Number of Hospitals in France: 3,000 at End-2025, Clinics Included

How many hospitals in France: the answer depends on your question#

The first four rows are Drees figures (end-2025). The rest of the study uses our reread of its database, site by site: 2,962 facilities, including 1,329 public and 981 clinics, 5 more than Drees.

The right answer depends on the question you ask. If you sell imaging, the benchmark is 641 sites equipped with an MRI. If you sell to public hospitals, the benchmark is 136 GHTs, because purchasing is centralized there. If you sell to clinics, there are five clinic groups to win over and 330 independent clinics, outside any group, to approach one by one.

Who to sell to, depending on your offer#

Each offer has its target. The table starts from the list of 2,962 facilities in our reread (the Drees annual survey of healthcare facilities, SAE 2025) and says how many sites are concerned and who signs the purchases. The counts by status are in the Level 4 table.

In practice, an imaging offer targets 641 sites, but the decision is made with the GHTs, the purchasing organizations and the clinic groups. The next section says which ones.

Who decides to buy?#

GHTs: public hospitals buy by group#

The law gives the purchasing function of each territorial hospital group (GHT) to its lead facility (Public Health Code, article L6132-3). The official figure is 136 GHTs (Agence du numérique en santé, France's digital health agency, August 2026). In the FINESS directory, 135 groups include at least one site on our list: together, they cover 1,250 of the 1,329 public sites (94.1%).

These three related figures refer to 136 official groups, 134 lead facilities responsible for their purchasing, and 131 buyers responsible for the hospitals' public contract award records. The 79 public sites outside any GHT include 37 AP-HP sites (the Paris public hospital system), which is a member of no group in the FINESS directory.

A typical GHT includes 8 sites from the list. The largest are Limousin (31), Loire-Atlantique (26) and Drôme-Ardèche-Vercors (25).

