Bridge Condition by State, 2026
Every highway bridge longer than 20 feet is inspected and reported to the National Bridge Inventory. The 2026 release is below, state by state, plus D.C. and Puerto Rico.
- Bridges in the 2026 inventory
- 624,939
- Rated Poor, 6.6% of the count
- 41,148
- Rated Good, against 47.5% in 2009
- 43.0%
- Share of total deck area rated Poor
- 4.8%
Select a column heading to sort.
| Alabama | 16,181 | 5,591 | 10,062 | 528 | 3.3% | 2.0% | −192 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska | 1,664 | 747 | 790 | 127 | 7.6% | 7.9% | −14 |
| Arizona | 8,590 | 5,378 | 3,120 | 92 | 1.1% | 0.8% | −89 |
| Arkansas | 12,999 | 5,609 | 6,728 | 662 | 5.1% | 5.5% | +66 |
| California | 26,014 | 12,883 | 12,240 | 891 | 3.4% | 5.0% | −313 |
| Colorado | 9,018 | 2,882 | 5,736 | 400 | 4.4% | 3.6% | −55 |
| Connecticut | 4,355 | 1,082 | 3,077 | 196 | 4.5% | 6.0% | −140 |
| Delaware | 888 | 400 | 479 | 9 | 1.0% | 3.1% | −34 |
| District of Columbia | 261 | 91 | 166 | 4 | 1.5% | 5.7% | −5 |
| Florida | 13,162 | 7,569 | 5,226 | 367 | 2.8% | 1.4% | +134 |
| Georgia | 15,124 | 10,258 | 4,616 | 250 | 1.7% | 1.0% | −289 |
| Hawaii | 1,175 | 430 | 672 | 73 | 6.2% | 4.2% | +11 |
| Idaho | 4,645 | 1,644 | 2,753 | 248 | 5.3% | 3.3% | −112 |
| Illinois | 26,946 | 12,011 | 12,351 | 2,584 | 9.6% | 11.2% | +427 |
| Indiana | 19,575 | 8,136 | 10,335 | 1,104 | 5.6% | 4.0% | −360 |
| Iowa | 23,398 | 9,288 | 9,831 | 4,279 | 18.3% | 9.5% | −392 |
| Kansas | 24,945 | 12,706 | 10,869 | 1,370 | 5.5% | 3.6% | −88 |
| Kentucky | 14,611 | 3,834 | 9,595 | 1,182 | 8.1% | 7.0% | +123 |
| Louisiana | 12,647 | 4,627 | 6,716 | 1,304 | 10.3% | 5.2% | −230 |
| Maine | 2,538 | 635 | 1,516 | 387 | 15.2% | 10.0% | +48 |
| Maryland | 5,508 | 1,758 | 3,474 | 276 | 5.0% | 3.1% | −21 |
| Massachusetts | 5,333 | 1,231 | 3,560 | 542 | 10.2% | 12.7% | +74 |
| Michigan | 11,429 | 3,774 | 6,422 | 1,233 | 10.8% | 7.6% | +31 |
| Minnesota | 13,580 | 7,336 | 5,587 | 657 | 4.8% | 4.2% | −119 |
| Mississippi | 16,672 | 8,860 | 6,962 | 850 | 5.1% | 3.0% | −629 |
| Missouri | 24,696 | 9,068 | 13,470 | 2,158 | 8.7% | 7.6% | +34 |
| Montana | 5,253 | 1,706 | 3,116 | 431 | 8.2% | 6.7% | +62 |
| Nebraska | 15,421 | 8,005 | 6,281 | 1,135 | 7.4% | 4.8% | −343 |
| Nevada | 2,136 | 1,020 | 1,086 | 30 | 1.4% | 1.5% | +3 |
| New Hampshire | 2,554 | 1,283 | 1,073 | 198 | 7.8% | 5.2% | −51 |
| New Jersey | 6,811 | 1,715 | 4,702 | 394 | 5.8% | 7.3% | −174 |
| New Mexico | 4,053 | 1,328 | 2,533 | 192 | 4.7% | 3.0% | −58 |
| New York | 17,613 | 4,815 | 11,018 | 1,780 | 10.1% | 13.1% | −104 |
| North Carolina | 19,331 | 8,740 | 9,108 | 1,483 | 7.7% | 6.1% | −281 |
| North Dakota | 4,242 | 1,686 | 2,072 | 484 | 11.4% | 5.2% | −25 |
| Ohio | 26,786 | 15,919 | 9,497 | 1,370 | 5.1% | 4.1% | −512 |
| Oklahoma | 22,929 | 9,251 | 12,058 | 1,620 | 7.1% | 3.3% | −1,257 |
| Oregon | 8,325 | 2,470 | 5,426 | 429 | 5.2% | 3.0% | +31 |
| Pennsylvania | 23,333 | 8,134 | 12,481 | 2,718 | 11.6% | 6.7% | −1,712 |
| Rhode Island | 780 | 206 | 479 | 95 | 12.2% | 11.2% | −97 |
| South Carolina | 9,504 | 3,455 | 5,326 | 723 | 7.6% | 5.4% | −103 |
| South Dakota | 5,891 | 2,058 | 2,962 | 871 | 14.8% | 7.1% | −184 |
| Tennessee | 20,326 | 8,463 | 10,945 | 918 | 4.5% | 5.1% | −6 |
| Texas | 57,571 | 30,323 | 26,629 | 619 | 1.1% | 0.8% | −34 |
| Utah | 3,157 | 627 | 2,410 | 120 | 3.8% | 3.4% | +32 |
| Vermont | 2,875 | 1,175 | 1,583 | 117 | 4.1% | 4.1% | +34 |
| Virginia | 14,119 | 4,409 | 9,189 | 521 | 3.7% | 2.5% | −360 |
| Washington | 8,619 | 4,298 | 3,918 | 403 | 4.7% | 8.3% | +39 |
