BY THE NUMBERS · ROMANCE BOOKSTORES
How Many Romance Bookstores Are There? U.S. and Worldwide Counts
By Romance Book Guide Editorial · Last checked October 2026
The latest answer to how many romance bookstores are there: 335 brick-and-mortar shops worldwide, 235 of them in the U.S., as of September 30, 2026, according to the Romance Bookstore Directory. Add online and pop-up shops and it's 534 worldwide and 384 in the U.S.
When The Ripped Bodice opened in Culver City, California, in 2016, it was reported as the country's first romance-only bookstore. Now the directory counts more than two hundred U.S. shops with a significant romance focus.
Which number you need depends on three things:
- Where? The U.S. (235) or the whole world (335).
- What kind of shop? A store you can walk into (335), or the directory's broader total including online shops and pop-ups at markets and fairs (534).
- What's being counted? Shops open at the snapshot date, or shops that opened over a stretch of time. You'll see 232 in the news. That's a count of openings, not shops open today.
How many romance bookstores are there in the U.S. and worldwide?
If you mean a place you can walk into, use the storefront row: 235 in the U.S. and 335 worldwide. If your question includes online shops and pop-ups, use the bigger row: 384 in the U.S. and 534 worldwide.
| Kind of shop | United States | Worldwide |
|---|---|---|
| Storefronts you can walk into | 235 | 335 (in 12 countries) |
| Storefronts + online shops + pop-ups | 384 | 534 |
Don't add the two rows together. The bigger row already includes the storefronts. And one shop can wear several hats. A store might have a front door, a website and a booth at the weekend market, so the directory's categories overlap. The directory also lists shops marked "coming soon." Counting those, it had 550 entries in all. A shop marked "coming soon" can already sell online or at pop-ups; 550 is the directory-wide total including planned entries, not a count of open storefronts.
About 7 in 10 romance storefronts in the September snapshot are in the U.S. The other 100 are spread across 11 more countries.
Our estimate for October 31 and year-end 2026
Through September 2026, the worldwide count had grown by an average net gain of about 11 storefronts a month, and the U.S. count by about 8, according to the directory's revised figures. If that pace continued, here's what it would imply. These are Romance Book Guide estimates, not anyone's official count. They assume a steady net gain; they do not predict confirmed openings or account for seasonality or later data revisions.
| Date | Storefronts worldwide (estimate) | Storefronts in the U.S. (estimate) |
|---|---|---|
| October 31, 2026 | about 346 | about 243 |
| December 31, 2026 | about 369 | about 260 |
If you need a number to print, use the dated count above, not our estimate.
Published romance bookstore counts, side by side
Here are the counts we compared, newest first, with what each one actually measures. Most numbers that seem to disagree aren't wrong. They're counting different things on different dates.
| Count as of | Who reported it | Number | What it counts | Where |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sept 30, 2026 | Romance Bookstore Directory | 335 | Storefronts with a big romance focus | Worldwide, 12 countries |
| Sept 30, 2026 | Romance Bookstore Directory | 235 | Same, U.S. only | United States |
| Sept 30, 2026 | Romance Bookstore Directory | 534 (384 in the U.S.) | Storefronts + online + pop-up shops | Worldwide / U.S. |
| Aug 31, 2026 | Romance Bookstore Directory | 326 (227 in the U.S.) | Storefronts | Worldwide / U.S. |
| July 31, 2026 | Romance Bookstore Directory | 300 (211 in the U.S.) | Storefronts | Worldwide / U.S. |
| July 17, 2026 (reported) | American Booksellers Association, via Publishers Weekly | 232 | Storefront and mobile romance shops that opened in the past three years | United States |
| June 2026 (list update) | Author Sarina Bowen's list | "100+" | Romance bookstores on her personal list | Mostly North America |
| May 31, 2026 | Romance Bookstore Directory | 276 (193 in the U.S.) | Storefronts | Worldwide / U.S. |
| April 2026 update (published May 4) | Romance Bookstore Directory | 272 (189 in the U.S.) | Storefronts | Worldwide / U.S. |
| Dec 31, 2025 | Romance Bookstore Directory (December report) | 218 (150 in the U.S.) | Storefronts | Worldwide / U.S. |
| Sept 30, 2025 | Romance Bookstore Directory | 150 (111 in the U.S.) | Storefronts | Worldwide / U.S. |
| July 16, 2025 (reported) | American Booksellers Association CEO, via AP | 157 | Romance bookstores that are ABA members | United States |
| April 12, 2025 | Romance Bookstore Directory | 103 (75 in the U.S.) | Storefronts | Worldwide, 9 countries / U.S. |
| March 21, 2025 | Romancing the Data, guest post on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books | at least 91 | Storefronts | Worldwide |
| July 7, 2024 | The New York Times, as quoted by Romancing the Data | more than 20 | Dedicated romance bookstores | United States |
Want the actual shops, not just the number? The Romance Bookstore Directory lists them, with filters by country and region.