The full list of 135 GHTs, with their lead facility

GHT	Region	Lead facility	Public sites linked
Drôme-Ardèche-Vercors	Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes	CH de Valence	25
Loire	Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes	CHU de Saint Etienne	22
Allier Puy-de-Dôme	Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes	CHU de Clermont-Ferrand	20
Val Rhône Centre	Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes	Hospices Civils de Lyon	20
Savoie Belley	Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes	Centre Hospitalier Metropole Savoie	13
Alpes Dauphiné	Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes	CHU Grenoble Alpes	11
Bresse Haut-Bugey	Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes	CH Fleyriat	11
Rhône Nord Beaujolais Dombes	Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes	CH Nord Ouest Villefranche	11
Cantal	Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes	CH D'Aurillac	8
Léman Mont-Blanc	Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes	CH Alpes Leman	8
Haute-Savoie Pays de Gex	Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes	CH Annecy Genevois	7
Nord Dauphiné	Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes	CH Pierre Oudot	6
Haute-Loire	Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes	CH Emile Roux le Puy	5
21-52 Côte d'Or-Haute-Marne	Bourgogne-Franche-Comté	CHU Dijon Bourgogne	18
Centre Franche-Comté	Bourgogne-Franche-Comté	CHU Besancon-Franche-Comte	14
Nièvre	Bourgogne-Franche-Comté	CHI Agglomeration de Nevers	10
Bourgogne méridionale	Bourgogne-Franche-Comté	CH les Chanaux Macon	9
Saône-et-Loire-Bresse Morvan	Bourgogne-Franche-Comté	CH William Morey Chalon sur Saone	9
Jura	Bourgogne-Franche-Comté	Centre Hospitalier Jura Sud	7
Sud Yonne-Haut-Nivernais	Bourgogne-Franche-Comté	CH Auxerre	5
Haute-Saône	Bourgogne-Franche-Comté	Groupe Hospitalier de Haute Saone	4
Nord Yonne	Bourgogne-Franche-Comté	CH Sens	4
sud cote d'or	Bourgogne-Franche-Comté	Hospices Civils de Beaune	4
Nord Franche-Comté	Bourgogne-Franche-Comté	Hopital Nord Franche Comte	3
Haute Bretagne	Bretagne	CHRU Rennes	15
Bretagne Occidentale	Bretagne	CHRU Brest	13
Groupe hospitalier Sud Bretagne	Bretagne	Groupe Hospitalier Bretagne Sud	12
Armor	Bretagne	CH de Saint Brieuc Paimpol Treguier	9
Union hospitalière de Cornouaille	Bretagne	CH Intercommunal Cornouaille Quimper	8
Brocéliande Atlantique	Bretagne	CH Bretagne Atlantique	7
Centre Bretagne	Bretagne	CH du Centre Bretagne	5
Rance Eméraude	Bretagne	Groupe Hospitalier Rance Emeraude	4
Touraine Val de Loire	Centre-Val de Loire	CHU de Tours	13
Loiret	Centre-Val de Loire	CHU D'Orleans	11
Cher	Centre-Val de Loire	CH Jacques Coeur de Bourges	8
Eure-et-Loire	Centre-Val de Loire	CH de Chartres	8
Indre	Centre-Val de Loire	CH de Chateauroux le Blanc	8
Loir-et-Cher	Centre-Val de Loire	CH Blois Simone Veil	8
Corse du Sud	Corse	Centre Hospitalier D'Ajaccio	6
Haute-Corse G2HC	Corse	Centre Hospitalier de Bastia	4
Sud Lorraine	Grand Est	CHRU de Nancy	19
Basse Alsace Sud Moselle	Grand Est	Hopitaux Universitaires de Strasbourg	18
Vosges	Grand Est	CHI Emile Durkheim Epinal	16
Champagne	Grand Est	CHU Reims	14
Lorraine Nord	Grand Est	CHR Metz-Thionville	13
Cœur Grand Est	Grand Est	Centre Hospitalier Verdun/saint Mihiel	12
Centre Alsace	Grand Est	Hopitaux Civils de Colmar	11
Haute Alsace	Grand Est	Grpe Hosp Region Mulhouse & Sud Alsace	10
Aube et Sézannais	Grand Est	Centre Hospitalier de Troyes	9
Nord Ardennes	Grand Est	CHI Nord Ardennes	6
Moselle Est	Grand Est	CH de Sarreguemines	5
GHT de la Guadeloupe	Guadeloupe	C.h.u. de la Guadeloupe	7
ile du nord	Guadeloupe	CH Louis Constant Fleming	2
GHT de la Guyane	Guyane	Centre Hospitalier de Cayenne	1
Lille Métropole Flandre Intérieure	Hauts-de-France	CHU de Lille	24
Aisne Nord	Hauts-de-France	CH de Saint Quentin	16
Somme Littoral Sud	Hauts-de-France	CHU Amiens-Picardie	16
Hainaut-Cambrésis	Hauts-de-France	CH de Valenciennes	12
Artois-Ternois	Hauts-de-France	Centre Hospitalier D'Arras	6
Oise Ouest et Vexin	Hauts-de-France	Centre Hospitalier de Beauvais	5
Psychiatrie 59-62	Hauts-de-France	Epsm Lille Metropole	5
Artois	Hauts-de-France	CH de Lens	4
Dunkerquois et Audomarrois	Hauts-de-France	CH de Dunkerque	4
Oise Nord Est (ONE)	Hauts-de-France	CH Intercommunal Compiègne-Noyon	4
Aisne Sud- saphir	Hauts-de-France	Centre Hospitalier de Soissons	3
Côte d'Opale	Hauts-de-France	CH de Boulogne-Sur-Mer	3
Douaisis	Hauts-de-France	CH de Douai	3
Oise Sud	Hauts-de-France	Ghpso	3
Cambrésis	Hauts-de-France	CH Cambrai	2
Océan Indien	La Réunion	CHU de la Reunion	10
Martinique	Martinique	CHU de Martinique	12
Normandie Centre	Normandie	CHU Caen	17
Rouen Cœur de Seine	Normandie	CHU Rouen	13
Estuaire de la Seine	Normandie	Groupe Hospitalier du Havre	9
Orne-Perche-Saosnois	Normandie	CHIC Alencon Mamers	9
Eure-Seine Pays d'Ouche	Normandie	CH Eure Seine	8
Groupe hospitalier Mont Saint Michel	Normandie	Hopitaux du Sud Manche	7
Les Collines de Normandie	Normandie	CH Flers	5
Caux Maritime	Normandie	CH Dieppe	4
Val de Seine et Plateaux de l'Eure	Normandie	CHI Elbeuf Louviers Val de Reuil	4
Centre Manche	Normandie	CH Saint-Lo	3
Cotentin	Normandie	CH Public du Cotentin	2
Limousin	Nouvelle-Aquitaine	CHU de Limoges	31
Alliance de Gironde	Nouvelle-Aquitaine	CHU de Bordeaux	16
Dordogne	Nouvelle-Aquitaine	Centre Hospitalier de Perigueux	12
Charente	Nouvelle-Aquitaine	Centre Hospitalier D'Angouleme	11
Moyenne Garonne	Nouvelle-Aquitaine	Centre Hospitalier Agen-Nerac	11
Deux Sèvres	Nouvelle-Aquitaine	Centre Hospitalier de Niort	9
Landes	Nouvelle-Aquitaine	CHI Mont de Marsan et Pays des Sources	9
Saintonge	Nouvelle-Aquitaine	GH Saintes - Saint Jean D'Angely	9
Atlantique 17	Nouvelle-Aquitaine	Groupe Hospitalier la Rochelle-Re-Auni	8
Vienne	Nouvelle-Aquitaine	Centre Hosp. Universitaire de Poitiers	6
Béarn-Soule	Nouvelle-Aquitaine	Centre Hospitalier de Pau	5
Navarre-Côte Basque	Nouvelle-Aquitaine	Centre Hospitalier de la Cote Basque	4
GHT EST HERAULT et SUD AVEYRON	Occitanie	CHU Montpellier	21
GHT HAUTE-GARONNE et TARN OUEST	Occitanie	CHU Toulouse	14
GHT CEVENNES GARD CAMARGUE	Occitanie	CHU Nimes	12
GHT GERS	Occitanie	CH Auch en Gascogne	11
GHT HAUTES-PYRENEES	Occitanie	CH Tarbes Lourdes	10
GHT ROUERGUE	Occitanie	CH de Rodez Hopital Jacques Puel	10
GHT COEUR D'OCCITANIE	Occitanie	CH Albi	10
GHT AUDE PYRENEES	Occitanie	CH Perpignan	9
GHT LOZERE	Occitanie	Hopital Lozere	8
GHT TARN ET GARONNE	Occitanie	CH Montauban	8
GHT LOT	Occitanie	CH Jean Rougier Cahors	8
GHT OUEST AUDOIS	Occitanie	CH Carcassonne	5
GHT OUEST HERAULT	Occitanie	CH Beziers	5
GHT PYRENEES ARIEGEOISES	Occitanie	Chiva	5
Loire Atlantique	Pays de la Loire	CHU de Nantes	26
Vendée	Pays de la Loire	Chd Vendee	17
Maine et Loire	Pays de la Loire	CHU Angers	14
Mayenne et Haut-Anjou	Pays de la Loire	CH de Laval	11
Sarthe	Pays de la Loire	CH du Mans	11
Bouches-du-Rhône	Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur	Aphm Direction Generale	22
Alpes Maritimes	Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur	Ctre Hospitalier Universitaire de Nice	16
Var	Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur	CHI Toulon la Seyne sur Mer	14
Vaucluse	Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur	CH D'Avignon Henri Duffaut	13
Alpes du Sud	Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur	CHI des Alpes du Sud	7
Alpes-de-Haute-Provence	Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur	Centre Hospitalier de Digne les Bains	7
Yvelines Sud	Île-de-France	Centre Hospitalier de Versailles	9
Hauts-de-Seine	Île-de-France	Centre Hospitalier des Quatre Villes	8
Yvelines Nord	Île-de-France	CHI Poissy St-Germain	8
92/95 - Sud Val d'Oise Nord Hauts-de-Seine	Île-de-France	CH Victor Dupouy Argenteuil	7
Nord Ouest Val d'Oise	Île-de-France	Hopital Novo	7
77 Sud	Île-de-France	Grpe Hospitalier du Sud Ile de France	5
Ile de France Sud	Île-de-France	Centre Hospitalier Sud Francilien	5
77 Nord	Île-de-France	Grand Hopital de L'Est Francilien	4
93/95	Île-de-France	Centre Hospitalier de St-Denis	4
Nord Essonne	Île-de-France	Groupe Hospitalier Nord Essonne	4
Confluence	Île-de-France	Centre Hospitalier Intercom de Creteil	3
Hôpitaux Paris Est Val-de-Marne	Île-de-France	Hopitaux Paris Est Val-De-Marne	3
Paris psychiatrie et neurosciences	Île-de-France	Ghu Paris Psy et Neurosciences	3
Psy Sud Paris	Île-de-France	GH Fondation Vallee-Paul Guiraud	3
Grand Paris Nord Est	Île-de-France	GHT Gpne	2
Provins Est Seine-et-Marne	Île-de-France	Centre Hospitalier Leon Binet Provins	1

