How Much Do Football Referees Get Paid? What Official Documents Show

Short answer: Individual referee pay is not published by the Premier League (through PGMOL), LaLiga, Serie A, Ligue 1, the men’s Bundesliga, UEFA or FIFA. Austria has the most complete top-flight scale we found: the Bundesliga referee fee for 2026/27 is €1,600 per match, gross.

The Premier League (through PGMOL), LaLiga, Serie A, Ligue 1, the men’s Bundesliga, UEFA and FIFA do not publish what an individual referee is paid or what a match fee is. What exists in public is a set of fee scales for other competitions and levels, plus company accounts and budgets that show totals for whole organisations. This article sets out those documents, what each one says and what it cannot tell you.

The most complete top-flight scale we found comes from Austria, where the Bundesliga referee fee for 2026/27 is €1,600 per match, gross. For the leagues most readers are asking about, the documents give totals, not pay. If you want to see how pay in other parts of the game compares, our look at the highest-paid football managers uses a similar approach to sourcing.

What do the published referee documents cover?

The table is grouped by type of publisher, not by size of any amount. Amounts are in the local currency of each document and are not comparable across rows.

How much do Austrian Bundesliga referees get paid?

The Austrian Football Association (ÖFB) publishes its referee regulation for the elite area, valid from 1 July 2026. Section 47 sets the fees for league matches, and section 51(2) states that all amounts in the regulation are gross (“Bruttobeträge”). The table shows the fees for the top level (“1. Leistungsstufe”), which is the Bundesliga, and the second level, the 2. Liga.

These are per-match amounts for 2026/27, gross, paid to officials who work as contractors (“Auftragnehmer”). A companion ÖFB document, the fees and appointments regulation from 1 July 2026, confirms that the top level covers the two Austrian professional leagues.

What do referees get paid in Spain’s lower tiers and friendlies?

The Spanish federation’s Circular 6 for 2026/27, signed in Las Rozas on 6 July 2026, covers official national competitions of a non-professional nature and unofficial matches and friendlies. It does not cover LaLiga matches. The 2018 agreement on professional referee pay that LaLiga’s coordination agreement refers to is published only as a cover page and signature page, so its amounts cannot be read (see “What is not published” below).

All amounts below are euros per match, 2026/27, as printed in the circular.

In Primera Federación the circular also lists a single combined payment of €3,000 per match, called the “recibo unificado”. In the Copa del Rey preliminary round the circular says the home club bears the cost.

Friendlies between professional clubs

The same circular sets fees for friendlies. These are friendly fees, not league-match pay, and they should not be read as what LaLiga referees earn in competition. For a friendly between two Primera División clubs the circular lists €2,536 for the referee, €1,161 for the two assistants together and €692 for the fourth official. For two Segunda División clubs it lists €1,158, €585 for both assistants together and €472. For two Primera Federación clubs it lists €300, €224 for both assistants together and €112.

What do FA Cup qualifying referees earn and what do PGMOL’s accounts show?

FA Cup qualifying rounds

The FA does not publish these amounts on thefa.com. Its rules for the 2026-27 FA Challenge Cup say only that match official fees in the qualifying competition are “in an amount specified by The Association and communicated to Clubs from time to time”. The figures below come from the FA’s fee table as published by the North West Counties Football League, an FA-sanctioned league. They are the 2025-26 amounts, the newest we found. We found no 2026-27 amounts.

The fees are per match, plus travel expenses of £0.40 a mile. The document also provides for half the match fee if the match is not played and up to £100 for an overnight stay. For comparison, the 2024-25 table listed Fourth Round Qualifying at £300.00 for the referee, £150.00 for each assistant and £100.00 for the fourth official.

PGMOL’s company accounts

Professional Game Match Officials Ltd (PGMOL) supplies referees to the FA, the Premier League, the EFL and the WSL. It files accounts at Companies House, and its report and financial statements for the year ended 31 July 2025 (the 2024/25 season) show the following. Figures in brackets are for the previous year.

These are company-wide totals. The headcount and staff costs cover everyone PGMOL employs, including coaches, analysts and management as well as referees. The accounts do not identify the highest-paid director as a referee. Dividing the total by the headcount would not give referee pay, so we have not done it. Turnover is the funding PGMOL receives from its members, and the accounts attribute the rise in cost of sales mainly to higher staff costs driven by increased headcount. How the Premier League’s own income is shared is a separate subject, covered in our guide to Premier League prize money and TV rights distribution.

