651 open gay bars
we track, state by state.
As of October 26, 2026, Out x Out tracks 651 open gay, lesbian and queer bars and nightclubs in and around 91 US cities, in 47 states plus Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico. Every one is a bar or club we list as an LGBTQ+ venue, with its own page, counted from our directory each hour.
This is a complete count of the open LGBTQ+ bars and clubs Out x Out tracks, not a census of every gay bar in America. Cities we don’t cover yet aren’t in it, and neither are the 256 Gay Friendly bars we list separately. How we count.
The 15 cities where
we list the most.
| # | City | Open LGBTQ+ bars |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | New York City, NY | 62 |
| 2 | Chicago, IL | 33 |
| 3 | San Francisco, CA | 32 |
| 4 | Los Angeles, CA · incl. Ontario | 30 |
| 5 | Washington, D.C. | 20 |
| 6 | Dallas, TX | 19 |
| 7 | San Diego, CA | 16 |
| 8 | Fort Lauderdale, FL | 15 |
| 9 | Atlanta, GA | 14 |
| 10 | New Orleans, LA | 14 |
| 11 | San Juan, PR | 14 |
| 12 | Seattle, WA | 14 |
| 13 | Houston, TX · incl. Galveston | 13 |
| 14 | San Antonio, TX | 13 |
| 15 | Columbus, OH | 12 |
Cities are Out x Out city pages; a bar in a town without its own page counts toward the city page that lists it. All 91 cities are in the state table below and the city CSV.
Open gay bars
in every state we cover.
Each state’s number is the sum of the cities we cover there, so a state with one covered city shows that city’s bars only.
| State | Open LGBTQ+ bars | Cities we cover (bars) |
|---|---|---|
| California | 117 | San Francisco (32) · Los Angeles (30, incl. Ontario) · San Diego (16) · Palm Springs (12) · Long Beach (10) · Sacramento (6) · Oakland (5) · Santa Ana (4) · San Jose (2) |
| New York | 69 | New York City (60) · Fire Island (4) · Buffalo (3) · Syracuse (2) |
| Texas | 54 | Dallas (19) · Houston (13, incl. Galveston) · San Antonio (13) · Austin (6) · Fort Worth (3) |
| Florida | 45 | Fort Lauderdale (15) · Orlando (8) · St. Petersburg (7) · Key West (4) · Miami (4) · Jacksonville (3) · Tampa (3) · Sarasota (1) |
| Illinois | 33 | Chicago (33) |
| Ohio | 21 | Columbus (12) · Cleveland (5) · Cincinnati (4) |
| Washington, D.C. | 20 | Washington, D.C. (20) |
| Pennsylvania | 17 | Philadelphia (10) · Pittsburgh (6) · State College (1) |
| Georgia | 16 | Atlanta (14) · Savannah (2) |
| Washington | 16 | Seattle (14) · Tacoma (2) |
| Louisiana | 14 | New Orleans (14) |
| Missouri | 14 | St. Louis (9) · Kansas City (5) |
| Puerto Rico | 14 | San Juan (14) |
| Wisconsin | 13 | Milwaukee (9, incl. Kenosha) · Green Bay (4, incl. Appleton) |
| Arizona | 12 | Phoenix (12) |
| Colorado | 12 | Denver (12) |
| Massachusetts | 12 | Boston (7) · Provincetown (5) |
| Tennessee | 11 | Nashville (8) · Memphis (3) |
| Minnesota | 10 | Minneapolis (8) · St. Paul (2) |
| Nevada | 10 | Las Vegas (10) |
| North Carolina | 10 | Charlotte (6) · Durham (2) · Raleigh (2) |
| Michigan | 8 | Detroit (8) |
| Oregon | 8 | Portland (8) |
| Virginia | 8 | Norfolk (4) · Richmond (4) |
| Hawaii | 7 | Honolulu (7) |
| Oklahoma | 7 | Oklahoma City (4) · Tulsa (3) |
| Alabama | 6 | Mobile (4) · Birmingham (2, incl. Huntsville) |
| Rhode Island | 6 | Providence (6) |
| Arkansas | 5 | Little Rock (5) |
| Indiana | 5 | Indianapolis (4) · Bloomington (1) |
| Nebraska | 5 | Omaha (3) · Lincoln (2) |
| Kentucky | 4 | Louisville (4) |
| Maryland | 4 | Baltimore (4) |
| New Jersey | 4 | Asbury Park (2) · Jersey City (2) |
| South Carolina | 4 | Charleston (2) · Columbia (2) |
| Utah | 4 | Salt Lake City (4) |
