The short answer
INFJ is the rarest MBTI type, at about 1.5% of US adults, and its cat is the Birman. The most common type is ISFJ at 13.8%, which gets the Ragdoll. Those figures come from the MBTI Manual (3rd ed., Myers, McCaulley, Quenk & Hammer, 1998), which reports a US national representative sample of 3,009 adults (1,478 men and 1,531 women). It is still the best published answer to the question, so this page starts there, ranks all 16 types, and then spends a section being honest about how much weight the decimals can carry.
One housekeeping note: MeowBTI results come with an -A or -T suffix (INFJ-A, INFJ-T). The published statistics only exist for the four-letter types, so that is all this page can rank.
All 16 types, rarest to most common
Percentages are from the MBTI Manual national sample as reprinted in Psychometrics Canada’s 2008 report (Table 10); the sample size and the preference totals are confirmed in CPP’s New Zealand technical brief. The cat is each type’s MeowBTI breed match.
| # | Type | Cat breed | Share of US adults |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | INFJ | Birman | 1.5% |
| 2 | ENTJ | Savannah | 1.8% |
| 3 | INTJ | Russian Blue | 2.1% |
| 4 | ENFJ | Siamese | 2.5% |
| 5 | ENTP | Oriental Shorthair | 3.2% |
| 6 | INTP | Korat | 3.3% |
| 7 | ESTP | Bengal | 4.3% |
| 8 | INFP | Khao Manee | 4.4% |
| 9 | ISTP | Norwegian Forest Cat | 5.4% |
| 10 | ENFP | Abyssinian | 8.1% |
| 11 | ESFP | Devon Rex | 8.5% |
| 12 | ESTJ | American Shorthair | 8.7% |
| 13 | ISFP | Scottish Fold | 8.8% |
| 14 | ISTJ | British Shorthair | 11.6% |
| 15 | ESFJ | Maine Coon | 12.3% |
| 16 | ISFJ | Ragdoll | 13.8% |
Two patterns explain most of the table. First, Intuition is the minority preference: the eight N types add up to only 26.7% of the sample, against 73.3% for Sensing. Second, the four rarest types (INFJ, ENTJ, INTJ and ENFJ) together are 7.9% of people, while the four most common (ISFJ, ESFJ, ISTJ and ISFP) are 46.5%. Rare does not mean better, and common does not mean boring. It only means you will meet more Ragdolls than Birmans.
Men and women: the same type, a different rarity
The same national sample was published separately for 1,531 women and 1,478 men (Tables 11 and 12), and the split is large. The rarest type among women is INTJ at 0.8%, followed by ENTJ at 0.9% and INFJ at 1.6%. Among men the rarest is INFJ at 1.3%, followed by ENFJ at 1.6% and ENTJ at 2.7%. The most common type among women is ISFJ (19.4%); among men it is ISTJ (16.4%).
| Type | Women | Men |
|---|---|---|
| INFJ | 1.6% | 1.3% |
| ENTJ | 0.9% | 2.7% |
| INTJ | 0.8% | 3.3% |
| ENFJ | 3.3% | 1.6% |
| ENTP | 2.4% | 4.0% |
| INTP | 1.8% | 4.8% |
| ESTP | 3.0% | 5.6% |
| INFP | 4.6% | 4.1% |
| ISTP | 2.4% | 8.5% |
| ENFP | 9.7% | 6.4% |
| ESFP | 10.1% | 6.9% |
| ESTJ | 6.3% | 11.2% |
| ISFP | 9.9% | 7.6% |
| ISTJ | 6.9% | 16.4% |
| ESFJ | 16.9% | 7.5% |
| ISFJ | 19.4% | 8.1% |
The pattern is that Thinking types skew male and Feeling types skew female in this sample, so INTJ is about four times as common in men (3.3%) as in women (0.8%), and ENFJ is about twice as common in women (3.3%) as in men (1.6%). These are 1998 US survey figures, not a law of nature.
What about Thailand?
I could not find a published MBTI type distribution for the Thai population. The closest thing is the publisher’s own technical brief for the Thai translation (CPP, 2017), and it is explicit that its sample is “a sample of convenience” and that “no inferences may be drawn about the preferences or type distribution of the population of Thailand.” Its type table covers 240 people (71% women), and the most common type there is ISTJ at 18.8%.
The other Thai number you will see comes from 16Personalities, which publishes country pages. For Thailand it reports 3,463,682 test results from October 2025 to September 2026, and the top three are ENFJ (13.6%), INFJ (12.7%) and INTJ (11.2%). The bottom three are ESTP (0.6%), ESTJ (1.5%) and ISTP (2.3%). That is a ranking of who takes a free online personality test in Thai, and 16Personalities itself says test-takers “aren’t a perfect cross-section of any country.” Treat it as a map of the internet, not of the country.