Why do other sources give different numbers?
Two numbers can both be true because they measure different things. Before you trust or quote a figure, check five things: what counts as a romance bookstore, what kind of shop, who's included, whether it's a total or an openings count, and the date.
1. "Romance bookstore" isn't one rule. The directory counts shops with a big focus on romance, judged by how they describe themselves or what they stock. That includes romance-and-fantasy shops. A strict "romance only" count would use a narrower rule. We did not find a directly comparable total.
2. Storefront, online or pop-up. 335 is storefronts. 534 adds shops that sell online or set up at markets and events.
3. Everyone, or members only. The 157 figure from July 2025 counted only romance shops that belong to the American Booksellers Association. Not every shop joins. It's also more than a year old.
4. Open now, or opened since. The ABA's 232, reported in July 2026, counts storefront and mobile romance shops that opened in the U.S. over three years. It does not tell us how many remain open. It isn't a total of shops open today.
5. Counts get corrected. Trackers keep finding shops that opened a while ago. In its August 2026 update, the directory added several Australian shops after a reader pointed it to an Australian romance readers' list. Being newly added to the directory does not establish when those businesses opened. The same thing changes old totals. The directory reported 218 storefronts worldwide at the end of 2025. When it revised that year in September 2026, the number was 234.
A worked example. Say you're writing a post about a romance shop opening in your town, and you find two numbers from the same month. In July 2026, the directory showed 211 romance storefronts open in the U.S. The same month, Publishers Weekly reported the ABA's 232 openings over three years. They don't contradict each other. One counts storefronts open that month. The other reports storefront and mobile openings over the three-year period covered by the report. It does not establish how many remained open. If your sentence is "there are X romance bookstores in America," the 211 (or September's 235) is the one that fits, with its snapshot date attached.
One more number you might bump into: the Bookstore Romance Day store finder. It lists independent bookstores that signed up to celebrate romance on August 15, 2026. Plenty of general bookstores join, so it's a great way to find a romance-friendly shop. It isn't a count of romance bookstores.
What counts as a romance bookstore?
A romance bookstore is a shop where romance is the main event, not one shelf in the back. The directory behind these counts includes any shop with a big romance focus, even if it also sells other genres.
That leaves room for a lot of different shops. Some sell only romance. Some pair romance with fantasy. Some started as a bookmobile or a market table and grew into a storefront. When you're counting, those differences matter.
Five real shops that show why the rules matter
Real shops don't always fit in one tidy box. These five examples come from the shops' own websites or news reports, checked October 23, 2026. They show how a counting rule changes the total. They aren't additions or corrections to the directory's count.
| Shop | What we confirmed | Why it matters for a count |
|---|---|---|
| Steamy Lit | Its website lists three Florida locations: Fort Lauderdale, Miami Springs and Tampa. | One brand, three locations. Counting brands and counting locations give different totals. |
| A Little Love Bookshop | Listed in the directory as an online romance shop based in Sydney, Australia. | It belongs in a worldwide count of all sellers, but not in a count of U.S. shops you can visit. |
| A Novel Affair Bookshop | A mobile shop in a restored Airstream trailer in Colorado, plus a booth inside the Maker's Market at Southwest Plaza in Littleton. | Is a booth inside another business a storefront? Each counting rule has to decide. |
| A Romance Court | A romance and fantasy bookshop in Gràcia, Barcelona, with posted opening hours. | A big romance focus doesn't have to mean romance only. It also counts toward the world total, not the U.S. one. |
| Exes & Ohs Books | Ran as a pop-up for five months, then opened a storefront in Bozeman, Montana, in August 2026, according to Shelf Awareness. | A new storefront can belong to an existing business. |
How fast has the number grown?
Fast. In the U.S., romance storefronts went from 5 at the end of 2022 to 160 at the end of 2025, and 235 by September 30, 2026. Worldwide, the count went from 10 to 335 over the same stretch.
| End of | Storefronts in the U.S. | Storefronts worldwide |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 5 | 10 |
| 2023 | 18 | 33 |
| 2024 | 68 | 95 |
| 2025 | 160 | 234 |
| Sept 30, 2026 (part of the year) | 235 | 335 |
Where it started
The Ripped Bodice opened in Culver City, California, on March 4, 2016, as the first romance-only bookstore in the U.S. A second shop, Love's Sweet Arrow in Tinley Park, Illinois, followed in 2019. The Ripped Bodice opened a second store in Brooklyn in August 2023. By July 2024, The New York Times had reported more than 20 dedicated U.S. romance bookstores, as quoted by Romancing the Data. The real boom came after that.
