Cristiano Ronaldo’s World Cup story may have just come to a close, and not with a trophy in hand. Portugal’s tough loss to Spain likely marked his last shot at the one prize that always slipped away from him. After two decades of chasing it, the ending arrived quietly instead of with a final storybook goal.
But while his time on the World Cup stage might be over, his bank account tells a completely different story. Ronaldo is heading straight back to Saudi Arabia, where he’s locked into one of the richest sports contracts ever signed. And the real shocker isn’t just the size of the paycheck.
It’s the fact that he doesn’t pay a single dollar in taxes on it.
From Manchester United’s Star Player to a Free Agent at 37
Ronaldo’s move to Saudi Arabia back in December 2022 was one of the biggest plot twists in modern sports. For years, he had set the bar for football salaries wherever he went. He was the top earner at Manchester United. His record-breaking transfer to Real Madrid in 2009 rewrote the rulebook on player wages. By the time he landed at Juventus in 2018, he was pulling in more than $100 million a year between his salary and sponsorship deals, a huge number for any player, let alone one in his mid-30s.
Then things fell apart. Late in 2022, tension between Ronaldo and Manchester United’s leadership boiled over. After a controversial interview where he publicly criticized the club, United tore up his contract just weeks before the World Cup kicked off. Just like that, a five-time Ballon d’Or winner and global icon found himself without a team at age 37.
Saudi Arabia Made an Offer Nobody Saw Coming
Everyone expected Ronaldo to sign with an MLS club or return to Portugal for one last victory lap. Instead, Saudi club Al Nassr blew past every expectation with a deal worth roughly $535 million spread across two and a half years.
That contract broke down to about $210 million per season, instantly making him the highest-paid athlete on the planet. It remains one of the biggest sports contracts ever recorded.
Ronaldo wasn’t done climbing, though. In June 2025, he signed an even bigger extension. This new deal guarantees him at least $620 million, with bonuses potentially pushing that number as high as $936 million, keeping him at Al Nassr through the middle of 2027.
The extension didn’t just push Ronaldo into billionaire territory for the first time in his life. It also handed him a 15% ownership stake in Al Nassr, $5 million in private jet coverage, and a household staff of 16 people. All told, the deal works out to roughly $224 million a season before bonuses even enter the picture.
If this ends up being his final Saudi contract, Ronaldo will have played for Al Nassr from 2023 all the way through 2027. Add it all up, minus bonuses, and he’s looking at around $1.155 billion in total earnings. Here’s the part that makes it truly wild: none of it gets taxed.
Why Saudi Arabia Doesn’t Touch Ronaldo’s Paycheck
Saudi Arabia simply doesn’t charge personal income tax on employment earnings. That means Ronaldo’s entire salary, every signing bonus, and all his performance incentives land in his account completely untouched.
You might be wondering: doesn’t Portugal want a cut, since that’s his home country?
Not necessarily. Portugal taxes people based on where they actually live, not which passport they carry. If Ronaldo spends most of the year outside the country and doesn’t keep his main tax residence there, Portuguese law generally treats him as a non-resident. Non-residents only get taxed on income earned inside Portugal, not on a salary paid by a Saudi club for work done in Saudi Arabia.
So as long as Al Nassr is the one cutting the checks for games played on Saudi soil, Portugal has no automatic claim to any of it.
What Would Happen If an American Superstar Signed the Same Deal
Picture an American soccer star at Ronaldo’s level landing that same $500 million Saudi contract. Let’s call him Christopher Ronald.
Unlike Ronaldo, Christopher wouldn’t get to keep it all. The IRS would take its share, and if he lived in a state with its own income tax, that state would want a cut too.
Here’s how the math shakes out. The top federal tax rate in the U.S. sits at 37%, so a $500 million salary would mean roughly $185 million gone to federal taxes alone. Add in state taxes, say California’s 13.3%, New York’s 10.9%, or New Jersey’s 10.75%, and his combined tax bill could climb to somewhere between 48% and 50%. That’s about $240 to $250 million disappearing before he ever sees it.
