What Newspaper Has the Most Readers in 2025?

When you ask which newspaper has the most readers, the answer isn’t as simple as picking the one with the biggest print run. The media landscape has changed completely. Print is fading fast. The real battle for readers happens online, and the metrics that matter now are digital subscriptions and monthly website visits-not how many copies get delivered to driveways.

The New York Times Leads in Digital Subscriptions

As of mid-2025, The New York Times has over 11.3 million digital subscribers. That’s more than any other newspaper in the world. It’s not even close. The Wall Street Journal, often seen as its main rival, has about 3.7 million total subscribers. The Washington Post sits at 3.5 million. The Los Angeles Times, the largest U.S. metropolitan paper, has 4.4 million total readers-but nearly half of those are Sunday print readers. The Times doesn’t rely on Sunday papers anymore. Its growth comes from people paying monthly for access to its reporting, podcasts, cooking site, and games.

In the first quarter of 2025 alone, The New York Times added 250,000 new subscribers. That’s the kind of momentum you don’t see in print. The paper’s strategy has been clear: build a digital-first product people can’t live without. And it’s working. By 2027, they’re aiming for 15 million subscribers. That’s not just a newspaper anymore-it’s a content ecosystem.

But What About Website Traffic?

If you count every person who visits a news site-even if they never pay-a different leader emerges. BBC News gets over 1.1 billion monthly visits. That’s more than most countries have people. But BBC isn’t a newspaper. It’s a public broadcaster funded by the UK government. It’s a news organization, not a paper with a print history.

Among actual newspapers, The New York Times still wins. In May 2025, it recorded 657 million visits to its website. That’s more than CNN (556 million), The Guardian (284 million), and The Washington Post (112 million) combined. About 67% of those visits come from the U.S., but readers in over 180 countries tune in daily. The Guardian, which went fully digital in 2016, gets most of its traffic from mobile devices. Nearly three out of every four visitors use a phone or tablet. But even with that edge, it still trails The Times in total visits.

Print Is Dead-But Not Gone

Print circulation has collapsed. In 2005, the top 500 U.S. newspapers distributed 50 million copies a day. By 2024, that number was down to 10 million. That’s an 80% drop in less than 20 years. Two and a half newspapers shut down every week. The last time USA Today topped print circulation lists, it was selling over 2 million copies a day. Today, its total circulation-print and digital combined-is under 250,000.

Some papers still cling to print. The Los Angeles Times prints 1.6 million Sunday copies. The Wall Street Journal still delivers 649,000 print editions daily. But these numbers are shrinking fast. Revenue from print ads and sales is falling at a 3% annual rate. By 2030, print revenue will be less than half of what it was in 2025. Meanwhile, digital revenue is growing slowly but steadily. The industry expects digital newspaper income to hit $17.78 billion by 2030. Print? It’ll be down to $20.37 billion-from $23.78 billion today.

Who Else Is in the Race?

The Guardian stands out because it’s the only major paper that survived by going all-in on digital-and still doesn’t have a paywall. It makes money through reader donations and sponsorships. Its audience is young: almost half of its readers are between 25 and 34. It’s also the most global of the English-language papers, with nearly equal shares of readers in the UK, U.S., and Australia.

The Washington Post has built a reputation as the go-to source for political news, especially during elections. Its traffic grew 17% last year. The Wall Street Journal’s strength is its business readers. It gained 19% in digital subscriptions during the pandemic, as professionals turned to it for market updates and economic analysis.

Then there’s The Times of India. It prints over 4 million copies daily and reaches an estimated 17 million readers. That’s the largest English-language newspaper audience in the world by total reach. But most of those readers are in India. It’s a different kind of scale-one built on low-cost print distribution in a country of 1.4 billion people.

Why Does This Matter?

It matters because who controls the news shapes what people believe. The New York Times isn’t just the most read-it’s the most influential. Its reporting sets the agenda for other outlets. When it breaks a story, it’s picked up by CNN, BBC, and even local papers. Its subscribers aren’t just readers. They’re people who pay to stay informed. That’s a powerful signal in an age of misinformation.

Meanwhile, the decline of print means fewer local papers. Small-town newspapers that once covered city council meetings, school sports, and local crimes are vanishing. That leaves gaps in community reporting. The big digital players fill the national and global gaps-but not the local ones.

What’s Next?

The future of newspapers isn’t about bigger print runs. It’s about building trust, offering value beyond headlines, and making it easy to pay. The New York Times succeeded because it didn’t just digitize its old product. It created new ones: cooking guides, crossword puzzles, audio storytelling. It turned readers into members.

Other papers are trying to follow. The Guardian’s donation model works for some. The Washington Post leans into political depth. The Los Angeles Times focuses on Southern California. But none have matched the scale of The Times’ digital transformation.

So, who has the most readers? If you mean people who pay, it’s The New York Times. If you mean total visits, it’s still The Times among newspapers. If you mean total global reach including free readers, BBC leads-but it’s not a newspaper. And if you mean print copies, The Times of India wins-but that model is fading.

The real winner in 2025 is the paper that stopped trying to be a newspaper and started being a service.