Bundesliga prize money
The DFL shares £958m of national media revenue between the 18 Bundesliga clubs and the 18 in the 2. Bundesliga. 50% of it is split equally, 43% goes on where clubs have finished over the last five and ten seasons, and the top of every ranking table at once is worth £31.3m.
The Deutsche Fußball Liga publishes the formula rather than the payments: what each part of the pot is worth, and what percentage of it every place in its ranking tables receives. It has never published what a named club was paid, so this page is the model, with each share turned into money. The percentages hold for the 2025/26 to 2028/29 cycle.
Where the money is cut
The four parts the DFL splits the season's pot into
Only the 43% paid on the table can be read off as a rate, and the rest of this page is that pillar. The equal share is the same money for every club in a division whatever it does. The youth and interest pillars are settled on minutes played and on a survey rather than on results, so what a club takes from them is not something a place in the table can move.
The three tables the merit money is paid on
A club has a place in all three at once, and is paid from all three
| TOP OF EACH TABLE | PAYS |
|---|---|
| The five-year table, by division | £18,621,056£18.6m |
| The five-year table, across both divisions | £12,033,025£12.0m |
| The ten-year table | £660,144£660k |
| Top of all three at once | £31,314,225£31.3m |
£31,314,225 is the ceiling on the merit pillar: 7.6% of it, to a club that has finished above everybody else on all three counts at the same time. Its equal share, its youth money and its interest money are on top of that, and none of the three tables can be topped by winning a single season, because the newest season is weighted five times the fifth one back and the ten-year table barely moves in a year at all.
What each place is worth, division by division
The five-year table, with each division ranked among itself
| POS | BUNDESLIGA | SHARE | 2. BUNDESLIGA | SHARE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | £18,621,056£18.6m | 8.45% | £6,038,070£6.0m | 2.74% |
| 2 | £17,673,475£17.7m | 8.02% | £5,399,004£5.4m | 2.45% |
| 3 | £16,703,858£16.7m | 7.58% | £4,826,049£4.8m | 2.19% |
| 4 | £15,734,241£15.7m | 7.14% | £4,297,167£4.3m | 1.95% |
| 5 | £14,786,661£14.8m | 6.71% | £3,790,321£3.8m | 1.72% |
| 6 | £13,817,044£13.8m | 6.27% | £3,349,586£3.3m | 1.52% |
| 7 | £12,847,426£12.8m | 5.83% | £2,886,814£2.9m | 1.31% |
| 8 | £11,877,809£11.9m | 5.39% | £2,424,043£2.4m | 1.10% |
| 9 | £10,930,229£10.9m | 4.96% | £2,049,418£2.0m | 0.93% |
| 10 | £9,894,502£9.9m | 4.49% | £1,674,793£1.7m | 0.76% |
| 11 | £8,792,664£8.8m | 3.99% | £1,344,242£1.3m | 0.61% |
| 12 | £7,646,753£7.6m | 3.47% | £1,101,838£1.1m | 0.50% |
| 13 | £6,434,732£6.4m | 2.92% | £903,507£904k | 0.41% |
| 14 | £5,134,563£5.1m | 2.33% | £705,176£705k | 0.32% |
| 15 | £3,856,432£3.9m | 1.75% | £506,845£507k | 0.23% |
| 16 | £2,578,300£2.6m | 1.17% | £330,551£331k | 0.15% |
| 17 | £1,278,132£1.3m | 0.58% | £132,220£132k | 0.06% |
| 18 | £0£0 | 0.00% | £0£0 | 0.00% |
Each division is ranked among itself here, so the two halves of the table are two separate rankings and the percentages of both add up to the one pot: £178,607,877 of it to the 18 Bundesliga places and £41,759,644 to the 18 below them. The bottom place in each division is paid nothing from this table, which is why the other two matter as much as this one to a club at the wrong end of it.
