About one in four sauna venues in America has a cold plunge, going by our directory. As of November 2026, 1,775 of the 6,736 US places in the AllSaunas directory list one. Per person, Utah, Idaho and Hawaii have the most, at roughly three times the national rate. Denver has 28 cold plunge spots, more than any US city except New York and Los Angeles, which are many times its size.
We built this from our own listings: every sauna studio, bathhouse, gym, spa and recovery center in the directory, counted by state and city and set against the Census Bureau's 2025 population estimates. Below are the numbers, where plunging is common, where it's still rare, and exactly how we counted.
Our directory lists 6,736 places across the US where we found a sauna or steam room. Of those, 1,775 (26%) also have a cold plunge. Almost all of them are tubs or tanks of chilled water: 1,748 listings have that kind of plunge. Another 32 offer an open-water plunge, usually a lake, river or the ocean right outside a sauna. Six places have both.
The share depends a lot on the kind of place. About half of sauna studios have a plunge and so do many recovery centers. The gym sauna usually comes without one.
So if your gym has a sauna, the odds are about four in five that it has no plunge to go with it. A sauna studio is a coin flip.
Big states have the most plunge spots simply because they have the most people. California leads in raw numbers with 250, then Florida (189), Texas (159), New York (86), Arizona (72) and Colorado (68).
Per person, the picture changes. Across the US there are 0.52 cold plunge venues in our directory for every 100,000 residents. Utah has 1.58, about three times the national rate. Idaho and Hawaii are close behind.
| State | Places with a cold plunge | Per 100,000 residents | Share of the state's listings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Utah | 56 | 1.58 | 46% |
| Idaho | 29 | 1.43 | 40% |
| Hawaii | 20 | 1.40 | 42% |
| Colorado | 68 | 1.13 | 36% |
| Rhode Island | 12 | 1.08 | 34% |
| Nevada | 31 | 0.94 | 40% |
| Arizona | 72 | 0.94 | 43% |
| Oregon | 40 | 0.94 | 32% |
| Florida | 189 | 0.81 | 30% |
| Minnesota | 42 | 0.72 | 34% |
| United States | 1,775 | 0.52 | 26% |
The table includes states with at least five plunge venues. Small states can move a lot with a few openings: Rhode Island's 12 venues are enough to put it fifth, and Hawaii's rank rests on 20. You can browse Utah's saunas or Colorado's to see the places behind these numbers.
Five neighboring states stand out. In Utah, Idaho, Colorado, Nevada and Arizona, 256 of 626 sauna venues in our directory have a cold plunge (41%). In the rest of the country it's 1,519 of 6,110 (25%).
Part of that is the kind of place that opens there. Denver's 28 plunge venues are a good example: 13 are recovery or wellness centers and 4 are sauna studios, and only 3 are gyms. Across the five states the mix leans the same way. Recovery centers and sauna studios make up 48% of the region's listings (298 of 626), against 40% elsewhere, and gyms only 10% (64 of 626), against 17% elsewhere. Places like these tend to be built around the hot-then-cold routine from day one, often with several tubs at different temperatures. A gym usually adds a sauna to the locker room and stops there.
We can't say from listings alone why people in these states took to it. An outdoor, athletic culture and a wave of newly built wellness businesses would both fit the pattern. Our data shows where the plunges are, and the reasons are a guess.
Matched on the city name in each listing, these cities have the most places with a cold plunge in our directory:
Per resident, the order changes. Among cities with at least 300,000 residents, Tampa has about 4.6 cold plunge venues per 100,000, followed by Denver (3.8) and Minneapolis (3.3). Las Vegas would look higher, but most of its 24 are on the Strip and in other areas outside city limits that use a Las Vegas address. Smaller places can go higher still: Boulder, Colorado has about 8 per 100,000 residents.
Treat city figures as examples, not a strict ranking. Suburbs count separately, and so do New York's boroughs: Brooklyn alone has 16 plunge venues, and Queens listings go by neighborhood names like Astoria and Flushing, so the five boroughs together (41) would top Denver (28). Los Angeles works the same way: count listings under Venice, Studio City, Sherman Oaks and other neighborhoods inside city limits and it has about 36.
In some states we list very few sauna venues at all, so the plunge count is close to zero by default. We have no listings in Wyoming yet, 10 in Montana (two with a plunge), 10 in Vermont (one) and 14 in West Virginia (two). Those numbers say more about our coverage than about local habits.
Among states where we list at least 30 places, a plunge is least common in Nebraska (4 of 40), Arkansas (6 of 53), South Carolina (17 of 134), Alabama (14 of 108) and Oklahoma (11 of 81). In each, roughly one in seven sauna venues or fewer has one. Much of the South and the Plains still treat the sauna as a gym extra, and the gym sauna rarely comes with a cold tub.
If you live in one of these states, the plunge spots that do exist tend to be in the biggest metro areas. Search with the cold plunge filter turned on, and check the facility's own website before you go, since some plunges are seasonal or booked by the session.
This section is here so anyone can check or quote the numbers.
The limits matter. This is what our directory lists, not a census of every cold plunge in America, so read every figure as "at least". Our coverage is uneven between states. Cold plunge details come from listing data, and fewer than 300 of our top listings have been checked one by one against the facility's own website. We spot-checked several Denver listings for this piece, and each one's website advertises its cold plunges. We record water temperatures at only 40 listings, too few to report a typical temperature. For that, see our guide to cold plunge temperature.
California has the most cold plunge venues in our directory, with 250 as of November 2026. Per person, Utah leads with 1.58 per 100,000 residents, about three times the US rate of 0.52.
New York, with 41 across the five boroughs, then Los Angeles with about 36 inside city limits and Denver with 28. Per resident, among cities of 300,000 or more, Tampa leads at about 4.6 per 100,000.
No. About one in four sauna venues in our directory has one (1,775 of 6,736). At sauna studios the share is about half.
Some do, but most don't. Of the 1,103 gyms with a sauna in our directory, 215 (19%) also have a cold plunge.
Use the cold plunge filter on our search and enter your city. Each listing shows its cold plunge options along with the sauna rooms. If you're new to plunging, our post on how often to cold plunge covers how to start.
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