Hounded for years by skepticism that he could lead Argentina back to World Cup glory for the first time since 1986, Lionel Messi finally raised the trophy in 2022 with a man-of-the-match performance in the final against France. But the cathartic victory quickly gave way to another pressure-filled question: where the superstar forward would play his club soccer.
With his contract with Paris Saint-Germain expiring the following year, Messi had the opportunity to follow his rival Cristiano Ronaldo to the Saudi Pro League and cash in on an offer that was rumored to be as high as $400 million a year. Instead, he ended up coming to the United States to play for Major League Soccer’s Inter Miami.
He left some money on the table, making an estimated $70 million on the field last season—along with $70 million from his endorsements and other business endeavors—but on the doorstep of another World Cup run, the 38-year-old Argentine has achieved the pinnacle of the American dream. Forbes estimates Messi is now a billionaire, with a net worth of $1.1 billion, primarily from cash accumulation and appreciation throughout his career, plus an option to acquire an equity stake in Inter Miami after he retires.
Messi is the fifth-richest person from Argentina in Forbes’ ranking of the world’s billionaires and is one of only four athletes ever to have joined the three-comma club while still active in their sports, alongside NBA star LeBron James, golfer Tiger Woods and Ronaldo, who also claimed his place on the list on Friday. Former English soccer star David Beckham—who came to the U.S. toward the end of his playing career and owns a minority stake in Inter Miami, in many ways establishing the blueprint that Messi has followed—recently reached the $1 billion mark as well, 13 years after retiring.
Representatives for Messi did not respond to a request for comment.
Born to a working-class family about 200 miles northwest of Buenos Aires and diagnosed with growth hormone deficiency while playing youth soccer for the Rosario-based club Newell’s Old Boys, Messi has enjoyed a storybook rise thanks to his wizardry with a soccer ball.
FC Barcelona signed him to its academy when he was 13 and brought him over to Spain while paying for growth hormone treatments that helped him reach his current height, listed at 5 feet 7 inches. With his promotion to Barça’s senior team in 2004 at age 17 and his debut for Argentina’s senior national team in 2005, he quickly became a global sensation, winning his first Ballon d’Or as the world’s best player in 2009. Across 17 seasons at Barcelona and two at Paris Saint-Germain, Messi stuffed his trophy case with another seven Ballon d’Or awards—the most ever, with his total of eight putting him three ahead of Ronaldo—as well as ten titles in Spain’s La Liga, two in France’s Ligue 1 and four in the UEFA Champions League.
Messi first appeared on Forbes’ list of the world’s highest-paid soccer players in 2008 with an estimated $11.9 million in earnings, ranking him 18th at the time, and his income began to take off with contract extensions he signed at Barcelona over the following decade. A leaked copy of his four-year deal running from 2017 through 2021, later published by Spanish newspaper El Mundo, showed Messi was making even more than he was thought to be, including a roughly $177 million payday during the 2017-18 season.
This year, Messi’s total guaranteed on-field compensation is $28.3 million, according to data released by the MLS Players Association, more than double the league’s next-best figure. Since his move to Inter Miami in 2023, however, soccer insiders have suggested that Messi pads his salary with revenue-sharing agreements with MLS partners Adidas and Apple TV. In March, Inter Miami owner Jorge Mas told Bloomberg that he was paying Messi “$70 million to $80 million a year.”
For his career, Messi has now raked in an estimated $1.2 billion from his playing contracts before taxes and agents’ fees, an on-field figure surpassed by only one athlete ever (Ronaldo, of course). In fact, just six athletes besides Messi and Ronaldo have cracked $1 billion in total earnings while still active in their sports, without adjusting for inflation: Woods, James, Roger Federer, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Phil Mickelson and Kevin Durant.
Messi’s career haul climbs to $1.8 billion—behind only Ronaldo and Woods—when factoring in his more than $600 million earned from endorsements, memorabilia and other business endeavors. With his father, Jorge, acting as his agent and business manager, the mild-mannered Messi has more than a dozen active partnerships, including Mastercard, Michelob Ultra and Lay’s, and has become one of the world’s most popular and marketable athletes despite seldom giving interviews. He left Nike to sign with Adidas in 2006, and he cemented his relationship with the German shoe and apparel brand with a lifetime deal in 2017.
Counting both his on- and off-field income, Messi’s estimated $140 million over the past 12 months ranked him third on the 2026 Forbes list of the world’s highest-paid athletes, and he has been no lower than fifth in the ranking since 2014, claiming the top spot in 2019 and 2022.
Messi’s sky-high earnings landed him in a bit of trouble in 2016, when he and his father were found guilty of tax fraud by a Spanish court related to their use of shell companies in tax havens to house endorsement income. (They avoided jail time but were forced to pay about $4 million in fines.) On the other hand, Messi’s fortune has also allowed him to build up an investment portfolio that includes a stake in MiM Hotels—a boutique chain of six properties in Spain and Andorra—as part of a publicly listed real estate investment trust he launched in 2024 called Edificio Rostower Socimi, which has a market cap of $282 million.
Más+ by Messi, a sports drink he developed in partnership with White Claw parent company Mark Anthony Brands, has fizzled, with BevNet reporting in May that the brand is being phased out. But Messi remains a partner in Argentine restaurant chain El Club de la Milanesa and owns two soccer teams: Uruguay’s Deportivo LSM, which he founded with his Inter Miami teammate Luis Suárez last year, and UE Cornellà, a fifth-tier Spanish club he bought in April for an undisclosed amount.
When the dust clears, though, Messi’s most successful investment might be his own team.
His move to Miami in the twilight of his career has been a success by any measure, lifting the club founded by Beckham and brothers Jorge and Jose Mas from the league’s basement in 2023 to an MLS Cup championship in 2025, Messi’s second full season with the team.
“You have to be under a rock to not know that Lionel Messi plays at Miami,” Jorge Mas boasted to Forbes in 2024.
Meanwhile, the team’s valuation has soared from $600 million prior to Messi’s arrival to a league-high $1.35 billion in just three years, and with the option he secured to earn equity in the team when he retires, he will personally benefit from the growth he has created.
That doesn’t mean, however, that Messi is ready to hang up his cleats just yet. The two-time reigning MLS MVP signed a three-year contract extension with Inter Miami in October and will take the field this month in his sixth World Cup as Argentina defends its title. In a reflective interview with Spanish newspaper Diario Sport last year, looking ahead to this summer’s tournament, Messi said he didn’t want to be a “burden” but added that he still loves to play.
“The moment when I see I’m not fit enough, struggling on the pitch and not enjoying it, it will be time to call it quits,” said Messi, who turns 39 on June 24. “But right now, I’m enjoying it, I feel good, and that’s where things stand.”
