share in the ranking: 1.0% of its 2,123 bridges, 22 of them, were rated poor in 2025. Nevada →
41,685 of 624,193 bridges in the file, 6.7%, were rated poor in 2025. The nation →
A poor rating is FHWA’s condition rating, the lowest of four ratings, and is not a finding that a bridge is unsafe.
272,779 bridges carried a good rating in 2025, 43.7% of the 624,193 the file holds. The nation →
Good means the lowest of the deck, superstructure, substructure and culvert scores is 7, 8 or 9 on FHWA’s 0 to 9 scale: a condition score, not a judgment on safety.
State Highway Agency was the most common owner type in 2025: 290,912 of 624,193 bridges, 46.6%. State Highway Agency →
The file gives an owner type code, not an owner’s name, so no agency is named here.

What changed in this release

This is the hub’s first release, retrieved on November 5, 2026: 6.7% highway bridges rated poor by FHWA in 2025.

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Owner types

Each owner type code the file carries, nationally, in the wording of FHWA’s 1995 coding guide; a code the guide does not define is printed as its code and marked so. The file names no owner, only its type, so no row is an agency by name.

1 more column on a wider screen

The owner types of highway bridges in 2025, most bridges first
Owner type	Bridges	Share of all bridges	Share rated poor
State Highway Agency	290,912	46.6%	4.4%
County Highway Agency	226,268	36.2%	9.2%
City or Municipal Highway Agency	49,932	8.0%	6.5%
Town or Township Highway Agency	31,025	5.0%	10.5%
State Toll Authority	7,858	1.3%	2.5%
U.S. Forest Service	5,707	0.9%	7.6%
Other Local Agencies	1,654	0.3%	7.2%
Local Toll Authority	1,584	0.3%	0.6%
National Park Service	1,336	0.2%	4.5%
State Park, Forest, or Reservation Agency	1,232	0.2%	10.1%
Army	1,087	0.2%	10.5%
Bureau of Indian Affairs	1,062	0.2%	9.4%
Other State Agencies	927	0.1%	9.2%
Railroad	510	0.1%	33.1%
Bureau of Land Management	506	0.1%	2.4%
Private (other than railroad)	399	0.1%	6.5%
Unknown	370	0.1%	14.3%
Air Force	322	0.1%	8.4%
Bureau of Fish and Wildlife	309	< 0.1%	7.1%
Bureau of Reclamation	290	< 0.1%	5.5%
Corps of Engineers (Civil)	238	< 0.1%	13.4%
Navy/Marines	190	< 0.1%	4.2%
Indian Tribal Government	151	< 0.1%	17.9%
Local Park, Forest, or Reservation Agency	146	< 0.1%	12.3%
Metropolitan Washington Airports Service	56	< 0.1%	1.8%
Tennessee Valley Authority	33	< 0.1%	3.0%
Owner code 56, not defined in the 1995 guide	14	< 0.1%	0.0%
Owner code 40, not defined in the 1995 guide	13	< 0.1%	0.0%
Owner code 57, not defined in the 1995 guide	10	< 0.1%	20.0%
Owner code 55, not defined in the 1995 guide	9	< 0.1%	11.1%
Other Federal Agencies (not listed below)	9	< 0.1%	0.0%
NASA	7	< 0.1%	14.3%
Owner code 78, not defined in the 1995 guide	7	< 0.1%	0.0%
Owner code 79, not defined in the 1995 guide	7	< 0.1%	14.3%
Owner code 77, not defined in the 1995 guide	4	< 0.1%	0.0%
Owner code 58, not defined in the 1995 guide	3	< 0.1%	0.0%
Owner code 52, not defined in the 1995 guide	2	< 0.1%	0.0%
Owner code 59, not defined in the 1995 guide	2	< 0.1%	0.0%
Owner code 53, not defined in the 1995 guide	1	< 0.1%	0.0%
Owner code 54, not defined in the 1995 guide	1	< 0.1%	0.0%

States

Each state and the District of Columbia is one row in the ranking by the share of their bridges rated poor. Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are listed beneath it, unranked.

States by share of bridges rated poor

Questions

Analysis

Each brief is written around figures the Factbook’s queries return, and every figure in it is checked against the query that produced it, so the text and the data cannot drift apart.

Bridges rated poor: 6.7% nationally in 2025
In 2025, 41,685 of the 624,193 highway bridges in the National Bridge Inventory were rated poor, or 6.7% of them. The share is not even. Iowa has the highest share of any state or the District, 18.6%, and Nevada the lowest, 1.0%.
American Factbook · November 10, 2026

Everything in this hub

Every page in this topic, by kind.

Questions2

One question per page, answered in the first sentence with the figure.

Rankings1

The states and the District of Columbia in one ranking by the share of their bridges rated poor, with Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands beneath it.

States by share of bridges rated poor

Sources

National Bridge Inventory (highway bridges, annual file) — Federal Highway Administration, Office of Bridges and Structures · U.S. Government work

Compiled automatically from National Bridge Inventory (highway bridges, annual file) by a checked SQL query · Editor: Kian O'Connor · How this site is built

How to cite this page

Cite the page’s address and the date printed on it, and name Federal Highway Administration, Office of Bridges and Structures as the source of the figures.

American Factbook. “Bridges.” Updated November 5, 2026. https://americanfactbook.org/bridges. Source: National Bridge Inventory (highway bridges, annual file), https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/bridge/nbi.cfm.

Data year 2025, from the FHWA National Bridge Inventory

Data retrieved November 5, 2026