Which states have the most?
Texas led in a spring 2026 snapshot, with 17 romance storefronts. California and Florida had 14 each. Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Washington had 8 each, and Georgia had 6. That snapshot came with the directory's April 2026 update. The reported U.S. total rose from 189 in April to 235 in September, but the state figures above remain a spring snapshot.
Are any closing?
Yes, but the directory recorded far fewer closures than openings in these periods. Its December 2025 report recorded 87 romance storefront openings in the U.S. and 2 closures. Its September 2026 report recorded 106 worldwide openings and 5 closures during the first nine months of 2026.
Romance shops are part of a bigger comeback for independent bookstores. The American Booksellers Association's 2025 annual report, released in 2026, counted 3,417 bookstore companies at 3,783 member locations. Newser's report drawing on AP coverage described membership as its highest since the late 1990s and highlighted romance, fantasy and romantasy shops among new members. (Romantasy is a story that's both a romance and a fantasy, with magic or another world and a love story at its center.) For a sense of scale: the ABA counted 605 new bookstore businesses in 2025, including storefront, pop-up, mobile and online businesses, and Publishers Weekly reported 120 romance bookstore openings that year, covering storefront and mobile shops. Those figures use different format coverage, so they do not establish romance's share of all openings.
Which number should you cite?
Keep the number, the date and the source together in the same sentence. That way anyone reading can check what your figure means.
| If you mean… | Use | Say it like this |
|---|---|---|
| Romance shops you can walk into, anywhere | 335 | "Romancing the Data reported 335 physical romance bookstores worldwide as of September 30, 2026." |
| Shops you can walk into, U.S. only | 235 | "Romancing the Data reported 235 physical romance bookstores in the U.S. as of September 30, 2026." |
| The directory's broader total, including online and pop-up | 534 (384 in the U.S.) | "Romancing the Data reported 534 romance bookstores worldwide, including 384 in the U.S., counting physical, online and pop-up shops, as of September 30, 2026." |
| How many new shops opened in the U.S. over the reported period | 232 | "Publishers Weekly reported on July 17, 2026, that the ABA counted 232 U.S. storefront and mobile romance bookstore openings over the three-year period covered by the report." |
| Only ABA member shops | 157 | "AP reported on July 16, 2025, that the ABA had 157 romance-dedicated member bookstores in the U.S." |
Need a number for a post or a paper? Keep the date and source with it.
Romancing the Data reported 235 physical romance bookstores in the United States and 335 worldwide as of September 30, 2026. Source: Lady Jane, "Romance Bookstore Update: September 2026," Romancing the Data, published October 1, 2026, https://blog.romancingthedata.com/p/romance-bookstore-update-september-2026. Compiled and explained by Romance Book Guide, https://romancebookguide.com/how-many-romance-bookstores-are-there/
Please credit the Romance Bookstore Directory for the count itself. It does the counting. If you use our comparison of the different numbers, a link back here is kind and appreciated.
Where can you find a romance bookstore?
The quickest route is the free Romance Bookstore Directory map, which shows romance storefronts around the world. Before you drive, check the shop's own website or social page. A pin on a map doesn't confirm today's hours.
Want to turn the number into a place to visit?
- Open the map of romance bookstores and zoom to where you live or where you're traveling.
- For a wider net, use the full directory, which also lists online shops and pop-ups. Pop-ups set up at markets and fairs, so check their event calendar.
- Visit the shop's own site for hours, events and anything special, like signed copies.
- Still nothing close? Try the Bookstore Romance Day store finder. It lists independent bookstores, including general ones, that signed up to celebrate romance in 2026. Many are worth a visit for their romance shelves.
No shop near you at all? Plenty of romance shops sell online. Or borrow instead: our guide to Kindle Unlimited romance books has a dated shortlist with U.S. borrowing checks. Confirm the current Kindle edition in your own account.
Choose the book's content level separately
A shop's romance focus tells you nothing about how much intimacy is in any one book on its shelves. Check the author or publisher information for the particular title you're eyeing, or ask the bookseller.
If you want books with no explicit sexual scenes on the page, bring a few titles with you. Our clean and closed-door romance books guide is a good place to start a list. ("Closed-door" means the story doesn't show sex on the page, even if it happens off the page.) We haven't checked any shop's shelves, so we can't tell you which stores carry the most of any one kind.
Decide the kind of story before you pick a shelf. Choose the feeling you want, the setting, how much intimacy you're comfortable with on the page and how you like to read. You'll get a short reading brief you can show a bookseller or use to guide a store search. It's a way to put your taste into words, not a list of books.
How we checked the count
We didn't count romance bookstores ourselves. We gathered the published counts compared above, read each one at its original source where we could, and noted what it measures and when. The comparison and explanations on this page are our own work. The totals belong to the people who did the counting.