| Connecticut | 3 | New Haven (2) · Norwalk (1) |
| Delaware | 3 | Rehoboth Beach (3) |
| Kansas | 3 | Wichita (3) |
| Maine | 3 | Portland (3) |
| Mississippi | 3 | Jackson (3) |
| Alaska | 2 | Anchorage (2) |
| Iowa | 2 | Des Moines (2) |
| New Mexico | 2 | Albuquerque (2) |
| Idaho | 1 | Boise (1) |
| New Hampshire | 1 | Manchester (1) |
| South Dakota | 1 | Sioux Falls (1) |
| Vermont | 1 | Burlington (1, incl. East Montpelier) |
| West Virginia | 1 | Charleston (1, incl. Huntington) |
Not covered yet (3): Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming. No city page there yet means no count, not no gay bars.
Looking for lesbian bars?
Lesbian and sapphic bars are inside the count above. For the bar-by-bar list, see every lesbian bar in the US, by city, and for the ones that have closed, the State of the Lesbian Bar.
How we count.
- What counts: every bar and nightclub in the Out x Out venue directory that we list as an LGBTQ+ venue and show as open, in the US and Puerto Rico. Gay, lesbian, queer, leather, drag and video bars are all in, including bar-restaurants and bar-cafés with an LGBTQ+ identity. Several bars inside one venue, like the rooms of a single complex, count once.
- What doesn’t: Gay Friendly bars, restaurants without a bar, bathhouses, ticketed stage shows, roving or seasonal parties without a fixed bar, and private members’ clubs.
- Where: the 91 US city pages Out x Out publishes. A bar in a town without its own page counts toward the city page that lists it, so Houston’s number includes Galveston and Los Angeles’s includes parts of the Inland Empire. In the state table each bar counts in its own state, so the Jersey City bars on our New York City page count for New Jersey.
- How it stays current: the number is recomputed from the directory every hour. Bars come off when we confirm they have closed, through our city audits and the State of the Gay Bar closure tracker.
- — Not a count of every gay bar in the US. Cities we don’t cover and bars we haven’t listed are missing, so read it as “at least this many in the cities we track.”
- — Not a ranking of which state or city is best. A higher number means more bars in our directory, nothing more.
- — Not a trend line. We don’t subtract closures from openings or compare this count over time.
- — Leaves out 256 Gay Friendly bars we also list, plus restaurants without a bar, bathhouses, ticketed shows and roving parties.
Free to cite.
Free to use with attribution to Out x Out. Quote the date with the number, since the count changes as bars open and close. Reporters: for a state or city cut, email info@outxout.com.
As of October 26, 2026, Out x Out tracks 651 open gay, lesbian and queer bars and nightclubs in and around 91 US cities, in 47 states plus Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico.
California has the most open LGBTQ+ bars and clubs in Out x Out's directory (117), followed by New York (69) and Texas (54); 60 of them are in New York City itself.
On 9 of the 91 US city pages Out x Out covers, it tracks exactly one open LGBTQ+ bar, including Bloomington, IN; Boise, ID; Manchester, NH.
The count includes only bars and clubs Out x Out lists as LGBTQ+ venues in and around the cities it covers; it leaves out the 256 Gay Friendly bars it also lists, plus restaurants without a bar, bathhouses, ticketed shows and roving parties, and it is not a count of every gay bar in the country.
Out x Out, "How Many Gay Bars Are in the US?" (count as of October 26, 2026), https://outxout.com/data/gay-bars-in-the-us