To sell to public hospitals, you first need to find this buyer, not each hospital.

Public contracts#

From October 1, 2025 to September 23, 2026, public hospitals published 29,882 contract award records (a contract split into lots counts several records; essential public procurement data). They did so through only 131 buyers, out of the 837 public SIREN numbers (the French company ID) on the list. The Toulouse university hospital accounts for 27% (8,054): the typical amount and the share with a single bid are calculated on all records.

The typical value of a contract is about €213,000: half of the contracts are smaller. Nearly half cover medical equipment or drugs. Nearly 3 in 10 contracts received only one bid, among those that report the number of bids (3,296 out of 11,251): on those contracts, there are few competitors.

Group purchasing organizations#

According to the director general of healthcare provision (DGOS), pooled purchasing represents 35% of hospital purchasing spending (French Senate, May 2025). The three large organizations bought in 2024: UniHA €6.7 billion, Resah €2.8 billion and UGAP about €0.8 billion (same source). Their 2025 figures are higher: €8.6 billion for UniHA (formally awarded contracts) and €3.4 billion for Resah.

For a supplier, the stake is getting listed. Selection by one of these organizations gives suppliers access to its members: UniHA has 1,566 members, 93% of them healthcare facilities (2025 report).

Clinic groups#

On the clinic side, we linked each one to its group through the parent company it reports to Drees, its website and the company that operates it. 952 of the 981 clinics on the list are found in the Scalon database; 29 are not linked. Of those 952, 622 belong to a group or to a company that operates several (65%). Five groups account for 425 of them, more than 4 in 10: Emeis, under its Clinea brand (102 clinics), Ramsay Santé (97), Clariane (93), Elsan (90) and Vivalto Santé (43). The other 197 clinics in a group are split among 41 networks of 2 to 49 clinics (list below); 330 clinics are not linked to any other clinic on the list.

The 41 other clinic networks

Network	Clinics
Almaviva Santé	22
LNA Santé	22
Oc Santé	11
Colisée	10
Groupe Santé Victor Pauchet	10
GBNA Santé	8
Sedna Sante	8
Cap Santé	7
Clinalliance	7
Holding Saint Gatien	7
Clinifutur	6
Groupe Les Flamboyants	5
Hospi Grand Ouest	4
Noalis	4
Sa Clinique Saint George	4
Sas La Chery	4
Courlancy Sante	4
Groupe Iris Santé	3
Hexagone Santé	3
Sa Holding Hospitaliere Et Hoteliere	3
Clinique Saint Martin	3
S.A.S Clinique Saint Roch	3
avec.fr	3
groupeclinipole.fr	2
Groupe Axe Sante (Sas)	2
Groupe Sos Sante	2
Hospitalia	2
Legacy Healthcare Investments	2
Mutami	2
Sa Holding Sante 92	2
Sa Sogesta	2
Vp Sante	2
Societe D'Exploitation Du Centre Cardiologique Du Nord	2
Clinique La Phoceanne	2
Polyclinique De Picardie	2
Polyclinique Pau Pyrenees	2
Polyclinique De Limoges	2
Centre De Reeducation Motrice Du Dr Ster	2
Pole De Sante Du Plateau	2
Midi Gascogne	2
calme.fr	2
Total	197

Four groups each operate more than 80 clinics, in 11 regions or more. The rest is split among Vivalto Santé (43 clinics), the 41 other networks of 2 to 49 clinics, and 330 clinics with no group tie found.

Chart data

Group	Clinics
Emeis (Clinea)	102
Ramsay Santé	97
Clariane	93
Elsan	90
Vivalto Santé	43
41 other networks of 2 to 49 clinics	197
No group found	330
Total	952

The biggest players, by status#

In each status, here are the five players that bring together the most facilities on the list.

AP-HP is a single legal entity, but Drees counts 38 geographic entities for it; our list has 37 (36 are linked in the Scalon database). A multisite hospital counts as several facilities.

This ranking counts sites with beds; the groups publish broader numbers (Elsan: 217 facilities and centers).

Who decides, by status#

• Public hospital: the GHT's lead facility and its purchasing department;
• Group clinic: the group's purchasing department;
• Clinic outside any group: the clinic's director;
• Private nonprofit: the management of the association, mutual insurer or foundation.

In all, 864 purchasing decision-makers for these facilities: 135 GHTs and 34 public entities outside a GHT for the 1,329 public sites, 376 players for the 952 linked clinics, 319 for the 604 linked private nonprofits.

Redo the sorting yourself#

Download the SAE administrative database from data.drees and keep the sites that have the equipment you sell. In the FINESS file (data.gouv.fr), look up the GHT lead facility of each public hospital. In the public procurement data, filter hospital buyers and the codes for your product (CPV codes starting with 33 for medical equipment): you will see who bought, for how much and with how many bids.

The six levels of this study#

To read the market without mixing denominators, the study follows six levels, from the broadest to the most precise:

1. The universe: every place that reports care to Drees.
2. Healthcare facilities, their disciplines and their size.
3. Status: public, private nonprofit, clinic.
4. Technical platforms: emergency, maternity, imaging, operating room.
5. Groups, GHTs and facilities outside any group.
6. Geography: regions and départements (France's administrative counties).

