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While the world of professional cycling may not seem that big to most viewers in the U.S. outside of the Tour de France, the sport has actually become incredibly lucrative in recent years.
Superstars such as Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard, and many more earn well into the seven and perhaps even eight-figure after incentives and winners’ purses.
But which riders are making the most from their base salaries in 2026, and how much are they set to make? We’re counting down the top 10 highest-paid riders in world cycling (thanks to our friends over at Domestique) as we enter the heart of the 2026 cycling calendar.
10) Carlos Rodriguez – INEOS Grenadiers: €2.5 Million
Spanish cycling has a rich history, with superstars such as Miguel Indurain, Alberto Contador, and Alejandro Valverde becoming household names in their home country.
Carlos Rodriguez looked set to become the next great Spaniard in world cycling when he finished seventh in the 2022 Vuelta a España, his first career grand tour, at just 21 years old.
Rodriguez followed that up the next year by finishing fifth in his debut appearance in the Tour de France, winning a stage along the way. He looked not online like the future of Spanish cycling, but also for the INEOS Grenadiers, one of the sport’s powerhouse teams.
INEOS signed him to a long-term deal prior to the 2024 season to keep him from leaving for Spanish world tour team Movistar, and that deal made him one of the highest-paid riders in the pro peloton.
Rodriguez hasn’t quite taken the next step in his career, due in part to lingering injuries and crashes, but at just 25 years old, he still has plenty of potential.
9) Egan Bernal – INEOS Grenadiers: €2.5 Million
Before INEOS tied its hopes to Carlos Rodriguez, there was Colombian superstar Egan Bernal, who won the 2019 Tour de France at just 22 years old.
That led to a massive pay raise, as it looked like Bernal was set to win a number of grand tours in the years to come. Unfortunately, he too dealt with chronic pain and injuries caused by a slight discrepancy in the lengths of his legs.
Bernal came back from that issue to win the 2021 Giro d’Italia and signed a new five-year contract with INEOS the following year. However, while training near his home in Colombia in 2022, Bernal suffered a horrific crash involving a stopped bus that he was unaware of at the time.
Bernal suffered fractured vertebrae, a fractured right femur, fractured right patella, chest trauma, a punctured lung, and several rib fractures in the crash, and doctors feared he may end up paralyzed.
Miraculously, he’s since returned to cycling and even placed seventh in the 2025 Giro d’Italia. However, it looks as if his days as a serious grand tour contender are likely behind him.
8) Adam Yates – UAE Team Emirates-XRG: €2.7 Million
Adam Yates spent the first several years of his career on the same team as his twin brother, Simon Yates, who is a two-time grand tour winner.
He then moved to INEOS in 2022 before signing a massive deal with UAE Team Emirates in 2023 that made him one of the highest-paid riders in the sport.
Yates immediately made the signing look smart, as he won the opening stage of 2023 Tour de France before finishing the race in third, the best grand tour finish of his career. Additionally, Yates served as the most important domestique for superstar teammate Tadej Pogacar.
At 33, Yates’ odds of even winning a grand tour are likely behind him, but he’s still a highly versatile rider who is a huge asset to his team.
7) Tom Pidcock – Pinarello-Q36.5: €2.7 Million
Two-time Olympic mountain bike gold medalist Tom Pidcock focuses primarily on road biking these days, and represented the marquee signing for Swiss team Q35 when he came on board prior to the 2025 season.
Prior to that, Pidcock plied his trade for INEOS, where the team had hoped he’d become their next British superstar. While he showed flashes, primarily by winning a stage of the Tour de France in 2022 and finishing second in the famed Liege-Bastone-Liege one-day race the following season, Pidcock never quite reached the heights that INEOS may have hoped for.
However, Pidcock seems to have found a new level with his new team. Not only did he finish in second in Strade-Bianchi behind Pogacar in 2025, but he also picked up his first grand tour podium finish when he took home third behind Jonas Vingegaard and Joao Almeida in the Vuelta a España.
6) Primoz Roglic – Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe: €4 Million
It would probably be harsh to say that Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe has buyers’ remorse over superstar Primoz Roglic. After all, he did win the team just its second grand tour in history at the 2024 Vuelta a España.
But at 36 years old, Roglic’s best days are likely behind him.
For the uninitiated, Roglic was once perhaps the biggest star in cycling in the late 2010s and early 2020s, despite losing the 2020 Tour de France in heartbreaking fashion to Pogacar.
He’s a five-time Grand Tour winner who joined the German team in 2024 after a bit of a messy split with Visma-Lease a Bike (then named Jumbo-Visma).
The hope was that Roglic would lead the team in its pursuits for a Tour de France victory, but he did not finish the race in 2024 after sustaining an early crash and then took eighth a year ago.
This year, Roglic is focusing on the Vuelta a España, hoping to become the first five-time winner in the legendary event’s history. But it will be a tall task, given his recent results and younger riders rising up the rankings.
5) Wout van Aert – Visma-Lease a Bike: €4 Million
Age and injury have seen Belgian superstar Wout van Aert lose a step or so in recent years, but at one point, he was undeniably the most versatile rider in the world.
Unlike the riders above on this list, van Aert isn’t a threat to win grand tours, as his height (6’3) and weight (172 pounds) make it virtually impossible to hang with the world’s best climbers over multiple weeks. But on any given day, van Aert has shown the ability to ride with the best in the world across multiple terrains.