The tables that rank both divisions together
One ranking of 36, on five seasons and on ten
| POS | FIVE-YEAR | SHARE | TEN-YEAR | SHARE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | £12,033,025£12.0m | 6.61% | £660,144£660k | 6.89% |
| 2 | £12,033,025£12.0m | 6.61% | £635,233£635k | 6.63% |
| 3 | £12,033,025£12.0m | 6.61% | £611,280£611k | 6.38% |
| 4 | £12,033,025£12.0m | 6.61% | £586,369£586k | 6.12% |
| 5 | £12,033,025£12.0m | 6.61% | £562,416£562k | 5.87% |
| 6 | £12,033,025£12.0m | 6.61% | £537,505£538k | 5.61% |
| 7 | £12,033,025£12.0m | 6.61% | £513,552£514k | 5.36% |
| 8 | £11,432,284£11.4m | 6.28% | £488,641£489k | 5.10% |
| 9 | £10,813,338£10.8m | 5.94% | £464,688£465k | 4.85% |
| 10 | £10,212,597£10.2m | 5.61% | £439,777£440k | 4.59% |
| 11 | £9,393,405£9.4m | 5.16% | £415,824£416k | 4.34% |
| 12 | £8,574,213£8.6m | 4.71% | £390,913£391k | 4.08% |
| 13 | £7,554,773£7.6m | 4.15% | £366,960£367k | 3.83% |
| 14 | £6,535,334£6.5m | 3.59% | £342,049£342k | 3.57% |
| 15 | £5,825,367£5.8m | 3.20% | £318,096£318k | 3.32% |
| 16 | £5,097,197£5.1m | 2.80% | £293,185£293k | 3.06% |
| 17 | £4,496,456£4.5m | 2.47% | £269,232£269k | 2.81% |
| 18 | £3,877,510£3.9m | 2.13% | £244,321£244k | 2.55% |
| 19 | £3,258,565£3.3m | 1.79% | £220,368£220k | 2.30% |
| 20 | £2,657,824£2.7m | 1.46% | £195,456£195k | 2.04% |
| 21 | £2,038,879£2.0m | 1.12% | £171,503£172k | 1.79% |
| 22 | £1,529,159£1.5m | 0.84% | £152,341£152k | 1.59% |
| 23 | £1,128,665£1.1m | 0.62% | £134,137£134k | 1.40% |
| 24 | £819,192£819k | 0.45% | £115,933£116k | 1.21% |
| 25 | £637,150£637k | 0.35% | £97,728£98k | 1.02% |
| 26 | £455,107£455k | 0.25% | £79,524£80k | 0.83% |
| 27 | £327,677£328k | 0.18% | £67,068£67k | 0.70% |
| 28 | £291,268£291k | 0.16% | £56,529£57k | 0.59% |
| 29 | £236,656£237k | 0.13% | £45,990£46k | 0.48% |
| 30 | £200,247£200k | 0.11% | £36,409£36k | 0.38% |
| 31 | £163,838£164k | 0.09% | £27,785£28k | 0.29% |
| 32 | £127,430£127k | 0.07% | £19,162£19k | 0.20% |
| 33 | £72,817£73k | 0.04% | £12,456£12k | 0.13% |
| 34 | £36,408£36k | 0.02% | £5,749£6k | 0.06% |
| 35 | £18,204£18k | 0.01% | £2,874£3k | 0.03% |
| 36 | £0£0 | 0.00% | £0£0 | 0.00% |
These two rank all 36 clubs in one list, so a 2. Bundesliga club that has spent four of the five seasons in the top flight can be paid more from them than a Bundesliga club that has just come up. The ten-year table falls far more gently than anything else in the formula, from 6.89% at the top to 0.03% at 35th, which is what makes it the part of the formula a club cannot move quickly in either direction.
Frequently asked questions
How much prize money does the Bundesliga pay?
£958,119,658 of national media revenue a season, shared between the 18 Bundesliga clubs and the 18 in the 2. Bundesliga. £479,059,829 of it is split equally, £411,991,453 is paid on where clubs have finished over the last five and ten seasons, £38,324,786 on young German players and £28,743,590 on how many people follow each club.
How much can one club earn from finishing top?
£31,314,225, which is 7.6% of the whole merit pillar. That is a club at the top of all three ranking tables at once: £18,621,056 from the five-year table for its own division, £12,033,025 from the five-year table across both divisions and £660,144 from the ten-year one. Its equal share, youth money and interest money come on top.
Why is there no table of Bundesliga clubs and what each was paid?
Because the Deutsche Fußball Liga does not publish one. It publishes the model instead: the size of the pot, the share each part of it takes and the percentage every place in the ranking tables receives. That is what this page is. Any figure you see for what a named Bundesliga club received is somebody's reconstruction of this formula rather than a published payment.
What does each club get from the equal share?
£479,059,829 is the pillar, and every club in the same division takes the same amount out of it. The DFL publishes the size of the pillar and not how it divides between the two divisions, so the figure here is the pillar rather than a per-club share.
How are the ranking tables built?
On final league positions, with points running from one at the bottom of the 2. Bundesliga to 36 for the champions. The five-year tables weight the last five seasons 5:4:3:2:1, so the season just gone counts five times what the fifth one back does. The ten-year table weights all ten equally. A club has a place in all three at the same time and is paid from all three.
Does a club keep this on top of what it wins in Europe?
Yes. This is the Bundesliga's own distribution, and it is separate from anything UEFA pays a club for playing in the Champions League, the Europa League or the Conference League. A club in Europe collects both.
How are these figures set?
The DFL sets the shares for the 2025/26 to 2028/29 cycle and applies them to the £958,119,658 a season of national media revenue it distributes. The percentages are the DFL's; the amounts on this page are those percentages of that pot. They are set in euros and shown here in pounds.
Where to next
The rest of the money a club plays for
For the leagues that publish what each club was actually paid, see Premier League prize money, La Liga prize money and La Liga 2 prize money. For what a club wins away from its own league, see Champions League prize money, Club World Cup prize money, Europa League prize money and Conference League prize money. For the knockout cups, see FA Cup prize money and Carabao Cup prize money. For what a relegated club is paid after it leaves, see Championship parachute payments. Where a league publishes the shares and not the payments, see Serie A prize money. Where a competition pays for where a team finished rather than for every round it won, see World Cup prize money. Or look at what Bundesliga clubs pay their squads, or every league we track.