All the tables cover the same 2,962 facilities from our reread of the SAE 2025, with a Share column and a Total row, except the platforms table (Level 4), where a site counts in every platform it has. Level 5 covers 2,885 facilities: the 1,329 public sites and the 1,556 private facilities linked in the Scalon database; its table says so.

Level 1. The universe: 3,995 care sites report to Drees#

Every authorized site answers the SAE, which makes it a complete register by construction. It counts 3,995 reporting sites, but not all of them are healthcare facilities in the Drees sense.

Drees does not count the 1,033 sites at the bottom of the table among healthcare facilities. For a seller of dialysis equipment or hospital-at-home supplies, they are still customers: they are absent from the count of 2,957, but not from the market.

The rest of this study uses the 2,962 facilities in the first row. Drees counts 2,957 at end-2025: our reread has 1 more public facility, 3 more private nonprofits and 1 more clinic.

Level 2. Disciplines and facility size#

A facility often does several jobs. The disciplines present (a site can combine several) are: medical and rehabilitation care (SMR) 1,779 sites (60.1%); medicine, surgery and obstetrics (MCO) 1,481 (50.0%), of which surgery 887 (29.9%); psychiatry 611 (20.6%); long-term care 571 (19.3%).

To get shares that add up to 100%, here is the exclusive profile of each site:

More than one site in three combines several disciplines. This is the profile of big hospitals: a supplier sells to several departments at once.

Beds and places#

There are 365,100 full-stay inpatient beds at end-2025, according to the October 2026 Drees report. Our reread finds 365,095, and 94,191 places. The number of beds fell by 2,000 in one year (−0.6%) and by 47,700 since end-2013 (−11.6%).

The number of partial-hospitalization places (care without a full stay) moves the other way: about 94,200 at end-2025, 3,200 more in one year (+3.5%) and 26,400 more since end-2013 (+39.0%). HAD is measured differently: its capacity reaches 26,900 patients at the same time.

Facility size#

A typical facility offers 97 beds and places: half have fewer.

The 161 largest sites, 5.4% of the list, carry 26.5% of the capacity. At the other end, 645 sites with fewer than 50 beds and places carry only 4.0%. In the Sirene register, 850 of the 2,594 active facilities on the list report at least 250 employees (32.8%); headcount is known for 2,355.

Level 3. Who runs them: public, private nonprofit, clinics#

Status decides how they buy: see "Who decides to buy?"

Public hospitals account for nearly half of the sites and, with 224,341 beds, more than half of the beds. A typical public facility offers 101 beds and places, versus 81 for a private nonprofit and 104 for a clinic.

The shares by status are in the previous table: 44.9%, 22.0% and 33.1% of the 2,962 facilities.

Since 2013, the number of public hospitals has fallen from 1,420 to 1,328 (−92, −6.5%), mostly former local hospitals and long-term care. The number of clinics went from 1,019 to 980 (−39, −3.8%). The number of clinics is therefore falling more slowly than the number of public hospitals.

Level 4. Technical platforms: who has what#

This category covers major medical equipment and resource-intensive services: emergency departments, maternity units, operating rooms, and imaging. For an equipment seller, this is the most direct level: it says how many sites can buy your product.

The services and equipment analysis covers the 2,962 facilities. 1,090 sites have at least one of these ten platforms, 1,872 have none. A site counts in every platform it has: the table therefore has no Total row.

Chart data

Technical platform	Sites
Operating room	929
CT scanner	793
MRI	641
Emergency	612
Mammography unit	476
Maternity	451
SMUR	401
Intensive care	327
Dialysis	235
Hospital at home	130

Base: 2,962 facilities, SAE 2025. A site counts in every platform it has.

A few benchmarks for reading this table:

• Clinics are the most likely to have an operating room: 387 clinics out of 981 (39.4%), versus 434 public hospitals out of 1,329 (32.7%).
• Imaging is mostly public. Of the 641 sites with an MRI, 369 are public and 193 are clinics. Our list counts 1,109 MRI machines and 1,257 CT scanners at end-2025; the report by the French government inspectorates of finance and social affairs (IGF-Igas) counts 1,312 and 1,432 in early 2024 across all of France, private-practice offices included.
• Maternity is concentrated. Of 451 authorized sites, 68 are type 3 (the most specialized), all public. Drees counts 445 maternity units at end-2025. Among facilities that deliver babies, a typical site handles 1,058 deliveries a year, and 47.3% handle fewer than 1,000.
• Intensive care counts 5,755 beds in 327 sites. Drees counted 5,700 at end-2024.

The submarkets of this study#

This count is the foundation for more targeted studies. The submarkets Scalon describes or is preparing:

• the 451 maternity units;
• the 612 emergency departments;
• the 981 private clinics;
• the 31 university hospital centers (CHUs), out of 32 regional hospital centers (CHRs);
• the 611 psychiatry facilities;
• the 641 sites with an MRI.

Level 5. Groups, GHTs and facilities outside any group#

For a supplier, the question is how many facilities buy on their own. In commercial terms, an independent facility is not part of any chain, group, network, banner or buying group: no GHT for public hospitals, no clinic group, no association, foundation or mutual insurer that runs several hospitals. Scalon linked each facility to its group through the group parent reported to Drees, the group website and the operating company (read on November 2, 2026), and each public site to its GHT through the FINESS directory.

At most 605 of the 2,885 facilities read buy outside any group, or 21.0%: 330 clinics, 241 private nonprofits and 34 public sites. This is a maximum: a group link not found in public listings counts here as absent, and membership of a group purchasing organization is not counted. Public hospitals buy almost entirely through their GHTs. In the private sector, the top five players account for 20.0% of nonprofits (Ugecam, MGEN, Croix-Rouge française, Fondation Santé des étudiants de France, Ladapt) and 44.6% of clinics.

Sharing a company remains a detail: of the 985 private facilities in a network, 148 are linked only by one association or company that runs several facilities (129 nonprofits, 19 clinics), with no reported group parent and no shared brand.