Germany: women’s leagues and the DFB Schiri GmbH

The DFB announced higher referee fees for the women’s competitions from the 2025/26 season on 9 May 2025. The article does not say “per match” explicitly, but it describes fees for appointments (“Einsätze”). Amounts are euros.

DFB Schiri GmbH

Professional referees in the men’s Bundesliga, 2. Bundesliga and 3. Liga are organised through DFB Schiri GmbH, owned 51% by the DFB and 49% by the DFL. No fee scale for these leagues is published. The DFB’s financial report 2024, filed in the Bundestag lobby register, gives two figures for the company in its summary table: a total output (“Gesamtleistung”) of 32,578 thousand euros and 18 employees. The prior-year output was 30,494 thousand euros, also with 18 employees. The period is the company’s financial year from 1 July 2023 to 30 June 2024.

Total output is not pay, and 18 employees is a headcount for the company, not a count of referees.

Does UEFA publish referee fees?

UEFA’s budget for 2026/27 (enclosure 06, 13 January 2026, in French) has a section called “Arbitres et commissaires de match” (referees and match officers). The line includes referee entitlements, daily allowances and travel, and also delegates, referee observers, security officers, doping control officers and venue directors, so it cannot be turned into a fee per referee.

The document states that the budget for this line amounts to EUR 64 million. For what UEFA pays clubs in the same competition, see our breakdown of Champions League prize money.

UEFA’s General Terms and Conditions for Match Officials, Edition 2014 (in force from 19 September 2014; we found no later edition) say match officials are entitled to a daily allowance and, where applicable, match fees “in accordance with the rates set by the UEFA Executive Committee”. The document adds a lump sum of 200 euros per match official for domestic travel. The rates themselves are not in the document.

Grassroots examples

Local associations are more open about fees, because the people who need them are volunteers and new referees.

• England, Berks & Bucks FA. Its referee payment page says adult games typically pay between £20 and £55 per game and youth games between £10 and £45. Fees are set by each league. The page is undated.
• Netherlands, KNVB. Its official compensation page says the amateur football board set the 2026/27 amounts: a match fee of €28,90 for referees and assistant referees, €0,40 per kilometre for match-related travel and €7,60 for lunch for the main groups.
• Germany, Berlin FA. Its expenses regulation, published in January 2026, lists €40 for the referee and €30 for each assistant in the Berlin-Liga, €35 and €25 in the Landesliga, €30 and €20 in the Bezirksliga and €25 and €20 in the Kreisligen. It also lists a flat €10 travel allowance per match.

Referee and assistant fees compared within each scale

Where a document gives both, the assistant fee can be read against the referee fee in the same scale. This says nothing about the top flights where no scale is published, and it is a ratio inside one document, not a comparison between countries.

• Austrian Bundesliga: €800 for an assistant against €1,600 for the referee, exactly half. In the 2. Liga it is €500 against €900.
• German Frauen-Bundesliga: €500 against €1,000, exactly half. In the 2. Frauen-Bundesliga it is €175 against €350.
• FA Cup Fourth Round Qualifying, 2025-26: £155 against £309, a little over half. In the first qualifying rounds it is £55 against £75, and in the second and third rounds £80 against £120.
• Spanish Primera Federación: €180 against €325. In Segunda Federación it is €125 against €220.
• KNVB amateur football: the same €28,90 for referees and assistants.

In the Austrian Bundesliga the fourth official’s €400 is a quarter of the referee’s fee, and VAR is €810, slightly more than half.

What is not published

We looked for per-referee pay or match fees for the following and did not find them in any official document.

