FIDE Rating List - January 2025

This is the tenth consecutive year that I'm following a cookie-cutter approach to look at FIDE ratings for the new year. Following is the step-by-step checklist...

1) Identify last year's post: FIDE Rating List - January 2024 (January 2024).

2) Identify the source of the FIDE data: FIDE Ratings Download:-

STANDARD
TXT format (12 Jan 2025, Sz: 10.81 MB)

3) Compare some basic counts over the past few years. Going back to the start of 2020 gives pre-covid 19 as a reference point. This year I've added counts to show the increase (and one decrease) in the total and inactive counts.

2025: >486K players; >292K marked inactive [+46K +27K]
2024: >440K players; >265K marked inactive [+35K +12K]
2023: >405K players; >253K marked inactive [+28K +25K]
2022: >377K players; >228K marked inactive [+15K +54K]
2021: >362K players; >174K marked inactive [+8K -7K]
2020: >354K players; >181K marked inactive
[...]

4) Analyze changes in players per federation. The top chart lists new federations in 2025 (BIZ = Belize; GRL = Greenland; NCL = New Caledonia; NON = Gareyev, Timur and Ramirez, Alejandro; VAN = Vanuatu).

The lower charts show federations with the largest increase in number of players (left) and the largest percentage increase (right; for federations with at least 100 players at the start of 2024; NB: TKM = Turkmenistan, NAM = Namibia)

5) Identify ideas for a followup post. Last year's only followup post, Players under the FIDE Flag (January 2024), might be worth a revisit because FIDE's (FED = 'FID') percentage increase was the fourth highest on the right column. Another idea would be to summarize all of the posts I've done through the years on different rating topics. That might be a long list, but I've lost track.