Why the numbers are fuzzy
Put the sources next to each other and the problem is obvious. INFJ is the rarest type in the 1998 US sample (1.5%), yet it is the second most common type among Thai 16Personalities test-takers (12.7%), and a mid-table 7.6% among US 16Personalities users. The table below uses the same rarest-to-commonest order as above.
| Type | MBTI Manual, US, 1998 | 16Personalities, US | 16Personalities, Thailand | MBTI, Thai sample (n = 240) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| INFJ | 1.5% | 7.6% | 12.7% | 2.1% |
| ENTJ | 1.8% | 8.0% | 9.6% | 2.5% |
| INTJ | 2.1% | 7.5% | 11.2% | 1.7% |
| ENFJ | 2.5% | 10.5% | 13.6% | 2.9% |
| ENTP | 3.2% | 5.1% | 2.4% | 1.3% |
| INTP | 3.3% | 7.1% | 4.5% | 3.8% |
| ESTP | 4.3% | 1.8% | 0.6% | 8.3% |
| INFP | 4.4% | 11.6% | 9.6% | 2.1% |
| ISTP | 5.4% | 3.6% | 2.3% | 8.3% |
| ENFP | 8.1% | 11.2% | 7.1% | 1.3% |
| ESFP | 8.5% | 4.0% | 2.5% | 3.3% |
| ESTJ | 8.7% | 2.7% | 1.5% | 16.7% |
| ISFP | 8.8% | 6.2% | 7.1% | 10.0% |
| ISTJ | 11.6% | 4.4% | 4.9% | 18.8% |
| ESFJ | 12.3% | 4.1% | 3.0% | 7.5% |
| ISFJ | 13.8% | 4.7% | 7.5% | 9.6% |
Four things are going on:
- Who is counted. The 1998 study is a sample designed to mirror the US population. Online tests count whoever shows up, and the people who show up for a personality test are not a random slice of anyone. 16Personalities itself warns that its test-takers are not a cross-section of any country.
- Which test. 16Personalities uses its own questions and model, with the same four-letter labels. Its INFJ is not guaranteed to be an MBTI INFJ, and MeowBTI’s is a third thing again.
- Which year. The national sample was published in 1998. People, and the way they answer questionnaires, have moved since.
- Which person. Type questionnaires sort people by cut-offs on four scales. Someone near the middle of one scale can land on either side on a different day, and a 1.5% type is a very thin slice of that fuzziness.
So the honest summary is: the 1998 sample is the best evidence of how rare each type is among US adults, and online numbers are evidence of who takes online tests. Neither tells you how many Thai people are INFJs.
Find out which cat you are
Rarity is a fun fact, not a personality. If you want to know your own type and breed, the MeowBTI test is free, takes a few minutes, and keeps your answers in your browser. Take the MBTI test, then read your guide: INFJ, ENTJ, INTJ are the three rarest.
FAQ
What is the rarest MBTI type?
INFJ. In the MBTI Manual (1998) US national sample of 3,009 adults, INFJ was 1.5% of people, followed by ENTJ at 1.8% and INTJ at 2.1%. Among women the rarest was INTJ at 0.8%; among men it was INFJ at 1.3%.
What is the most common MBTI type?
ISFJ, at 13.8% of the same US sample, then ESFJ at 12.3% and ISTJ at 11.6%. Among women ISFJ is even bigger (19.4%); among men the most common type is ISTJ (16.4%).
Which MBTI type is the rarest in women?
INTJ, at 0.8% of US women in the MBTI Manual sample, with ENTJ next at 0.9%. In men the same two types are far more common (INTJ 3.3%, ENTJ 2.7%), which is why they feel so rare in a room of women and so ordinary in a room of men.
Is INFJ really that rare?
In the one nationally representative US sample, yes: about 1 in 67 adults. But online, INFJs show up far more often than that, because people who take personality tests and seek out type communities are not a random slice of the population.
Which MBTI type is most common in Thailand?
Nobody knows, because there is no representative Thai sample. 16Personalities reports ENFJ (13.6%) and INFJ (12.7%) as the most common among Thai people who took its free online test between October 2025 and September 2026, while a 240-person Thai MBTI sample was led by ISTJ (18.8%). Neither describes the Thai population.
Why do different websites give different rarity numbers?
They measure different people with different tests. The 1998 figures come from a random sample of US adults answering the real MBTI. Online tests collect whoever chooses to take them, and their questions are not the MBTI. Self-selection alone can flip the order, as INFJ shows.