Private Club Member Retention Rate: What Is Good?

A good private club member retention rate is about 96% a year or better. The Club Management Association of America (CMAA) reports median member attrition of 4.3% at golf and country clubs, 3.3% at city and athletic clubs and 3.7% at yacht clubs, and no club type or revenue band it reports has a median above 5.7%, so retention below 94.3% is worse than every median it publishes.

• The benchmark: median member attrition of 3.3% to 5.7% across the club types and revenue bands in the CMAA 2022 Finance and Operations Report (440 responding clubs, 2021 data).
• The formula: retention rate = members on the roll at the start of the year who are still members at the end, divided by members at the start. New joiners are left out.
• The asset: a sourced benchmark table, a threshold table (the CMAA Median Line) and a worked dues-lifetime calculation for one point of retention.
• What this page is not: the renewal levers and calendar are on how to improve a private club’s renewal rate; winning back former members is on how to reactivate lapsed club members.

Rules of thumb

• If your attrition is above 5.7%, your club is losing members faster than the median of every CMAA club type and revenue band (CMAA 2022 report).
• If your club has 1,000 members, expect each point of attrition to mean 10 more resignations a year to replace (arithmetic: 1,000 x 1%).
• At $8,850 annual dues, those 10 resignations are $88,500 of dues a year (worked example below).
• Expected membership tenure is roughly one divided by the attrition rate: 4.3% attrition implies about 23 years, 5.3% about 19 (worked example below).

What is a good member retention rate for a private club?

A good private club member retention rate is about 96% a year or higher, because published median attrition for golf and country clubs is 4.3%.

The strongest public source is the CMAA 2022 Finance and Operations Report, which gathered data from 440 clubs on their 2021 year. Its executive summary gives median member attrition of 4.3% for golf and country clubs, 3.3% for city and athletic clubs, 3.7% for yacht clubs and 4.6% for CIRA clubs (clubs in residential communities). Retention is the reverse: 95.7%, 96.7%, 96.3% and 95.4%. These are medians, so half of the responding clubs lost more members than that.

A second, more recent read comes from Ray Cronin, founder of the benchmarking firm Club Benchmarking, quoted by Golf Digest in May 2025: “Attrition used to be 5 to 6 percent pre-pandemic, and now it’s closer to 3 to 4 percent.” The article defines attrition there as the number of resignations per year.

Private club attrition benchmarks by club type and size

Private club attrition benchmarks from CMAA range from a 3.3% median at city and athletic clubs to a 5.7% median at clubs with $3.5 million to $4.9 million in revenue.

Two cautions keep this table honest. The CMAA figures describe 2021, inside the pandemic period that Cronin says pulled attrition down, and the executive summary does not publish its exact attrition definition, so check whether your own figure counts deaths, relocations and category downgrades before you compare. The association row is there for contrast only: associations sell a lighter, cheaper membership, and the Wild Apricot summary of Marketing General’s 2023 report gives a 75% median renewal rate for new members. No equivalent public first-year figure exists for private clubs.

How to calculate member retention rate without flattering it

Member retention rate is the share of members on the roll at the start of a year who are still members at its end, with new joiners excluded.

The common mistake is comparing year-end and year-start totals: a 1,000-member club that loses 60 members and recruits 60 shows a flat roll, but its retention is 94%, below every CMAA median in the table above. Count the starting cohort, then track three numbers alongside it:

• Retention rate = starting members still on the roll at year end / starting members.
• Controllable attrition = resignations for cost, use, service or fit / starting members. Deaths and moves away sit outside it; CMAA-style comparisons often include them, so report both.
• First-year retention = members who joined last year and renewed this year / members who joined last year. It is the figure the published reports do not give you and the one that moves first.

Club advisers GGA Partners list member attrition among a club’s early-warning “canary” indicators and note that most clubs have historic reference points for members lost to mortality and relocation. A one-point rise against your own five-year average says more than a gap to a national median.