He won the green jersey in the 2022 Tour de France as the top sprinter. He also helped lead teammate Jonas Vingegaard to victory in the same Tour de France by aiding him over the high mountains. Van Aert claimed silver in the world championships in both the road race and the time trial in 2020, and has an additional silver medal in each event. If he can remain healthy, he will also be one of the favorites to win the legendary Paris-Roubaix one-day race on April 12.
4) Mathieu van der Poel – Alpecin-Premier Tech: €4 Million
Van Aert would have an even greater resume if not for the existence of this man, Dutch superstar Mathieu van der Poel. Like van Aert, van der Poel’s size (6’0, 165) makes it nearly impossible for him to compete in grand tours. But he is undeniably the greatest one-day racer in the world today.
Van der Poel’s ability to explode over short climbs and leave the rest of the field in the dust is unmatched, even by the great Pogacar. But what makes him even more dangerous is the ability to sustain those efforts and to still have enough energy to beat riders in a sprint at the end of the race.
The 31-year-old Dutchman, whose father and grandfather were also cycling stars, is an eight-time monument (the five biggest one-day races of the season) winner, a two-time Tour de France stage winner, the 2023 road racing world champion, and an eight-time cyclocross world champion.
Despite being on the “wrong” side of 30, van der Poel hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down, and you’d happily bet on him adding more to his trophy case in 2026.
3) Jonas Vingegaard – Visma-Lease a Bike: €5 Million
One of the reasons for Roglic leaving Visma-Lease a Bike was the emergence of Danish superstar Jonas Vingegaard.
When Roglic crashed in the 2021 Tour de France and eventually abandoned the race, Vingegaard came from seemingly out of nowhere to finish second behind Pogacar. Nothing Vingegaard had done up until that point had shown that the then-24-year-old was capable of such a performance.
The following year, he returned to the Tour de France as a co-leader of the team, alongside Roglic, and the two worked in tandem to help Vingegaard to a miraculous victory, while Roglic yet again left the race early after a crash and injury.
Vingegaard then came back in 2023, without Roglic this time, and won again, dominating the race and beating Pogacar by over seven minutes. He backed that up with a second-place finish in the Vuelta a España behind American teammate Sepp Kuss, although many believed Vingegaard could well have won that race as well had he chosen to attack Kuss.
In the last two seasons, it’s been Pogacar who has gotten the better of Vingegaard at the Tour de France by a sizable margin each time, although Vingegaard did win the 2025 Vuelta a España, without Pogacar in the race.
This year, Vingegaard is hoping to even the score in the Tour de France, and while many believe it’s an uphill battle, he’s the one rider in the world who you would give an actual chance.
2) Remco Evenepoel – Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe: €6.6 Million
Remco Evenepoel. The prince that was promised.
There is no country that loves cycling quite the way that Belgium loves cycling. However, no Belgian has won the Tour de France since Lucien Van Impe in 1976.
When Evenepoel showed up on the scene in 2020 as a young rider with legendary Belgian team Quick Step, Belgian fans believed he had to be the one to lift the curse.
Since then, Evenepoel has just about lived up to the hype. He won the 2022 Vuelta a Espana in just his second career grand tour start. He took third in the 2024 Tour de France, topping the best young rider classification in his first appearance in the race. He won both the time trial and road race at the 2024 Olympics in Paris. He’s a three-time world champion in the time trial and the 2022 road race world champion. Oh, and he has a pair of monument wins on his record, all before turning 26.
However, he has not won the Tour de France, and he hasn’t been all that close to Pogacar in his two attempts, dropping out of last year’s race while in third position due to broken ribs and a lingering illness.
This year, Evenepoel has switched teams, hoping it will give him the edge he needs to take the next step in his career. The (extremely) early returns weren’t great, as Evenepoel finished 10th in the UAE Tour earlier this year and struggled on both mountain stages.
However, his larger goals don’t come until the summer, and that’s when we’ll see if the move pays any dividends.
1) Tadej Pogacar – UAE Team Emirates-XRG: €8 Million
If we wanted to get into the weeds of what makes Slovenian Tadej Pogacar the best, and thus highest-paid, cyclist in the world today, it would simply take too long.
Pogacar, 27, doesn’t simply beat his competition; he often destroys it, winning races by margins that many never imagined were even possible.
He is a four-time Tour de France champion (including each of the last two seasons), a Giro d’Italia winner (in his only attempt at the race), and he took third in the Vuelta a España in 2019, which was his first ever grand tour.
Nobody has ever won, or come close to winning, all three grand tours in a single season, but you wouldn’t bet against Pogacar doing so if he attempted it.
Oh, and he’s not too shabby in one-day races either.
Pogacar is a 10-time monument winner, including winning the Giro di Lombardia each of the last five years running. He finished second in last year’s Paris-Roubaix, a race he had never attempted before, and many believed he was too light to succeed in due to the nature of the race’s terrain.
Pogacar is attempting to become the first rider since the 1970s to win all five of cycling’s monuments, having already won three (Lombardi, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, and the Tour of Flanders). He finished third in Milano-San Remo each of the last two seasons, so it’s not out of reach.
Additionally, Pogacar is the two-time defending road race world champion, and he didn’t compete in the Paris Olympics, or he may have that victory on his resume as well.
Simply put, Pogacar is miles above the competition. In fact, he may well be miles above anything we’ve ever seen before in the world of cycling.