UCI cycling prize money

There is no ladder of races, only a ladder of classes. Every men's race group 1 classic is obliged to pay the same €50,000, every race group 2 one the same €40,000, and every men's WorldTour stage the same €10,000 whether it is a stage of the Tour de France or of the Tour of Guangxi. The grand tours are separated below only because they negotiate their team allowances rather than take them off the scale.

The last column counts the 61 WorldTour races this site holds one by one, which is why most of it reads zero. Five of the thirty-two ladders carry all of them; the rest pay the calendar below the WorldTour, the class 1 and class 2 races and the junior Nations Cup, which run to several hundred events a season.

What a race is obliged to pay, by class

One-day races, where the ladder is the whole race

The men's calendar has seven one-day ladders and the women's six, and the two meet at the bottom. The junior ladders are identical: €1,650 for a Nations Cup one-day race and €1,215 for a junior Class 1, whichever calendar it is on. The scale separates the two only once riders turn elite, where a race group 1 classic owes €50,000 and the biggest women's one-day race €7,700.

And what one stage is obliged to pay

A stage race pays its ladder again every day, so these are the smaller figures and the larger totals. The gap between the calendars is narrower here than on the one-day ladders: €10,000 a stage against €3,930 is 2.5 times, where the one-day ladders are 6.5 times apart.

The rate falls at every step and never rises. Where two places pay the same the UCI prints them as one band, so sixth and seventh are a single rate on most men's ladders and eleventh to fifteenth a single rate on most women's. Expanded here place by place, because that is the question a reader arrives with.

Men, one-day races

A one-day race pays its ladder once, and the figure under each class is the whole race.

Men, stage racing, per stage

A stage race pays this ladder again on every stage, and the general classification is paid on top of the lot of them.

Men, stage racing, per half-stage

Where a day is split into two races, each half is paid on its own ladder rather than the full-stage one. Two halves pay more between them than one full stage.

Men, stage racing, per prologue

The short time trial that opens a stage race is paid on its own ladder, worth about half a full stage.

Women, one-day races

A one-day race pays its ladder once, and the figure under each class is the whole race.

Women, stage racing, per stage

A stage race pays this ladder again on every stage, and the general classification is paid on top of the lot of them.

Women, stage racing, per prologue

The short time trial that opens a stage race is paid on its own ladder, worth about half a full stage.

Women, the team time trial

Paid to the team rather than to a rider, and six teams are paid rather than twenty riders. The team passes the whole amount to the riders who rode it.

The 2026 scale carries no women's half-stage ladder. Three of the men's classes have one and none of the women's do, which is the only place the two calendars hold a different set of ladders rather than the same set at different rates.

What is charged on top, and what comes out

Six contributions, running both ways past the same prize

Every prize on the scale passes through the UCI's prize money platform, and six contributions are charged against it. Four are paid by the organiser on top of the prize, so they cost the race and not the rider. Two come out of the prize itself. Worked on the biggest single prize on the scale, the €20,000 for a race group 1 win: it costs the organiser €22,364 and reaches the rider as €19,260.

What the scale does not cover

Four things paid alongside it, on rules of their own

Which races sit on which rate

Every race on the two 2026 WorldTour calendars, under the ladder that pays it

Race group 1 classics, €50,000 a race

Race group 2 classics, €40,000 a race

Grand tours, €10,000 a stage

Race group 3 stage races, €10,000 a stage

Women’s WorldTour one-day races, €7,700 a race

Women’s WorldTour stage races, €3,930 a stage

Where to next

What a cycling team is paid, and pays covers the participation allowances across every class and what it costs to register a team for a season. World Championships prize money is the one place the men's and women's scales are identical at elite level. Men's against women's prize money puts the twenty paired races side by side. What a professional cyclist is paid is the salary side of the same question, and the scale above is a small fraction of it. And cycling is the whole section, all 61 races on the 2026 calendar.