Brazil: a quarter of population are evangelical, new survey shows

Over a quarter of Brazil’s population identify as evangelical Christians, amounting to around 56 million people, while the number of Roman Catholics continues to gradually shrink, according to new research.

A census, carried out in 2022 by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), revealed that more than 80% of the nation’s 210 million population identifies as Christian (when Roman Catholics are included), although an increase in non-religious affiliation was also seen alongside encouraging statistics for evangelicals.

Evangelical Focus reports that evangelicals, including non-denominational churches, amounted to 26.9% of the population, rising to 31.6% among ten-to-14-year-olds, making evangelicalism the largest religious category in that age group. Pentecostals account for a strong proportion of the overall figure, accounting for 8.1%, while groups such as Baptists, Presbyterians and Methodists total a combined 3.2%.