| West Virginia | 7,305 | 2,001 | 4,092 | 1,212 | 16.6% | 11.4% | −10 |
| Wisconsin | 14,428 | 6,590 | 6,918 | 920 | 6.4% | 5.5% | −172 |
| Wyoming | 3,150 | 826 | 2,081 | 243 | 7.7% | 7.6% | −76 |
| Puerto Rico | 2,450 | 400 | 1,707 | 343 | 14.0% | 11.3% | +75 |
| United States | 624,939 | 268,737 | 315,054 | 41,148 | 6.6% | 4.8% | −7,411 |
Download this table as CSV 52 rows, public domain source data
Where the Poor bridges are
Iowa has more bridges in Poor condition than any other state, 4,279 of its 23,398, which is 18.3% of its inventory and roughly one in every 10 Poor bridges in the country. Pennsylvania (2,718), Illinois (2,584), Missouri (2,158) and New York (1,780) follow. Raw counts track the size of a state's network as much as its upkeep, so the share column is the fairer comparison.
By share, the list changes. After Iowa, the highest proportions of Poor bridges are in West Virginia (16.6%), Maine (15.2%) and South Dakota (14.8%). At the other end, Delaware, Arizona and Texas each report close to one percent. Texas is in that group despite owning 57,571 bridges, the largest inventory in the country by a wide margin.
Count versus deck area
The federal performance measures that bind state transportation departments do not count bridges. Under 23 CFR 490.409 they weight each bridge by its deck area, length times width, so a long river crossing moves the figure far more than a short county span. On that basis the national Poor share drops to 4.8%, because the biggest structures tend to carry the most traffic and attract the most repair money.
The weighting reorders states too. New York has the largest share of deck area in Poor condition at 13.1%, followed by Massachusetts (12.7%) and West Virginia (11.4%). A state can look fine by count and poor by area when a few large crossings are in bad shape, or the reverse when the problem sits in thousands of small rural spans. Iowa is the clearest case of the second pattern.
What changed since 2016
Nationally the Poor count fell from 48,559 in 2016 to 41,148 in 2026. Pennsylvania cut its total the most, by 1,712, followed by Oklahoma (1,257 fewer) and Mississippi (629 fewer). A handful of states moved the other way, led by Illinois, which added 427 Poor bridges over the decade, and Florida with 134 more.
The less reported trend is at the top of the scale. In 2009, 47.5% of bridges were rated Good. In 2026 the figure is 43.0%. Fewer bridges are failing, and fewer are in their best years too, so the middle Fair band has grown to 315,054 structures. Fair bridges are the ones preservation money can still hold in place, which is why the size of that band matters to future repair budgets.
How the ratings work
Inspectors score a bridge's deck, superstructure and substructure, or the culvert, on a 0 to 9 scale. The lowest of those ratings sets the class: 7 or higher is Good, 5 or 6 is Fair, and 4 or lower is Poor. A Poor rating describes condition. It does not mean a bridge is about to fail, and owners post load limits or close a structure when an inspection finds it unsafe. The method is laid out in our guide to bridge inspection and ratings.
A few limits on the table. Guam did not report data for 2026, and the U.S. Virgin Islands reported 23 bridges that sit in the national total but not in the state rows. The 2016 comparison uses that year's table as published, so a state that reclassified or rebuilt a large share of its inventory shows the net effect only. For the national story behind these numbers, see the state of the bridge inventory.