MoMA has seen its average number of visitors rise to 2.5 million from about 1.5 million a year before its new granite and glass renovation. In 2009, the museum reported 119,000 members and 2.8 million visitors over the previous fiscal year. MoMA attracted its highest-ever number of visitors, 3.09 million, during its 2010 fiscal year; however, attendance dropped 11 percent to 2.8 million in 2011. Attendance in 2016 was 2.8 million, down from 3.1 million in 2015.

The museum was open every day since its founding in 1929, until 1975, when it closed one day a week (originally Wednesdays) to reduce operating expenses. In 2012, it again opened every day, including Tuesday, the one day it has traditionally been closed.

MoMA’s reopening brought controversy as its admission cost increased from $12 to $20, making it one of the most expensive museums in the city; however, it has free entry on Fridays after 4:00 pm. Also, many New York area college students receive free admission to the museum.

A private non-profit organization, MoMA is the seventh-largest U.S. museum by budget; its annual revenue is about $145 million (none of which is profit). In 2011, the museum reported net assets (basically, a total of all the resources it has on its books, except the value of the art) of just over $1 billion.

Unlike most museums, the museum eschews government funding, instead subsisting on a fragmented budget with a half-dozen different sources of income, none larger than a fifth. Before the economic crisis of late 2008, the MoMA’s board of trustees decided to sell its equities in order to move into an all-cash position. An $858 million capital campaign funded the 2002–04 expansion, with David Rockefeller donating $77 million in cash. In 2005, Rockefeller pledged an additional $100 million toward the museum’s endowment. In 2011, Moody’s Investors Service, a bond rating agency, rated $57 million worth of new debt in 2010 with a positive outlook and echoed their Aa2 bond credit rating for the underlying institution. The agency noted that MoMA has “superior financial flexibility with over $332 million of unrestricted financial resources”, and has had solid attendance and record sales at its retail outlets around the city and online. Some of the challenges that Moody’s noted were the reliance that the museum has on the tourist industry in New York for its operating revenue, and a large amount of debt. The museum at the time had a 2.4 debt-to-operating revenues ratio, but it was also noted that MoMA intended to retire $370 million worth of debt in the next few years. Standard & Poor’s raised its long-term rating for the museum as it benefited from the fundraising of its trustees. After construction expenses for the new galleries are covered, the Modern estimates that some $65 million will go to its $650 million endowment.

MoMA spent $32 million to acquire art for the fiscal year ending in June 2012.

MoMA employs about 815 people. The museum’s tax filings from the past few years suggest a shift among the highest paid employees from curatorial staff to management. The museum’s director Glenn D. Lowry earned $1.6 million in 2009 and lives in a rent-free $6 million apartment above the museum.