Moving to Saudi Arabia wouldn’t save him either. Even if Christopher lived there 365 days a year, the U.S. would still tax him. That’s because America is one of the only countries that taxes its citizens no matter where they live, based purely on citizenship. U.S. citizens owe taxes on income earned anywhere in the world.
There is a tax break called the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion that lets Americans abroad shield some of their foreign income. But when you’re earning hundreds of millions a year, that exclusion barely makes a dent.
Now compare that to Ronaldo’s actual tax bill in Saudi Arabia: zero.
Zoom out across his full Al Nassr career, and the gap becomes almost hard to believe. Between 2023 and mid-2027, Ronaldo could pocket around $1.155 billion before bonuses, averaging roughly $257 million a season, none of it touched by personal income tax. For an American athlete to walk away with that same amount after taxes, he’d need to earn closer to $467 million a year before taxes, or more than $2.1 billion over four and a half years, just to match what Ronaldo keeps.
A Career Ending on the Field, But Not in the Bank Account
For most of his career, Ronaldo’s legacy was tied tightly to Europe. Champions League nights. Clásicos. His return to Manchester United. His Juventus reinvention. Ballon d’Or ceremonies. Heartbreaking World Cup exits. The ongoing comparisons to Lionel Messi. Wearing Portugal’s jersey was never just a job for him; it became part of his entire global identity.
That chapter now looks finished.
Ronaldo leaves the World Cup without the one trophy that always eluded him. He’s won the Euros, the Nations League, Champions League titles, and league championships in England, Spain, and Italy. He holds the record for most international goals in men’s soccer history. But the World Cup trophy never came.
Yet financially, there’s no quiet fade into retirement happening here. He’s headed back to Saudi Arabia to finish out one of the richest, most tax-friendly contracts any athlete has ever signed.
That’s the strange contrast defining this stage of Ronaldo’s career. On the field, the story is wrapping up. In his bank account, the numbers keep climbing.
The Debate Over Taking Saudi Money
Critics have questioned the ethics of accepting Saudi money for years, whether it’s football, boxing, golf, or entertainment. Saudi Arabia’s push to bring in global stars has often been labeled sportswashing, a strategy some say is meant to soften the country’s image despite ongoing concerns over authoritarian rule, censorship, human rights issues, and the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Last September, a group of comedians landed in the middle of a similar controversy after news broke that they’d performed at the Riyadh Comedy Festival in 2025. Lesser-known comics reportedly earned hundreds of thousands of dollars, while headliners like Bill Burr, Dave Chappelle, Louis C.K., Aziz Ansari, Kevin Hart, and Pete Davidson were said to be paid between $1 million and $5 million each.
The backlash came fast. Human Rights Watch accused the festival of being used to polish Saudi Arabia’s reputation. Critics were especially vocal about Pete Davidson’s involvement, given that his father died on 9/11, an attack carried out largely by Saudi nationals. Others pointed to Jessica Kirson, a lesbian comedian, performing in a country where LGBTQ rights remain heavily restricted.
Some comedians, including Mike Birbiglia, Shane Gillis, and Leslie Liao, turned down the offers entirely, with critics labeling the payments “blood money.” Afterward, some performers, including Ansari and Kirson, offered to donate their earnings to Human Rights Watch. Notably, the organization declined at least some of that money, saying it wouldn’t accept proceeds from the very event it had spoken out against.
Ronaldo has faced similar criticism since the day he arrived in Riyadh, and it’s a fair point to raise. Saudi Arabia didn’t spend this kind of money simply because it loves his footwork. Ronaldo became a walking billboard, a signal to every player, agent, sponsor, and league on Earth that Saudi football was ready to pay whatever it took to become relevant.
And it worked. Before Ronaldo arrived, most casual fans couldn’t name a single Saudi club. Since then, Al Nassr has become one of the most searched soccer teams in the world. His move helped pave the way for more stars, more media attention, and more credibility for the Saudi Pro League as a whole.
Final Thoughts
Ronaldo’s World Cup dream may be over, but his financial story is far from finished. Between a tax-free paycheck and one of the richest contracts in sports history, his time in Saudi Arabia proves that even at the tail end of a legendary career, the numbers can still shatter records.
For more stories on the money moves behind your favorite stars, stick with EarlyMagazine UK — where the real numbers always come out.