Two other ways to count

If we count only ownership ties (same company or same group), without the GHT, the 2,810 facilities linked in the Scalon database (152 of the 2,962 are not linked) depend on 1,574 players. This reading measures ownership, not purchasing: a multisite public hospital counts as a network, and a public hospital alone in its legal entity still buys with its GHT.

Player	Players	Facilities	Share
A single facility	1,249	1,249	44.4%
2 to 9 facilities	306	866	30.8%
10 to 49 facilities	14	246	8.8%
50 facilities and more	5	449	16.0%
Total	1,574	2,810	100.0%

The five largest players account for 16.0% of the facilities, and the ten largest for 21.0%.

If we count legal entities, there are 1,911 in the SAE 2025 database: 776 public, 330 nonprofit and 805 clinics. 1,475 run only one site (77.2% of entities, 49.8% of sites), 423 run 2 to 9 sites and 13 run 10 or more. The largest are SAS Emeis Cliniques (81 sites), AP-HP (37), Korian Santé (18), MGEN (16) and the Croix-Rouge (15).

The ties between sites are of two types. In 276 cases, all the sites are under a single SIREN number (a multisite public hospital, an association, a multisite company). In 49 cases, the network brings together several companies: it is a group. No network is classified as a franchise (type not established). The group parents reported to Drees cover 709 private sites, including 553 clinics out of 981 (56.4%) and 156 private nonprofits out of 652 (23.9%).

Level 6. Where are the hospitals?#

The first five regions hold 1,645 facilities, or 55.5% of the list. The table ranks regions by number of sites and adds the share of clinics, which says who to sell to, and the density, which says where supply is densest.

Chart data

Region	Facilities
Île-de-France	405
Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes	354
Occitanie	321
Nouvelle-Aquitaine	292
Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur	273
Grand Est	268
Hauts-de-France	244
Bourgogne-Franche-Comté	149
Normandie	148
Pays de la Loire	148
Bretagne	142
Centre-Val de Loire	108

Overseas France covers La Réunion (32), Guadeloupe (23), Martinique (18), Guyane (9), Mayotte (3) and Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon (1). The last row gives the density for all of France: 4.3 sites per hundred thousand residents.

Two takeaways for a sales team:

• The share of clinics varies a lot. In Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, half of the sites are clinics; in Grand Est, only 16%. A seller to clinics will find more of them in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur; in Grand Est, the buyer is mostly the GHT.
• Density varies by region. In mainland France, it runs from 3.2 sites per hundred thousand residents in Île-de-France to 5.3 in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté (6.8 in Corse). In Île-de-France, the sites are bigger: 191 beds and places on average, versus 135 in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté.

Bouches-du-Rhône (105 facilities), Nord (104) and Paris (93) have the most. Next come Rhône (86), Hauts-de-Seine (67), Gironde (66) and Hérault (66). These are départements, France's administrative counties. In mainland France, Ariège and Territoire de Belfort have 5 each, and Mayotte has 3.

How much is the hospital market worth in euros?#

Hospital care represents €124.1 billion in 2025, according to the Comptes de la santé (the national health accounts) from Drees: €96.2 billion for the public sector (public hospitals and private nonprofits at the public rate) and €27.9 billion for clinics. That is 2.8% more in one year.

For a supplier, the useful share is purchasing: nearly €35 billion, investment included, according to the director general of healthcare provision (DGOS) before the French Senate inquiry committee (May 2025), and €42.6 billion in contracts formally awarded in 2024 according to the economic observatory of public procurement, cited by Resah (September 2026). The two figures do not measure the same thing: €35 billion of spending per year, €42.6 billion in contracts formally awarded in 2024, some of which cover several years.

The financial context matters for your prospecting. In 2024, public hospitals lost €2.9 billion, or 2.7% of their revenue, with debt of €29.9 billion. Their deficit is estimated at 2.1% of revenue in 2025. Clinics earn little: €194 million in net income in 2024, or 1.0% of revenue, and 36% were in deficit. The clinics federation (FHP) counts 46% of clinics in deficit in 2025, according to a study commissioned by the federation, with another method: the two figures cannot be compared.

On the clinic side, the typical revenue of the company that operates a facility is €13.8 million: half of the 646 companies studied make less. Together, they earn €18.1 billion. The groups publish: Elsan €3.3 billion in 2025, Ramsay Santé €5.2 billion (group, fiscal year ended June 30, 2025, Nordic countries included), Vivalto Santé €3 billion (2025, seven countries) and €1,287 million for Clariane's healthcare facilities and services (2025).

These amounts describe sectors or groups, not a typical hospital. Do not divide €124.1 billion by 2,957: a university hospital and a small clinic have nothing in common. For public hospitals and private nonprofits, the register does not publish an income statement at the facility level.

Revenue of clinic companies, by bracket

Out of 798 clinic SIREN numbers, 15 have no balance sheet, 64 have confidential accounts and 73 have fiscal years that are too old: 646 companies are kept (fiscal year ended in 2024 or later).

Revenue of the clinic company	Companies	Share
Under €5M	84	13.0%
€5M to €10M	160	24.8%
€10M to €20M	155	24.0%
€20M to €50M	161	24.9%
€50M and over	86	13.3%
Total	646	100.0%

The top ten companies account for 21.9% of the total. A company that operates a single site has typical revenue of €12.6 million.

Why does the number of hospitals change from one source to another?#

The word "hospital" has two meanings. Public hospitals, in the Drees sense, number 1,328; in the broad sense, the French hospital sector has 2,957 facilities, clinics included. A third figure, 365,100, counts beds: it is a capacity, not a number of hospitals. The other sources count members, companies or registration numbers, hence gaps explained by scope, unit or date.

