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Adult baptisms increased for the third consecutive year in Switzerland in 2025, but the country is not experiencing an adult baptism “boom.”

That is the conclusion of an analysis of new data by the Swiss Institute of Pastoral Sociology in St. Gallen, published following media reports of a surge in adult baptisms, especially in neighboring France.

There were 339 adult baptisms in 2025 in Switzerland, a Central European country with a population of 9 million people, 2.68 million of whom are Catholic.

The 2025 figure is the highest in more than a decade and marks an increase of 30% from 2024, when there were 261 adult baptisms, up from 223 in 2023.

Arnd Bünker, the head of SPI St. Gallen, said the data up to 2025 did not indicate a trend of renewed affiliation with the Church among secularized young people or adults. But the figures did show that adult baptisms now account for a higher proportion of total baptisms, rising from just 1% in 2015 to 2.6% in 2025.

Bünker said that while

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