How Many People Die Skiing Each Year? Skiing Death Statistics

📊01 / Latest figures

How many people die skiing each year?

The National Ski Areas Association recorded 50 skier and snowboarder fatalities at U.S. ski areas during the 2024/25 season. The same season generated 61.6 million skier and snowboarder visits, putting the fatality rate at 0.81 per million visits.

Another way to express that rate is roughly one fatal incident for every 1.23 million skier visits. That is useful for scale, but it should not be read as an exact personal probability. A skier visit is one person using a ski area for all or part of a day or night, so the same person can generate many visits over a season.

The ten-season average covering 2015/16 through 2024/25 was 44 fatalities per season and 0.76 fatalities per million visits.

These are U.S. ski-area statistics, not a worldwide total. There is no single global reporting system using one consistent definition for every ski nation, so adding figures from unrelated datasets can create a misleading “world” number.

For non-fatal accidents, see our separate ski injury statistics guide. Keeping the two topics apart matters because normal injury incidents are measured per thousand visits while fatalities are rare enough to be measured per million.

📈02 / Ten seasons

Skiing deaths over the latest ten U.S. seasons

The fatality rate moves from season to season rather than following a simple upward or downward line. In NSAA's ten-season table, the lowest rate was 0.60 per million visits in 2023/24, while the highest was 0.94 per million in 2021/22.

The raw number of deaths also needs the participation denominator. The 2022/23 season recorded 46 fatalities — more than 2023/24's 36 — but it also had 65.4 million visits compared with 60.5 million. Rates make different-sized seasons more comparable than counts alone.

🌲03 / Causes

What causes most fatal skiing accidents?

In NSAA's 2024/25 data, collisions with trees were the leading cause of fatal incidents and accounted for nearly half of reported deaths. Collisions with the snow surface were also identified as a primary cause.

The wider incident summary says speed, loss of control and collisions with objects repeatedly appear as common factors. That makes the fatality dataset quite different from a typical non-fatal injury table, where knee and other lower-body injuries dominate.

• Trees: the leading reported cause in 2024/25, representing nearly half of fatalities.
• Snow surface: another primary collision category in the fatal incident data.
• Snow immersion: incidents including tree wells represented roughly 10% of fatalities.
• Chairlifts: fatal incidents were rare, although two 2024/25 deaths resulted from falls from lifts.

These categories should not be interpreted as a complete risk ranking for every skier. Exposure differs: millions of people ski intermediate pistes, relatively few enter certain deep-snow areas, and lift use occurs under very different circumstances from downhill skiing.

👤04 / Incident profile

Who was involved in fatal ski-area incidents?

NSAA's 2024/25 profile shows a strong demographic skew, but it is important to distinguish a profile from proof of causation.

• Gender: 46 of the 50 fatalities were male and 4 were female.
• Age: the profile skewed towards age 30 and under; approximately 24% were aged 20–30.
• Equipment: 37 were skiers and 13 were snowboarders.
• Helmet: 16% were not wearing a helmet.
• Terrain: most fatal incidents occurred on intermediate terrain.
• Terrain parks: no fatalities occurred in terrain parks in the 2024/25 dataset.

NSAA specifically notes that male skiers and riders are overrepresented in fatal incidents compared with their share of overall participation. By contrast, it says the skier-versus-snowboarder breakdown closely reflects the national participation split.

Why intermediate terrain appears so often

“Most deaths happened on intermediate runs” does not mean intermediate pistes are automatically the most dangerous type of terrain. Intermediate terrain is heavily used, and the published fact sheet does not provide an exposure-adjusted fatality rate for each piste difficulty. The number therefore describes where incidents occurred, not the probability of death on each trail grade.

🎿05 / Ski vs snowboard

Are skiers or snowboarders more likely to die?

The 2024/25 raw count was 37 skiers and 13 snowboarders. It would be tempting to conclude from that alone that skiing carries a much greater fatality risk, but NSAA explicitly cautions against that interpretation by noting that the split closely reflects national skiing-versus-snowboarding participation.

To compare the two sports properly, you would need consistent exposure data — ideally the number of skier visits and snowboarder visits separately — matched to the same fatality definitions. A raw count without that denominator cannot establish which sport has the higher individual risk.

⛑️06 / Helmets

Were people involved in fatal incidents wearing helmets?

NSAA reports that 16% of people involved in 2024/25 fatal incidents were not wearing a helmet. Put another way, most of the people in the fatality dataset were wearing one.

That figure should not be used to claim helmets do not work. The fact sheet does not tell us whether each individual died from a head injury, how severe the collision was, or what the outcome would have been without a helmet. Helmets are designed to reduce some head-injury risk; they cannot make every high-energy collision survivable.

For context, overall helmet use among U.S. skiers and snowboarders was 91% in 2024/25 and 96% among participants under 18. A fair interpretation therefore needs both the fatality profile and the much wider adoption of helmets across the skiing population.

🔎07 / Definitions

What counts as a skiing death in these statistics?

NSAA uses a narrower definition than simply “any person who dies while on a ski trip”. Its fatality figure covers deaths resulting from sport-related trauma within a ski area's operating boundary during normal operating hours.

The dataset excludes several categories that are often mixed into news coverage:

• Backcountry fatalities: these are outside the in-bounds ski-area dataset.
• After-hours deaths: incidents while the ski area is closed are excluded.
• Medical deaths: heart attacks, strokes and similar medical events are not counted as skiing fatalities.
• Most employee deaths: industrial incidents are excluded unless comparable to something that could happen to a guest.

This definition is why the number should be described as U.S. ski-area sport-related fatalities, not every death associated with skiing in America.

Why the latest public figures are still 2024/25

NSAA has already published national visitation information for the 2025/26 ski season, but its public Industry Stats page currently lists the 2024/25 Fatality Incident Fact Sheet as the latest fatality dataset. Until a newer safety fact sheet is published, 2024/25 is the latest directly comparable public fatality series from NSAA.

❓08 / FAQ

Frequently asked questions about skiing death statistics

How many people die skiing each year?

NSAA reported 50 skier and snowboarder deaths at U.S. ski areas in 2024/25. Across the latest ten-season series, the average was 44 fatalities per season.

What is the death rate from skiing?

The 2024/25 U.S. ski-area rate was 0.81 fatalities per million skier and snowboarder visits. The ten-season average was 0.76 per million.

What causes most skiing deaths?

Tree collisions were the leading cause in the 2024/25 NSAA dataset and accounted for nearly half of reported fatalities. Collisions with the snow surface were also a primary cause.

Are skiing deaths mostly men?

In the 2024/25 U.S. dataset, 46 of 50 people involved in fatal incidents were male. NSAA says males continue to be overrepresented relative to their share of participation.

Are skiers or snowboarders more likely to die?

The raw 2024/25 count was 37 skiers and 13 snowboarders, but NSAA says this closely reflects the national participation split. The count alone therefore cannot establish that one sport has a higher individual fatality risk.

Do these statistics include avalanche deaths in the backcountry?

No. The NSAA dataset used here covers incidents within ski-area operating boundaries and excludes backcountry fatalities.

How many ski deaths involve chairlifts?

NSAA describes chairlift fatalities as rare. Two of the 50 reported 2024/25 fatalities resulted from falls from lifts.