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Small Credit Unions in GoWest's Footprint
55 of the 261 credit unions based in GoWest Credit Union Association's footprint hold less than $50M in assets. Here is what their own call reports say about them, in aggregate, with no credit union singled out.
Footprint: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming.
NCUA data through Q1 2026. Aggregates only. No credit union is singled out anywhere on this page.
Fewer of them, and better capitalized than you would guess
The count
55
credit unions hold less than $50M in assets, or 21.1% of the 261 that filed for Q1 2026. At the end of 2016 there were 144; at the end of 2025, 60, a change of -58%.
The same cohort, on capital and credit
Net worth ratio 14.29% vs 11.21%
Delinquency ratio 0.55% vs 0.67%
Net charge-off ratio 0.23% vs 0.54%
Small credit unions on the left, credit unions at or above $50M on the right. Both figures are the median credit union in that group.
Where they went
A credit union leaves this group three different ways, and a headline that reports only the falling total hides which one happened. Tracking every credit union under $50M at the end of 2024 forward one year:
That leaves 60 at the end of 2025. We do not label the credit unions that stopped filing without a merger record: there is no public explanation on file for them, and we are not going to invent one.
Under $50M vs. $50M and above
Every row is the median credit union in that group, computed with the same disclosed equations used across CUNinjas. A median describes the typical credit union and shrugs off outliers, which matters more here than anywhere else on the site.
| Metric | Median under $50M | Median $50M and above |
|---|---|---|
| Net worth ratio | 14.29% | 11.21% |
| Delinquency ratio | 0.55% | 0.67% |
| Net charge-off ratio | 0.23% | 0.54% |
| Return on assets | 0.64% | 0.63% |
| Loan-to-share ratio | 69.46% | 76.44% |
| Member growth (1 yr) | -1.02% | 0.37% |
| Asset growth (1 yr) | 1.17% | 3.58% |
The pattern the table shows: this group carries more capital, its credit quality sits alongside the larger group's, it earns a little less, and it is losing members while the larger group adds them. That last row is the one worth arguing about.
Over time
The median credit union under $50M (solid) against the median credit union at or above it (dashed), by year. A line breaks where a figure is withheld or was not computable; it is never drawn across the gap.
Net worth ratio 13.53% · 11.25%
— under $50M ‒‒ $50M and above
Return on assets 0.49% · 0.68%
— under $50M ‒‒ $50M and above (1 year not shown)
Member growth (1 yr) -0.68% · 0.26%
— under $50M ‒‒ $50M and above (1 year not shown)
Delinquency ratio 0.59% · 0.75%
— under $50M ‒‒ $50M and above
Small credit unions that grew members last year
The median credit union in this group lost members, and these did not. The only named credit unions on this page, and the list is positive by construction: nobody flat or shrinking can appear on it.
Highest one-year member growth, under $50M
- 1 Prescott Credit Union $11.0M9.28%
- 2 Umatilla County Credit Union $48.3M8.32%
- 3 Longshoremen's Local 4 Credit Union $40.0M5.15%
- 4 Cit-Co Credit Union $31.8M4.75%
- 5 IBEW/SJ Cascade Credit Union $22.5M4.04%
- 6 Eweb Employees Credit Union $35.0M3.29%
- 7 Winslow Santa Fe Credit Union $15.2M1.85%
- 8 Em Credit Union $11.5M1.21%
- 9 Alhambra Credit Union $34.2M0.75%
- 10 Register Guard Credit Union $28.9M0.44%
Restricted to credit unions with at least 1,000 members in both years, excluding any that completed an acquisition (so a merger cannot pose as growth) and any whose reported membership more than doubled in a year, which is a filing change rather than growth.
Questions people actually ask
How many small credit unions are there in the United States?
55 federally insured credit unions held less than $50M in assets in the Q1 2026 NCUA Call Report, out of 261 that filed. That is 21.1% of all credit unions.
What counts as a small credit union?
There is no single official definition. This report uses assets under $50M, the same threshold CUNinjas uses everywhere else on the site, and reports every figure for that cohort next to the cohort at or above it so you can see both.
Are small credit unions disappearing?
The number of credit unions under $50M went from 144 at the end of 2016 to 60 at the end of 2025. Credit unions leave this group three different ways: by merging, by ceasing to file, and by growing past the threshold. This report separates them rather than reporting the total on its own.
What happened to the small credit unions that left the group in 2025?
Of the 62 credit unions under $50M at the end of 2024, 59 were still under it a year later, 0 grew past it, 2 have an NCUA merger record on file, and 1 stopped filing with no merger record. 1 credit unions joined the group over the same year.
Are small credit unions less well capitalized than large ones?
No. In the Q1 2026 Call Report the median credit union under $50M reported a net worth ratio of 14.29%, against 11.21% for the median credit union at or above it.
CUNinjas, "Small Credit Unions in America," Q1 2026. https://cuninjas.com/leagues/gowest-credit-union-association/small-credit-unions/
Grab the numbers as a CSV, or embed the summary card:
<iframe src="https://cuninjas.com/credit-unions/small-credit-unions/embed/" width="100%" height="230" style="border:1px solid #e4e6e9;border-radius:10px" title="Small credit unions in America"></iframe>
Method. Compiled from public NCUA 5300 Call Report data (Q1 2026), covering federally insured credit unions headquartered in AZ, CO, ID, OR, WA, WY that filed for the quarter. Small means total assets under $50M, the threshold CUNinjas uses site-wide. There is no official definition of a small credit union, so every figure is shown next to the same figure for credit unions at or above the line. Counts are the true number that filed each quarter, read directly from the call report with no adjustment for credit unions that later merged, so a past year reflects who was actually there. Ratios and growth are the median credit union, computed through the CU411 engine, over a basis that excludes credit unions with under $100,000 in assets: a near-zero denominator makes a ratio meaningless. That lower bound never applies to a count. Withholding. A median is withheld when fewer than 5 credit unions sit on either side of the $50M line, so a figure can never stand in for a single institution. Counts are never withheld. A trend line breaks at a withheld point rather than being drawn across it. Coverage. Counts, net worth, delinquency and loan-to-share run from 2016; return on assets and the growth measures from 2017; net charge-offs from 2018. Earlier quarters are not computable, so this is a nine-year read, not a ten-year one. What this page will not do. No projection or forecast, no characterization of any named credit union, and no ranking of this group on any ratio. Ratios over very small balance sheets are noise, which is why CUNinjas floors its ratio leaderboards at $50M everywhere else and why the one list here ranks a headcount instead. Figures may contain error; use the flag link on any credit union's profile.