The latest financial figures from the UCI point to a familiar trend. Team budgets continue to rise, and rider salaries are increasing alongside them, further widening the gap between the sport’s biggest operations and teams competing with far more limited resources.
Although the men’s WorldTour officially remains composed of 18 teams, even if the teams are not the same compared to the previous three years, the UCI calculations are based on a group of 20 squads. The study includes two ProTeams that, under current regulations, are guaranteed entry to all WorldTour events, including Grand Tours and the major Classics. Expanding the sample does little to alter the underlying trajectory.
Using the traditional 18-team structure, total budgets increased from €473 million in 2023 to €570 million in 2025. For 2026, with 20 teams included, the combined budget is projected to reach €663 million. This lifts the average team budget from €31.6 million in 2025 to €33.1 million in 2026.
However, averages mask significant internal disparities. According to La Gazzetta dello Sport, UAE Team Emirates - XRG and Visma | Lease a Bike are now operating close to €50 million, while Lidl Trek, Red Bull Bora hansgrohe and INEOS Grenadiers are estimated at around €45 million.
A similar pattern is visible in the women’s WorldTour. Total budgets rose from €46 million in 2023 to €70 million across 15 teams in 2025 and are expected to increase again to €80 million in 2026. This comes despite the women’s top tier shrinking from 15 teams to 14.
How much money teams spend in salary?
Salaries remain the dominant cost. The UCI figures are gross amounts and distinguish between self-employed and employed riders, with employed riders accounting for 43 percent of the men’s WorldTour peloton.
For 2026, the average salary for self-employed riders is listed at €654,000, up from €636,000 in 2025 and €557,000 in 2023. Employed riders average €384,000, compared with €366,000 last year and €300,000 in 2023. Many self-employed riders are based in Monaco or Andorra and tend to be leading riders within their teams, which helps to explain the higher figures.
At the top end of the scale, the numbers are obviously far higher. Tadej Pogacar remains the peloton’s highest-paid rider, earning an estimated €8 million per year from UAE Team Emirates, excluding bonuses and personal sponsorships that reportedly lifted his total income to around €12 million this season.
Remco Evenepoel’s early move to Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe, a year before his contract with Soudal Quick-Step was due to expire, is estimated at around €20 million when the buyout and multi-year deal are combined.
Pogacar is the highest-paid cyclist in the world - and for obvious reasons
Vaughters speaks up
These dynamics raise growing concerns about the sport’s financial structure and its sustainability. On the Domestique Hotseat Podcast, EF Education–EasyPost CEO Jonathan Vaughters warned that cycling is increasingly operating at a cost level that its revenues do not support.
"Certainly the biggest cost increase in cycling is the riders' salaries and then all the peripheral, you know, sports science and whatnot that support that goes around that."
Vaughters also argued that the spending power of the richest teams inevitably affects the wider market. “A team like UAE… we will spend as much as we need to spend to win everything. Well, that’s going to just bleed out into the rest of the marketplace. That’s going to inflate everything.”
He also highlighted cycling’s dependence on sponsorship, a problem that is not new. “We’re trying to float the entire ship on just sponsorship because these other sources of revenue don’t exist,” Vaughters said. “We don’t have collective merchandising. The teams do not receive anything from media rights.”
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Félix SernaCycling Journalist
Félix Serna is a writer at CyclingUpToDate and has been part of the team since 2025. He covers professional cycling across both the men’s and women’s calendars, with a focus on UCI rankings, race developments, and rider performance. His work includes interview-based reports, liveblogs, and tournament coverage designed to provide clear, accurate context throughout the season.
In his reporting, Félix regularly uses ProCyclingStats for results, statistics, and historical reference. He places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles promptly when new, verified information becomes available. He holds a bachelor’s degree in International Studies.
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- The UCI do have their favorites.
Front24208-11-2026 - On a positive note, you maybe notice turning this topic into a discussion has the benefit of eliminating certain participants who do not see how they can turn it back to their sole interest ;-)Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
- People see what they want to. I am actually the opposite of your accusation, probably more of a rebel than most of you who don’t get the big picture. The difference is, I don’t go moaning publicly about the consequences of my transgressions, I understand the need for rules and I take my OWN responsibility when deciding to ignore or break them or doing so involuntarily. I will also not hesitate to state my case or argue vehemently when relevant, sometimes it works, sometimes it makes things worse but that’s the price to pay for principles and having character.Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
- That may be but that was unknown to others and nothing says that’s the whole truth. Again, don’t try to misinterpret, it is a call and technically it is correct. Besides, even if there is a valid reason, that does not disqualify the ruling or punishment as far as the rules have been developed. I don’t think they’re as far as in football where for handball there is a distinction (in some ways and specific cases) between intentional or not. And football can be just as harsh and people live with it, eg the offside rule, also judged to within tiny fractions but often wrong or ignored. It’s the nature of every collective organisation and sometimes I wonder if our rebellion against it isn’t seated in the feelings we carry from the injustices we’ve felt personally, like being flashed driving 1km/h too fast when we are explained limits are just a security measure but we are absolutely certain not to have endangered anyone with our transgression. The problem is, nobody has better solutions and no 2 people have the same interpretation of where a limit should be.Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
- Because for you deviated implies the other rider MUST have been made to fall and fail to finish ??? I don’t know if you ride a bike but next time someone carves you up or drives dangerously close, just hold back from those feelings of changing something, reporting or filming or even complaining. Everyone will just say, hey you’re still here undamaged, doesn’t seem like anyone did anything.Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
- And we, what are we doing?Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
- And yet, it attracts people, even you. What’s more, it attracts the rival fanboys to fill cyberspace with endless pointless my hero is better than your hero blabla that’s all been heard before and only helps sell the site as an advertising platform. You know what the solution is but most can’t resist. No different than women who follow and discuss celebs through gossip magazines.Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
- he is doing 460 watts for 35 min to achieve 7 w/kg with VO2 at 96 , just unreal numbers.abstractengineer08-11-2026
- Just do it, and put up with the consequencesJumpyjohn08-11-2026
- "was a headliner at the Tour de France" Nobody cared about Piddie. Only rivals that were there for Pogi, Jonas, Remco, Sexias, Lipo, Del Toro and they were all expected to lose. Piddie was not even in any conversation.abstractengineer08-11-2026
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