How Much Do UFC Fighters Make? Real 2026 Purses Explained

The base contract is split into show money, paid for making the walk, and a win bonus, paid only with a victory. The two halves are usually equal. When the California State Athletic Commission disclosed the UFC Sacramento payouts for August 22, 2026, the bottom of the card looked like this: Shanelle Dyer, Marcio Barbosa and Stan Dorsainvil at $12,000 to show and $12,000 to win, and Anthony Wint on a $10,000 and $10,000 deal. Fighters who lost went home with the show half only.

Mid-card money on the same night ran from MarQuel Mederos at $24,000 and $24,000 to Chris Padilla at $39,000 and $39,000 and Jamall Emmers at $63,000 and $63,000. At the top, Reinier de Ridder was listed at $150,000 and $150,000 and Gregory Rodrigues took home $340,000 including a $100,000 Fight of the Night bonus.

UFC 331 on September 20, 2026 showed the upper tiers. Alexandre Pantoja was disclosed at $650,000, Joshua Van at $500,000, Arman Tsarukyan and Tai Tuivasa at $350,000 each, and Patricio Freire and Marlon Vera at $200,000 to show and $200,000 to win. The lowest number on that card was JooSang Yoo at $12,000. Same event, same locker room, a 54-to-1 gap.

For more than a decade the UFC paid two $50,000 Performance of the Night bonuses and $50,000 to each fighter in the Fight of the Night at every event. The one exception was UFC 300 in April 2024, when Dana White agreed at the press conference to raise them to $300,000 for that night only.

Starting with UFC 324 on January 24, 2026, the standard bonuses doubled to $100,000 each, and the UFC added a new $25,000 finish bonus for any knockout or submission that does not already win a Performance of the Night. Justin Gaethje had complained in the run-up that his 14 career bonuses "did not even add up to $1 million." For a $12,000 prelim fighter, a single $100,000 bonus is now worth more than four wins' worth of base pay.

Every fighter also gets a fixed outfitting payment, the program that started with Reebok and continued with Venum, now called Promotional Guidelines Compliance pay. Per MMA Junkie's report on UFC 331, the tiers are $4,000 per fight for fighters with one to three UFC bouts, $4,500 for four to five, $6,000 for six to 10, $11,000 for 11 to 15, $16,000 for 16 to 20, and $21,000 for 21 or more. Champions get $42,000 and title challengers $32,000. The count includes Zuffa-era WEC and Strikeforce fights, and fighters also receive royalties of 20 to 30 percent on merchandise with their likeness. UFC 331 paid out $270,500 in compliance money in total.

The real money at the top came from pay-per-view points, and only champions and a few stars ever got them. Contracts revealed in the antitrust case show the standard structure: $1 for every buy between 200,000 and 400,000, $2 for every buy between 400,000 and 600,000, and $2.50 above that. Ronda Rousey's final contract paid $3 million base for title fights plus a scale that rose to $4 per buy above 900,000. Brock Lesnar's 2009 deal paid $1,375,000 for title fights plus $2 per buy over 700,000.

That model is now ending in the United States. On August 11, 2025, the UFC announced a seven-year, $7.7 billion deal with Paramount that puts all 13 numbered events and 30 Fight Nights per year on Paramount+ starting in 2026, with some numbered cards simulcast on CBS. No US pay-per-view means no pay-per-view buys to count. Manager Oren Hodak told Front Office Sports in January 2026 that his agency was "working on a new flat rate for some fighters who would have previously earned pay-per-view points." Conor McGregor said his own deal "was based on pay-per-view sales." Gaethje said he was "not getting one dollar more" because of the deal; White responded that Gaethje "was offered more money and Gaethje never responded." The new flat rates have not been made public.

MMA Junkie's standard disclaimer says it best: disclosed figures do not include performance or discretionary bonuses, nor "letters of agreement, also known as 'side letters'" used with bigger names. The antitrust case showed how big that gap is. Conor McGregor's disclosed purse for UFC 202 was $3 million; the expert report put his actual pay at $5,615,490. Georges St-Pierre was disclosed at $400,000 for UFC 167 and actually made $3,555,344. Jon Jones was disclosed at $500,000 for UFC 182 and made $3,637,500. For the stars, the public number is closer to a third of the truth.

Then the check gets carved up. Myles Jury laid out his own math for Bloody Elbow in 2015: 20 percent to management, about 30 percent to taxes, 5 to 10 percent to the gym and team, plus medicals ($500), coaching ($1,000) and miscellaneous costs ($1,000). His conclusion for a $10,000 and $10,000 contract: a fighter "will profit $5,500 for a win and $1,500 for a loss."

John Cholish told Bleacher Report he made $8,000 to show and $8,000 to win for a fight in Brazil, spent $8,000 to $12,000 on camp, about $4,000 on travel and visas, almost $800 on bloodwork, and had 27 percent withheld in Brazilian tax. He did not break even. Those examples are a decade old, and the base numbers have barely moved since.

The best public data on the whole roster comes from Bloody Elbow's analysis of 2013 to 2015 commission reports: a median disclosed purse of $22,000 per bout, rising to about $30,000 with bonuses and other pay. Preliminary-card fighters had a median of $19,000, main-card fighters $38,000, and main-event fighters $262,000. No comparable full-roster figure exists for 2025 or 2026 because most commissions no longer publish.

The bigger number is the share of revenue. Forbes' analysis of the antitrust expert report found fighters received 19 to 20 percent of UFC revenue every year from 2011 to 2017, compared with the 49 to 51 percent NBA players get. Reporter John S. Nash calculated 16.8 percent for July 2016 through April 2023 and estimated 13 to 14.5 percent for 2023. The UFC settled the Le v. Zuffa class action for $375 million, with final approval on February 6, 2025. The 1,088 fighters who filed claims averaged $230,792, with a median of $85,949, after $126.7 million in fees. A second case covering July 2017 to the present, Johnson v. Zuffa, is still in discovery.

Nevada, the UFC's home commission, stopped releasing purses in July 2020 after the legislature passed Senate Bill 29. Commissioner Staci Alonso said there was "no public benefit" to publishing them. Florida followed in 2021, calling UFC 261's purses a promoter trade secret. California still publishes, which is why the only hard 2026 numbers come from Sacramento and UFC 331. When you see a purse figure for a Las Vegas or Abu Dhabi card, it is an estimate.

White's position has not changed. In a May 2026 interview he said "fighter pay has continuously gone up every year and it will continue to go up as long as we continue to be successful," and defended entry-level money by asking whether he should "pay you $370,000 to see if you belong in the UFC." The bonuses did double in January. The base contract did not.