Pickleball surges in Canada, 1.8 million now playing nationwide

Canada’s pickleball wave kept widening in 2026, with Pickleball Canada estimating that about 1.80 million people were playing nationwide, up from 1.54 million a year earlier and roughly 1 million in 2022. The latest survey, built from a 2,000-household sample, showed a 14 percent year-over-year jump and confirmed that the sport’s surge is no longer just a U.S. story.

Ontario remained the engine of the game, with an estimated 702,000 players. Quebec followed at 432,000, and British Columbia at 306,000, a regional split that tracked the country’s population centers and the places where courts, leagues and open play have already taken hold. The membership picture pointed in the same direction. Pickleball Canada finished 2025 with 93,888 paid members, up from 85,329 at the end of 2024, and Ontario again led the way with 23,820 members. British Columbia had 22,178, Quebec 20,074, and New Brunswick posted the sharpest provincial growth, rising 49 percent year over year.

The bigger story inside the survey was who is coming into the sport. Gen Z participation jumped 85 percent, the strongest increase in the country, while Gen X rose 27 percent. That matters because pickleball has long carried an older-adult stereotype; the new numbers showed the player pool broadening fast. Fun remained the top reason Canadians picked up a paddle, cited by 85 percent of respondents. Health and fitness followed at 48 percent, while competition was a more prominent motivator for Gen X players, with 30 percent naming it as a key reason they played.

The survey also showed where the sport still hit resistance. Seventeen percent of respondents cited a lack of information about pickleball, down from 21 percent in the prior survey, while 15 percent pointed to a shortage of facilities. That shortage remains one of the clearest barriers for local organizers and municipal leaders, especially in markets where demand is outrunning court supply. More public courts, club programming and beginner clinics would directly address the two biggest obstacles the survey identified.

Pickleball Canada, established in 2009 and incorporated in 2011, has been building the institutional side of that expansion. Sport Canada granted the organization funding-eligible status in 2025, and Pickleball Canada has since moved into more structured competition and development, including a nationwide league-play pilot and an inaugural high-performance program tied to the 2026 IG Wealth National Championship. A multi-year partnership announced by IG Wealth Management on April 7, 2026 added more commercial muscle to the sport’s growth, reinforcing what the numbers already showed: pickleball in Canada has moved well beyond a fad and into the country’s sporting infrastructure.