The table of sources and their scopes

Source	Published figure	What the figure counts	Why it differs from 2,957
Drees, October 2026 report	2,957	Healthcare facilities with a bed or place, end-2025, provisional data	This is our benchmark
Drees, 2026 panorama	2,962	Same scope, end-2024, final data	Same number by coincidence: our reread covers end-2025 (365,095 beds, 2,000 fewer than end-2024)
Drees, November 2025 report	2,965	Same scope, end-2024, provisional data	One year earlier; the report warned that its figures could "légèrement différer" (differ slightly) from the final version
Comptes de la santé 2026	a little under 3,000	Order of magnitude, of which about 2,000 public or nonprofit and nearly 1,000 for-profit private	Rounded: same scope, without the detail
Scalon Observatory	2,962	Our reread of the SAE 2025 database, site by site	1 public, 3 private nonprofit and 1 clinic more than Drees
FINESS directory	3,169	Sites authorized to provide care in medicine, surgery, obstetrics, psychiatry, rehabilitation or long-term care	Counts authorizations, including 505 sites with no separate row in Drees
Fédération de l'hospitalisation privée (FHP)	1,030	Member private clinics and hospitals (2022 page)	Private only, members only
Fédération hospitalière de France (FHF)	4,800	Member public facilities; the FHF does not detail their nature on its home page	France has only 1,328 public hospitals: the other members are not healthcare facilities in the Drees sense
Sirene register, code 86.10Z	11,154	Open locations classified "hospital activities"	An activity code is not a hospital with beds

The two lists do not match row by row: 298 Drees sites do not appear in the FINESS care list. In its October 2026 report, Drees excludes dialysis and radiotherapy centers from its scope, as well as facilities that provide only hospital-at-home care. Its end-2025 figure is provisional: the final statistical database is announced "prochainement" (soon).

Which NAF code for a hospital?#

The NAF code (the French activity classification code, also called APE code) of a hospital is 86.10Z, "Activités hospitalières" (hospital activities). As of November 2, 2026, the Sirene register counts 11,154 open locations under this code, but only 2,496 are one of the Drees facilities: a little more than 1 in 5. The NAF code alone is therefore not enough to build a list of hospitals, because it mixes hospitals, departments and head offices.

The details of code 86.10Z

The NAF code (or APE code) classifies a business's main activity. Insee states that its purpose is "essentiellement statistique" (essentially statistical). To count hospitals in Sirene (the business register kept by Insee), you filter on code 86.10Z. The result does not match Drees's, for two reasons:

• Activity. 86.10Z includes "les services d'hospitalisation à domicile de jour, de nuit ou de semaine" (hospital-at-home services by day, by night or by the week; Insee text). Drees excludes them when the facility does nothing else. Conversely, outpatient medicine practiced in a clinic falls outside 86.10Z: it is classified under 86.2.
• Unit. Insee counts locations in the SIRET sense (the fourteen-digit number of a business location). Drees counts hospital geographic entities: nothing guarantees that the two match row by row.

On the unit side, 5,722 of the 86.10Z locations belong to the same company as a hospital on the list (a department, a consultation center or a building registered separately). 2,038 are head offices, and the two groups overlap. On the activity side, of 40 locations read at random, only 2 look like an entire hospital: an order of magnitude, not a measurement.

Conversely, the code misses few hospitals: 96 Drees facilities out of 2,592 still open in the register are filed under another code, for example 87.10A (nursing homes) or 70.10Z (head offices).

The classification is changing too. NAF 2025 replaces NAF rev. 2 on January 1, 2027 (decree no. 2025-736 of July 31, 2025). A Sirene count is therefore only valid with its code, date and scope written down.

Hospital market vocabulary, explained simply#

The market's words, in a table

Term	Simple definition
Healthcare facility	A site with at least one bed or place. This is the unit counted here, which Drees calls a "geographic entity."
Legal entity	The company, association or public facility that runs one or more sites. It signs the contracts.
CHU, CHR	The regional hospital center (CHR) is a large referral hospital; 31 of the 32 CHRs are also university hospital centers (CHU).
CH	The hospital center: the usual form of the public hospital.
CHS	The hospital center specialized in psychiatry.
Former local hospital	A small, local public hospital, now classified among hospital centers.
ESPIC, private nonprofit	A private facility serving the collective interest: association, foundation, mutual insurer. It operates on a nonprofit basis.
CLCC	A cancer center. 20 are among the private nonprofits.
Clinic	A for-profit private facility.
MCO	Medicine, surgery, obstetrics: acute care, with or without an operation.
SMR	Medical and rehabilitation care (the former "soins de suite").
USLD	Long-term care unit: beds for people who are highly dependent.
HAD	Hospital at home: the hospital treats the patient at home.
GHT	The territorial hospital group: the public hospitals of an area pool their purchasing and strategy.
Lead facility	The hospital that holds the purchasing function of a GHT for all its members.
Emergency structure	A department authorized to receive emergencies, general or pediatric.
SMUR	The mobile emergency and intensive care unit: the medical team that leaves by ambulance.
Type 1, 2, 3 maternity	The level of care for newborns: type 3 handles the most serious cases.
Independent (commercial sense)	A facility that is not part of any chain, group, network, banner or buying group: no GHT, no AP-HP, no clinic group, no association, foundation or mutual insurer that runs several hospitals. It buys on its own.

Is the hospital market changing?#

Yes, but slowly. Between end-2013 and end-2025, there are 164 fewer facilities (−5.3%). Beds are falling faster than sites, while places are rising: the market is shifting from beds to outpatient care. Maternity units are falling even faster: 1,369 in 1975, 814 in 1996 and 428 in 2024 in mainland France (Drees); 445 across all of France at end-2025. 19 closed in 2023 and 2024. A prospect list therefore ages: a clinic can change group, and the decision-maker with it.

How do you build a hospital prospect list?#

A useful prospect list does not start from the NAF code. It starts with the SAE list and the FINESS directory, each of which assigns an identifier to each facility, then combines data on status, specialized services and equipment, network affiliation, and region. You can also follow the prospect list guide.

On contact details, here is what the public registers give: the FINESS directory provides a phone number for 2,821 of the 2,962 facilities (95.2%), but almost no email (24). In our public facility listings, 1,754 of the 2,810 linked facilities have a website (62.4%), 1,955 a phone number (69.6%) and 364 an email (13.0%). Among clinics, at least 496 out of 952 have an online booking page, and they often name their doctors there: useful if you sell to practitioners.

Our file links each facility to its company, its group and its public contact details, with the most likely decision-maker for its status.