• Premier League and EFL (PGMOL). PGMOL’s accounts give company totals only. The FA’s 2026-27 competition rules say fees are communicated to clubs from time to time.
• LaLiga and RFEF. The published coordination agreement refers to the 2018 pay agreement as Annex III, but the published copy contains only the annex’s cover page and signature page. RFEF’s transparency page for economic information lists no referee pay scale.
• Serie A, Ligue 1 and the men’s Bundesliga. We found no FIGC, AIA, FFF, LFP or DFB document with per-referee pay. For Germany only the DFB Schiri GmbH totals above exist.
• UEFA and FIFA. UEFA publishes budget totals and says rates are set by its Executive Committee. FIFA publishes no fee table for World Cup officials that we could find.
• Scotland. The SPFL League Cup regulations 2026/27 say the level of payment is determined by the Board, and the Scottish Cup rules 2026-27 say the Scottish FA pays match officials’ fees and expenses. Neither gives amounts.
• Brazil. The CBF said in a January 2026 announcement that it would invest about R$ 195 million over 2026/2027 in its professional referee programme, with 72 officials: 20 referees, 40 assistants and 12 video referees. Pay is described as monthly salaries, variable fees and performance bonuses, with no amounts. A March 2026 update says fixed salaries were paid from March and variable pay would start from the sixth round.
• MLS. The referees’ collective agreement has not been published.

Figures you may have seen in the press for these leagues are not confirmed by any document we could open, so we have not used them.

How we built this

We used only documents from governing bodies, leagues, referees’ associations and statutory filings, opened directly. Each figure is copied as published, in its own currency and with the basis stated (gross, per match, per appointment) where the document gives it. We did not convert currencies, estimate, or use media reports. All links were checked on 28 October 2026. Where a document is hosted on another body’s site, we say so.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much do Premier League referees get paid?

No official document gives a figure per referee. PGMOL’s accounts for the year ended 31 July 2025 show total wages of £19,465,431 and total staff costs of £24,945,538 for an average of 239 people, but that covers all staff, not only referees.

How much do LaLiga referees get paid?

The documents we could open do not say. The pay agreement is referred to in LaLiga’s published coordination agreement, but only its cover page and signature page are included. RFEF’s Circular 6 for 2026/27 does list friendly-match fees, such as €2,536 for a referee in a friendly between two Primera División clubs, but those are not league-match fees.

Do Champions League referees get a published match fee?

No. UEFA’s terms say the Executive Committee sets the rates, but the rates are not in the document. UEFA’s 2026/27 budget has a line for referees and match officers, with €11.474 million for the Champions League and Super Cup, but it includes delegates, observers and other staff.

Which top league publishes a referee fee scale?

Of the competitions we checked, the Austrian Bundesliga. The ÖFB regulation valid from 1 July 2026 lists €1,600 for the referee, €800 for each assistant, €400 for the fourth official, €810 for VAR and €405 for the assistant VAR, per match and gross.

How much do grassroots referees get?

It depends on the association. Berks & Bucks FA says adult games typically pay between £20 and £55 per game and youth games between £10 and £45. The KNVB lists a match fee of €28,90 for 2026/27, and the Berlin FA lists €25 to €40 for a referee depending on the league.

Why are the FA Cup qualifying fees not on the FA’s website?

The FA’s 2026-27 rules say the fees are specified by the association and communicated to clubs from time to time. The amounts we found are in a fee table from the FA, as published by the North West Counties Football League, for the 2025-26 competition.

Sources

• ÖFB-Schiedsrichterordnung, valid from 1 July 2026
• ÖFB-Schiedsrichter-Gebühren- und Besetzungsordnung, from 1 July 2026
• RFEF Circular 6, 2026/27
• Rules of the FA Challenge Cup Competition, season 2026-27
• The Emirates FA Cup, competition match expenses, qualifying competition 2025-26 (hosted by the NWCFL)
• The Emirates FA Cup, match expense allowances 2024-25 (hosted by the NWCFL)
• PGMOL report and financial statements 2025, Companies House
• DFB, increased referee fees in the women’s competitions from 2025/26
• DFB-Finanzbericht 2024
• UEFA budget 2026/27
• UEFA General Terms and Conditions for Match Officials, Edition 2014
• Berks & Bucks FA, referee payment and match fees
• KNVB, Vergoedingen
• Berliner Fußball-Verband, Spesenordnung, January 2026
• LaLiga, RFEF-LaLiga coordination agreement (published copy)
• RFEF, transparency: economic information
• SPFL League Cup regulations 2026/27
• Scottish FA, Men’s Scottish Cup rules 2026-27
• CBF, programme announcement, 27 January 2026
• CBF, contracts sent to 72 referees, 7 March 2026