It's interesting to note that 2019 saw a bit of a "bounceback" in Experimental Amateur-Built (EAB) numbers.

The usual year-to-year comparison used the total number of EAB-registered aircraft. However, this is deceptive, as mere subtraction produces only the net change. In other words, the number of new aircraft minus the ones removed from the registry in that year.

Prior to 2010, it didn't make much difference. Aircraft were removed from the registry only on the owner's request, and a lot of old homebuilts lingered on the rolls far past the time they were active. But in 2010, the FAA started its policy of requiring aircraft owners to renew their registrations every three years. Failure to do so would result in the FAA de-registering the aircraft.

As the table shows, a huge number of homebuilts were removed from the rolls by the end of the first cycle in 2013....about a quarter of the entire US homebuilt fleet. It's been cyclical since then, with another peak in deregistrations last year (ten percent of the fleet IN A SINGLE YEAR).

As the re-registration cycle is three years, I anticipated that 2019 would also see a major hit (e.g., 6 years from the end of the first cycle). As the data show, this didn't happen:
Year
EAB
Net Change
EAB Deregistered
New EAB Registered
2010
32682
768
309
1077
2011
33038
356
666
1022
2012
32041
-997
1951
954
2013
27946
-4095
5013
918
2014
27909
-37
1084
1047
2015
28078
169
781
950
2016
28830
752
225
977
2017
28451
-379
1296
917
2018
26572
-1879
2767
888
2019
26842
270
916
1186
Not only did the number of de-registrations drop, we also saw a good jump in the number of new homebuilt completions: 1186. This is actually the best it's been for the past ten years.

Ron Wanttaja