Tour de France 2025 prize money: Full breakdown and key figures

The Tour de France has awarded prize money since its very first edition in 1903. Back then, race organizer Henri Desgrange enticed cyclists with a first prize of 12,000 French francs - roughly six times the average annual salary of a worker at the time.

Over the decades, as the Tour’s popularity and commercial backing increased, so did the prize purses. By the mid-20th century, the prize money kept climbing (albeit modestly by modern standards). A quirky episode came in the 1970s and 1980s: from 1976 to 1987, the Tour’s overall winner didn’t receive cash but an apartment offered by a sponsor. In 1988 the top prize combined cash and gifts - a new car, a studio-apartment, a work of art, plus 500,000 francs in cash. It wasn’t until 1990 that the race returned to purely cash prizes for the winners. This era exemplified how the Tour tapped sponsor support to fund prizes, sometimes in imaginative forms.

From the 1990s onwards, Tour de France prize money entered the modern era of six- and seven-figure sums. In 2009, for instance, the winner took home €450,000, while stage victors earned around €8,000 each. Throughout the 2010s, the first-place prize gradually increased to €500,000 - a figure that remains unchanged today. That’s just the winner’s share. The full prize purse, spread across all classifications and stages, now exceeds €2 million.

The 2025 Tour de France features a total prize purse of €2.3 million, matching previous editions despite inflationary pressures. While the lion’s share goes to the general classification podium, there are earnings at stake across all categories: stage wins, jersey wearers, combativity, and team performance. Let's kick off the breakdown with the general classification.

The biggest payday in the Tour de France is reserved for the winner of the general classification and the yellow jersey:

In addition, the daily yellow jersey wearer earns a €500 bonus per stage. Across 20 stages with a jersey holder, that's up to €10,000 in daily leader bonuses.

Every day is payday in the Tour de France. Here's the breakdown for individual stage results:

Each stage distributes a total of €28,650 across the top 20 finishers, amounting to over €600,000 in stage-related prize money across the 21 stages of the Tour de France.

The points classification rewards the fast men. Points are awarded at both stage finishes and intermediate sprints (read our full explainer), making it a daily battle for the green jersey (maillot vert ) - and a solid cash prize.

Each intermediate sprint in the Tour de France comes with a cash incentive: €1,500 for first place, €1,000 for second, and €500 for third. With 19 intermediate sprints spread across the race, that adds up to €57,000 in bonus prize money.

In addition, the rider wearing the green jersey receives a daily bonus of €300. Holding it from start to finish could earn a rider up to €6,000 in extra rewards.

The polka dot jersey goes to the best climber in the race. Points are awarded at the top of categorised climbs, with more points on offer for the most difficult ascents.

Climbing bonuses per climb depend on category:

Young riders under the age of 26 on January 1 compete for the white jersey at the Tour, with prize money awarded for both overall standing and daily performance:

Each stage offers up to €10,500 in daily bonuses and €6,000 in jersey bonuses, based on €500 for the best U25 rider and €300 for the white jersey wearer.

The team classification rewards the strongest collective effort throughout the Tour de France. It's based on the cumulative time of each team’s best three riders per stage and comes with the following prize money:

The best team on each stage earns €2,800, adding up to €58,800 across all stages. Combined with the final general classification team prizes, the total pool for the team classification surpasses €178,000.

And if that weren’t enough, there are still several special awards and prize categories up for grabs for riders in the Tour de France:

A special €5,000 anniversary bonus is also awarded in 2025 to the first rider reaching 50 KOM points, celebrating 50 years of the polka dot jersey.

When it comes to prize money, the Tour de France stands out from the other two Grand Tours (the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a España). All three races offer significant purses, but the Tour’s wallet is the fattest. For context, here are the prize pools and winner’s rewards for each event in recent years:

With €2.3 million in total prize money, the Tour de France remains cycling’s most lucrative race. But compared to the financial scale of other global sports events, it’s a modest sum. The winner of Wimbledon 2025, for instance, earns over €3.5 million on their own, and the winning Formula 1 team took home upwards of €140 million in prize money last season.

In that light, what makes Tour prize money unique isn’t the size - it’s how it’s shared. Unlike many other sports, prize money in professional cycling is typically divided among the entire team, rather than awarded solely to the individual who earns it. It’s a long-standing tradition in the Tour de France (and other races) that all prize winnings are pooled in a team pot. Often one rider (such as the team road captain) is designated as the “accountant” to collect the prize payouts and later distribute the shares. Every team has its own formula for splitting the money, but generally everyone gets a slice - from the star riders down to the mechanics and soigneurs.  

It’s a tradition that speaks to the collective nature of the sport. With €2.3 million up for grabs in 2025, all eyes now turn to how that money will filter through the peloton and to the many hands behind each result.