Romance Book Guide helps you find romance books that feel like your kind of love story — comparing real books by setting, relationship, content level and ending, with the author or publisher information behind every pick, so you can choose your next read with confidence.
This page is a little different from our usual guides. It's about where romance readers shop, not what to read. The same rules apply, though: show the source and show the date. Romance Book Guide is operated by Kozi Publishing LLC. You can read more about Romance Book Guide and how we research and check our guides.
Research note
- What we checked: the Romance Bookstore Directory's monthly updates from Romancing the Data (the public parts only), the directory's definition of a romance bookstore, the ABA's 2025 annual report, reporting from Publishers Weekly, the Associated Press, Newser, LA Magazine and Shelf Awareness, Sarina Bowen's bookstore list, the Bookstore Romance Day store finder, and the shop pages and reports behind our examples.
- When: October 23, 2026. The main count is the directory's September 30, 2026 snapshot, published October 1, 2026. Dates in each table identify the source snapshot or reporting period, as labeled, not the date we checked it.
- What's source-reported: the published counts. Ratios, differences and the clearly labeled Romance Book Guide estimates are our calculations from those counts.
- What we didn't verify: every shop in the directory, whether each shop is open today, any shop's actual hours or stock, the directory's paid list of openings and closings, and a directly comparable strict romance-only count. The New York Times figure is as quoted by Romancing the Data. We didn't read the original article.
- About our labels: Our book evidence labels, like "Author or publisher information" and "Sample checked," aren't used here, because this page doesn't describe any books.
- Tools: We may use software, including AI, to help organize research and drafting. We remain responsible for what we publish.
Spotted an error, or know of a count we missed? Send a correction with a source and choose "A correction to a page." Please include the detail, the place and where you found it.
What would you like to read next?
Knowing where the romance shops are is half the fun. Knowing what to pick up when you get there is the other half. The Next Chapter, Romance Book Guide's email letter, sends romance recommendations, new guides and occasional news about books Romance Book Guide publishes, with your tastes in mind. You can unsubscribe any time.
Sources
- Lady Jane, Romance Bookstore Update: September 2026, Romancing the Data, published October 1, 2026. Checked October 23, 2026.
- Lady Jane, Romance Bookstore Update: August 2026, Romancing the Data, published September 8, 2026.
- Lady Jane, Romance Bookstore Update: July 2026, Romancing the Data, published August 10, 2026.
- Lady Jane, Romance Bookstore Update: May 2026, Romancing the Data, published June 3, 2026; figures as of May 31, 2026.
- Lady Jane, Romance Bookstore Update: April 2026, Romancing the Data, published May 4, 2026.
- Lady Jane, Romance Bookstore Update: December 2025, Romancing the Data, published January 14, 2026; figures as of December 31, 2025.
- Lady Jane, Romance Bookstore Update: September 2025, Romancing the Data, published September 30, 2025.
- Lady Jane, The Rise of Romance Bookstores, Romancing the Data, updated April 12, 2025.
- Lady Jane, Guest Post: The Rise of Romance Bookstores, Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, published March 31, 2025; figures as of March 21, 2025.
- Romance Bookstore Directory and map, Romancing the Data. Checked October 23, 2026.
- Claire Kirch, Romance Bookstores Are Surging Across the Country, Publishers Weekly, July 17, 2026.
- Tracee M. Herbaugh, Fans say new romance bookstores and online groups are giving the genre some overdue respect, Associated Press via Boston.com, July 16, 2025.
- Newser Editors and Wire Services, Independent Bookstores Are Thriving, Not Vanishing, Newser, May 28, 2026, drawing on AP reporting.
- 2025 Annual Report, American Booksellers Association, released May 2026; printed pages 6–7 for opening formats, bookstore companies and member locations.
- Romance Books Are Alive, Hot and Steamy at The Ripped Bodice, LA Magazine, June 25, 2026.
- Sarina Bowen, Updated June 2026: Definitive List of Romance Bookstores. Checked October 23, 2026.
- Find a Bookstore, Bookstore Romance Day. Checked October 23, 2026.
- Shelf Awareness, August 17, 2026 (Exes & Ohs Books).
- Shop pages checked October 23, 2026: Steamy Lit, A Little Love Bookshop, A Novel Affair Bookshop, A Romance Court, and The Ripped Bodice's own Bookshop.org profile.
- Zoe Perzo, Love's Sweet Arrow: Illinois' Retreat for Romance Readers, IndieBound, July 31, 2024.
- Agatha French, Where love leaps off shelves, Los Angeles Times, original reporting identifying The Ripped Bodice as a romance-only shop in Culver City; checked October 23, 2026.