What one point of retention is worth: the dues lifetime calculation

One point of member retention at a 1,000-member club paying $8,850 dues is worth 10 members and $88,500 of dues every year.

The calculation below uses one sourced input, the CMAA median full family dues for golf and country clubs ($8,850 a year, 2021 data), and one round assumption, a 1,000-member roll (the CMAA average golf and country club reported 770 members). Expected tenure is approximated as one divided by the attrition rate, which assumes a steady rate and flat dues; dues lifetime is dues multiplied by tenure, undiscounted. Food, beverage and initiation fees are left out.

Uncapped tenures of 17 to 30 years overstate what a member is worth for spending decisions, so treat the last column as a ceiling; capping the horizon is covered on how to calculate club member lifetime value. Every extra resignation is a member your membership director must find, tour and admit just to stand still, at whatever your club spends to acquire one (the drivers are on what it costs to acquire a new private club member). Whether keeping or replacing is cheaper for a golf club specifically is worked through on golf club membership retention vs acquisition.

When a club’s retention rate signals a problem

A private club retention rate signals a problem when attrition passes 5.7%, the highest median CMAA reports for any club type or revenue band.

Call this the CMAA Median Line: place your controllable and total attrition against the published medians, then act on the band you land in.

Saving members who have already asked to resign is covered on how to reduce club membership cancellations.

Why first-year members drag a club’s retention rate down

First-year members drag a club’s retention rate down because, in the published association data, new members renew about 10 points less often than members overall.

CMAA’s executive summary does not split attrition by tenure, and we found no public first-year renewal benchmark for private clubs. The association contrast row in the benchmark table (85% median renewal overall, 75% for new members) is the nearest public evidence of how wide that gap can be; the renewal calendar that works on it is on the renewal-rate page linked above.

LeadsNow, which counts a private members club among its clients, recommends reporting first-year retention to the board as its own line, because a club can sit comfortably on the CMAA median overall while losing its newest cohort.

What tracking retention in-house costs

Tracking member retention in-house costs a few hours a month of membership-office time once the roll is held in a system that records join and resignation dates.

The work is a monthly roll export, a cohort count per joining year and a resignation log with a reason code for every leaver; a spreadsheet is enough. Where clubs fall down is the follow-up: phoning every first-year member before renewal and every lapsed member after it. That outreach is the part LeadsNow runs for clients, with 50,769+ AI-booked sales appointments since 2017; the membership marketing guide lays out the full recruit-and-renew system, and lead generation for private members clubs covers the done-for-you version.

Private club member retention rate: FAQ

What is a good member retention rate for a private club?

About 96% a year or higher. The CMAA 2022 Finance and Operations Report gives median attrition of 4.3% for golf and country clubs and 3.3% for city and athletic clubs (2021 data), and no club type or revenue band in the report has a median above 5.7%, so retention below 94.3% is worse than every median it publishes.

What is the average attrition rate at a country club?

The CMAA 2022 report puts median member attrition at 4.3% for golf and country clubs, from 440 responding clubs on 2021 data. Ray Cronin of Club Benchmarking told Golf Digest in 2025 that attrition is now closer to 3 to 4 percent, down from 5 to 6 percent before the pandemic.

How do you calculate member retention rate for a club?

Divide the members on the roll at the start of the year who are still members at year end by the members on the roll at the start. Leave new joiners out, or a club that lost and recruited the same number of members will show 100%.

How much is one point of member retention worth?

On this page’s worked example, a 1,000-member club paying the CMAA median golf and country dues of $8,850 loses 10 more members and $88,500 of dues a year for each extra point of attrition, before food, beverage and initiation revenue.

Sources

1. CMAA, 2022 Finance and Operations Report executive summary (2021 data, 440 clubs)
2. Golf Digest, Why it’s taking so long to get into golf clubs these days (May 2025)
3. Wild Apricot, summary of Marketing General’s 2023 Membership Marketing Benchmark Report
4. GGA Partners, 3 steps for successful member retention (2024)