Frequently asked questions about hospitals in France#

How many hospitals are there in France?#

At the end of 2025, France has 2,957 healthcare facilities according to Drees, public hospitals and clinics included. Of these, 1,328 are public hospitals. The figure is provisional: our reread finds 2,962 sites.

How many public hospitals and clinics are there?#

There are 1,328 public hospitals, 980 private clinics and 649 private nonprofit facilities (Drees, end-2025). Five groups account for 425 of the 952 clinics we matched; 330 have no group.

How many hospitals and clinics are independent?#

In commercial terms, outside any group, network or GHT, at most 605 of the 2,885 facilities read are independent (21.0%): 330 clinics out of 952, 241 private nonprofits out of 604 and 34 public sites out of 1,329. Public hospitals buy almost entirely through their GHTs.

How many university hospitals are there in France?#

France has 32 regional hospital centers, of which 31 are also university hospital centers. They account for 187 sites on the Drees list.

How many GHTs are there in France?#

There are 136 territorial hospital groups. 1,250 of the 1,329 public sites belong to one (94.1%). Each GHT entrusts its purchasing to a lead facility.

Which NAF code should a hospital report?#

The NAF code is 86.10Z, "hospital activities." It counts 11,154 open locations, of which only 2,496 are facilities on the Drees list. It is therefore not enough to build a list of hospitals.

How many hospitals have emergency departments, maternity units, or MRI machines?#

Of the 2,962 facilities on the list, 612 have emergency departments, 451 have maternity units, 641 have an MRI machine, and 929 have an operating room; of those with operating rooms, 434 are public hospitals and 387 are clinics.

How many hospital beds are there in France?#

There are 365,100 full-stay inpatient beds at end-2025 and about 94,200 partial-hospitalization places. Beds are down 11.6% since end-2013, while places are up 39.0%.

What is the revenue of a clinic?#

A company that operates a clinic has typical revenue of €13.8 million: half of the 646 companies studied make less. The groups publish revenues from €1,287 million to €5.2 billion.

Methodology#

The number of hospitals comes from Drees: Études et Résultats no. 1394 of October 28, 2026, provisional end-2025 data. We reread the SAE 2025 administrative database published by Drees, site by site, then matched its SIRET numbers against the Sirene register, public contracts, public facility listings, online booking pages and collective agreements gathered in the Scalon database. The FINESS directory comes from the files of the Agence du numérique en santé of November 6, 2026.

Method details and limits

Unit of count. The healthcare facility is the geographic entity of the SAE 2025 (administrative database, data.drees, July 23, 2026) that reports at least one bed or place in medicine, surgery, obstetrics, psychiatry, rehabilitation or long-term care. We find 2,962 sites (1,329 public, 652 private nonprofit, 981 clinics), 365,095 beds and 94,191 places, versus 2,957, 365,081 and 94,197 in the Drees report. The 5-site gap breaks down into 1 public, 3 private nonprofit and 1 clinic; the report does not detail its scope rules. The list is identical to that of the first edition of this article.

Categories. The 919 hospital centers in the Drees count match the 734 hospital centers and the 186 former local hospitals in our reread, within 1.

Universe. The 3,995 reporting sites are all the identifiers of the SAE 2025. Drees excludes 1,033 of them (dialysis only, radiotherapy only, hospital at home only, health cooperation groups, reporters with no bed or place).

Disciplines and technical platforms. Disciplines come from the beds and places reported. Data on specialized services and equipment come from the SAE 2025 forms: emergency departments and maternity units from authorizations; SMUR and SAMU (France's emergency medical dispatch service); intensive care (beds); operating rooms (surgical rooms); MRI, CT scanners, and mammography units (machines); and HAD and dialysis (reported activity). A site counts in every platform it reports. The Drees benchmarks date from 2019 to 2025 depending on the fact sheet: definitions have sometimes changed, which explains discrepancies we do not try to eliminate.

Structure. Each facility found in the Scalon database (2,810) is linked to its player through its SIREN number, the group parent it reports in the SAE 2025 (SIREN number and company name of the parent company) and the group website on its public listings. Companies of the same group are combined (for example, 86 companies for Elsan). A facility whose SIRET number on the list is closed in the register (49 clinics) is linked through its group parent and its website. Read on November 2, 2026, with Scalon's player-structure tool (version 1.1.7), not redone for this update: the list is the same.

Territorial hospital groups. FINESS "structures" file (Agence du numérique en santé, November 6, 2026): a site is in a GHT when its legal entity is a member of a group. FINESS lists 149 groups, of which 135 include sites on the list; the official figure is 136 (Agence du numérique en santé, August 2026).

FINESS directory. "Structures" and "activities" files: active sites, with no closing date, that carry out at least one active authorized care activity in medicine, surgery, gynecology-obstetrics, psychiatry, long-term care or medical and rehabilitation care. 2,664 of the 2,962 SAE sites are in it; 505 FINESS sites have no separate row in the SAE (338 public; 223 in psychiatry only, 202 in long-term care only). 13 sites on the list are closed there as of November 6, 2026.

Sirene register. Code 86.10Z (register in the Scalon database, November 2, 2026): latest version of each location that has carried this code, not closed: 11,154; 2,863 distinct numbers in the SAE, of which 2,592 open in the register that day. Status and size of the locations on the list (Insee stock files of September 24, 2026): 2,816 valid SIRET numbers, 2,594 active, 212 closed, 10 missing; employee headcount band known for 2,355 of the active ones.

Reading the locations outside the list. 40 locations coded 86.10Z outside the Drees list, picked at random (seed 20261102), read by Scalon with the Claude Haiku 5.5 model (Anthropic) from their public listings (register name, public facility listings, business directories, online booking pages): 2 entire hospitals, 6 hospital departments or buildings, 5 head offices, 13 providing care without a full inpatient stay, and 14 that could not be classified from their listings. Scalon reread 10 of them a second time and found the same answer 6 times. With 40 readings, these figures are orders of magnitude; they do not change the total, which comes from Drees.

