Every new year, I download the FAA registration database and extract the number of homebuilt aircraft.

First: Total aircraft on the FAA registry:
Year
All Aircraft
Net Increase
Total Deregistered
New Aircraft
EAB
Net EAB Increase
EAB Deregistered
New EAB Aircraft
2009
374373
-1751
7018
5267
|
31914
672
464
1136
2010
373896
-477
5422
4945
|
32682
768
309
1077
2011
367857
-6039
11224
5185
|
33038
356
666
1022
2012
352198
-15659
20985
5326
|
32041
-997
1951
954
2013
317993
-34205
40188
5983
|
27946
-4095
5013
918
2014
312586
-5407
12588
7181
|
27909
-37
1084
1047
2015
314404
1818
8240
10058
|
28078
169
781
950
2016
320683
6279
4254
10533
|
28830
752
225
977
2017
312344
-8339
14961
6622
|
28451
-379
1296
917

The total number of registered homebuilts dropped by 379 last year, and this was due to an increased number of aircraft deregistered by the FAA. You'll see the same effect in the "All Aircraft" columns. Not sure what happened last year, but it may be due to owners deciding not to maintain the listings of inactive/no-long-existing aircraft. As you can see, the "All Aircraft" section shows the same impact...a big jump in deregistrations.

There were about 1020 new homebuilt N-Numbers last year, but roughly 100 were re-numbered existing aircraft. By my analysis, 917 brand-new homebuilts were added to the fleet last year. This is slightly less than average.

Ron Wanttaja