Quality check. Scalon drew 100 of the 2,962 facilities at random (51 public, 20 private nonprofit, 29 clinics) and had them reread twice, independently, on an evidence file for each site: SAE 2025 record, FINESS directory record of November 6, 2026, Sirene register and public facility listings. Four questions: is the site operating, is it really a facility that admits patients, is its status right, is its operator the right one? Scalon's two readings, done with two different language models (including Claude Haiku 5.5), give the same answer to all four questions for 89 sites out of 100. Scalon settled the others from the documents, with a web search for 8 sites (group pages, press). Result: 1 closed site out of 100, a clinic closed on September 30, 2025 (1.0%, at most 5.4% with 95% confidence); no category error out of 100 (at most 3.7%); no status error out of 99 sites settled (at most 3.7%); 4 wrong operators out of 99 (4.0%, at most 9.9%), all public: the Drees database keeps the SIRET number of the former hospital before a merger (Chambéry, Meaux, Nantes, Mulhouse), while the FINESS directory gives the right operator. The 8 group parents reported to Drees and checked on the web are all confirmed. This check verifies that the listed sites exist and are correctly classified; it cannot see a facility missing from the SAE, which is exhaustive by construction.

Revenue. Accounts published in the register (read by Scalon on November 6, 2026) for the companies that operate the clinics: one SIREN number counted once, latest fiscal year ended in 2024 or later, revenue above zero. 646 companies out of 798 clinic SIREN numbers. The 64 confidential balance sheets at 0 and the 73 older fiscal years are set aside. Typical revenue is the median (€13,753,933). Public hospitals and private nonprofits have no income statement in the register (a single nonprofit SIREN number).

Public contracts. Essential public procurement data in the Scalon database (most recent contract award notification recorded: September 23, 2026), contracts formally awarded from October 1, 2025, to September 23, 2026 whose buyer has the SIREN number of one of the 1,329 public hospitals in the SAE, excluding group purchasing organizations (UniHA, Resah, UGAP), which are not counted. A contract split into lots can count several records; the top buyer, the Toulouse university hospital, publishes 8,054. Typical amount calculated excluding amounts flagged as abnormal; medical equipment and drugs: CPV (EU procurement classification) codes starting with 33 (14,541 contracts).

Territory. Populations come from geo.api.gouv.fr (November 6, 2026, 68,952,941 residents). Density is the number of sites per hundred thousand residents.

Public listings, online booking pages, collective agreements. Listings linked in the Scalon database to the SIRET number of each facility (2,810 facilities present). This linkage is incomplete: a hospital often has several listings (departments, entrances). The shares are therefore minimums. Practitioners are those that each online booking page displays, counted once per clinic. Collective agreements: July 2026 filings.

What we did not keep. Cross-matching directories (public facility listings, business directories, online booking pages, Sirene) would give 15,000 to 68,000 "hospitals" depending on the pair: it counts the departments and entrances of the same hospital as separate places. The Drees list, complete by design, makes this estimate unnecessary.

What to remember#

• France has 2,957 hospitals and clinics at end-2025 (Drees), 2,962 in our reread. Public hospitals, in the Drees sense, number 1,328.
• To sell to the public sector, the buyer is the territorial hospital group: 136 GHTs, 94.1% of public sites.
• To sell to clinics, five groups account for 425 of 952, and 330 clinics have no group found: they are approached one by one.
• At most 605 of the 2,885 facilities read buy outside any group, network or GHT (21.0%): 330 clinics, 241 private nonprofits, 34 public sites.
• Equipment is scarce: 641 sites have an MRI machine, 612 have emergency departments, and 451 have maternity units.
• A NAF code is not enough: of 11,154 locations under 86.10Z, 2,496 are Drees facilities.
• A market that moves: 164 fewer facilities since end-2013, beds going down and places going up.

Cite this study#

Full citation, with counts

Scalon Observatory, "Number of Hospitals in France: 3,000 at End-2025, Clinics Included," November 2, 2026, updated November 9, 2026: 2,957 healthcare facilities at end-2025 (Drees, Études et Résultats no. 1394), 2,962 in our reread of the SAE 2025 database; 1,250 public sites out of 1,329 in a territorial hospital group; five groups account for 425 clinics; 641 sites with an MRI; 11,154 locations open under code 86.10Z in the Sirene register, of which 2,496 are Drees facilities. https://scalon.fr/en/observatory/number-of-hospitals-in-france

Sources#

• Établissements de santé : baisse modérée des lits en 2025, et poursuite de la progression des places d'hospitalisation, Études et Résultats n° 1394, Drees, 28 octobre 2026
• Les établissements de santé en 2024, édition 2026, Drees (vue d'ensemble et fiches)
• Dans les établissements de santé en 2024, la baisse du nombre de lits ralentit, Études et Résultats n° 1353, Drees, novembre 2025
• Les dépenses de santé en 2025, édition 2026, Comptes de la santé, Drees
• Le déficit des hôpitaux publics, Études et Résultats n° 1380, Drees, 28 juillet 2026
• Bases administratives SAE, SAE 2025, data.drees
• FINESS – Structures et FINESS – Activités, fichiers de novembre 2026, Agence du numérique en santé, data.gouv.fr
• Pertinence et efficience des dépenses de radiologie, IGF-Igas, juin 2025
• Groupements hospitaliers de territoire dans FINESS, Agence du numérique en santé, septembre 2026
• Article L6132-3 du code de la santé publique, Légifrance
• La Fédération de l'hospitalisation privée and la Fédération hospitalière de France
• Les maternités, fiche 19, panorama 2026, Drees and franceinfo, 30 octobre 2025
• Audition sur la commande publique, Sénat, 12 mai 2025
• Rapport d'activité 2025, UniHA
• Centrale d'achat, Resah et atelier Resah (observatoire économique de la commande publique), septembre 2026
• Édito du président de la FHP sur l'étude de 2026
• Clinic groups: Elsan, Ramsay Santé, résultats au 30 juin 2025, Vivalto Santé and Clariane, résultats annuels 2025
• Sous-classe 86.10Z, Activités hospitalières, NAF rév. 2, Insee
• Présentation générale de la NAF, Insee
• Décret n° 2025-736 du 31 juillet 2025 portant approbation des nomenclatures d'activités et de produits françaises, Légifrance