Concert grosses are reported in the money of their day, so every all-time touring list quietly favors recent tours. A ticket in 1995 cost less, and so did everything else. Ranking a 1995 gross against a 2024 gross in raw dollars is like ranking a 1995 salary against a 2024 salary.
So we redid the list. Below are the 20 highest-grossing tours as reported by Billboard Boxscore and Pollstar, then the same list restated in 2025 dollars, the record’s progression since 1984, and the year-by-year leaders. Every adjustment uses the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index (method at the end).
The short version
- The Eras Tour is No. 1 either way. It grossed $2,077,618,725 from 149 shows, per The New York Times. That is about $2.13 billion in 2025 dollars, and about 40% more than the No. 2 tour even after adjustment.
- Only three tours have crossed $1 billion: Eras, Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres ($1.52 billion) and The Weeknd’s After Hours til Dawn, which reached $1.07 billion in September 2026 and was still running.
- Inflation reshuffles the rest. U2’s 360° Tour grossed $736.4 million in 2011. That is about $1.05 billion today, enough to move it from seventh to fourth.
- Per show, the leaders are short, huge tours. Eras averaged $13.9 million a show. BTS’s 2026 Arirang tour has averaged $11.7 million over 44 shows, more than any tour on the list except Eras.
- 2025 was a correction. Pollstar’s top 100 tours grossed $8.9 billion, down 6.1% from 2024, and the No. 1 tour of the year made $407.6 million.
The all-time top 20
| Rank | Artist | Tour | Years | Shows | Gross | In 2025 dollars | Per show |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour | 2023–2024 | 149 | $2,077.6M | $2,132.3M | $13.9M |
| 2 | Coldplay | Music of the Spheres World Tour | 2022–2025 | 223 | $1,524.4M | $1,524.4M | $6.8M |
| 3 | The Weeknd | After Hours til Dawn Tour † | 2022–2026 | 158 | $1,070.0M | $1,070.0M | $6.8M |
| 4 | Elton John | Farewell Yellow Brick Road | 2018–2023 | 330 | $939.1M | $992.3M | $2.8M |
| 5 | Ed Sheeran | +−=÷× Tour | 2022–2025 | 169 | $875.7M | $875.7M | $5.2M |
| 6 | Ed Sheeran | ÷ Tour | 2017–2019 | 255 | $776.2M | $977.5M | $3.0M |
| 7 | U2 | 360° Tour | 2009–2011 | 110 | $736.4M | $1,054.1M | $6.7M |
| 8 | Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band | 2023–2025 Tour | 2023–2025 | 129 | $729.7M | $729.7M | $5.7M |
| 9 | Metallica | M72 World Tour † | 2023–2027 | 86 | $668.4M | $668.4M | $7.8M |
| 10 | Harry Styles | Love On Tour | 2021–2023 | 169 | $617.3M | $652.3M | $3.7M |
| 11 | Pink | Summer Carnival | 2023–2024 | 97 | $584.7M | $600.1M | $6.0M |
| 12 | Guns N’ Roses | Not in This Lifetime… Tour | 2016–2019 | 158 | $584.2M | $735.7M | $3.7M |
| 13 | Beyoncé | Renaissance World Tour | 2023 | 56 | $579.9M | $612.7M | $10.4M |
| 14 | Shakira | Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour | 2025–2026 | 124 | $565.5M | $565.5M | $4.6M |
| 15 | Rammstein | Stadium Tour | 2019–2024 | 141 | $563.0M | $577.8M | $4.0M |
| 16 | The Rolling Stones | A Bigger Bang Tour | 2005–2007 | 144 | $558.3M | $866.9M | $3.9M |
| 17 | The Rolling Stones | No Filter Tour | 2017–2021 | 58 | $546.5M | $649.3M | $9.4M |
| 18 | Coldplay | A Head Full of Dreams Tour | 2016–2017 | 114 | $523.0M | $687.0M | $4.6M |
| 19 | BTS | Arirang World Tour | 2026 | 44 | $516.8M | $516.8M | $11.7M |
| 20 | Zach Bryan | The Quittin’ Time Tour | 2024–2025 | 92 | $477.7M | $477.7M | $5.2M |
† Ongoing when last reported. Grosses and show counts are as reported by Billboard Boxscore and Pollstar and compiled in Wikipedia’s list of highest-grossing concert tours. Primary reports for key rows: Eras (NYT), The Weeknd (Pollstar), Elton John (Billboard), Ed Sheeran’s ÷ Tour (Billboard), BTS (Billboard). The “2025 dollars” and “per show” columns are our calculations.
What changes when you adjust for inflation
Three things stand out once every gross is in the same money.
U2 360° was a billion-dollar tour in all but name. It grossed $736.4 million when it ended in 2011. Prices have risen about 43% since then, so in 2025 dollars it is worth about $1.05 billion. That puts it fourth all-time, just behind The Weeknd’s still-running tour. It also did it in 110 shows, far fewer than Coldplay’s 223 or Elton John’s 330.
Ed Sheeran’s earlier tour was the bigger one. In raw dollars, his +−=÷× Tour (2022–2025, $875.7 million) beats his ÷ Tour (2017–2019, $776.2 million), and Billboard reported the newer tour as the bigger of the two. In 2025 dollars the order flips: the ÷ Tour is worth about $978 million. The increase in nominal dollars is smaller than six years of inflation.
The Eras Tour gets bigger, not smaller. Because it ended in 2024, the adjustment adds about 2.6%, to roughly $2.13 billion. Coldplay’s tour ended in 2025, our base year, so it gets no adjustment at all. The gap between first and second actually widens slightly.
How the record moved: 1984 to today
The record for highest-grossing tour has fifteen entries since 1984, counting tours that raised their own record. Restated in 2025 dollars, the progression looks steadier than the raw numbers suggest:
| Year record set | Artist | Tour | Gross at the time | In 2025 dollars |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1984 | The Jacksons | Victory Tour | $75M | $232M |
| 1985 | Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band | Born in the U.S.A. Tour | $90M | $269M |
| 1989 | Michael Jackson | Bad World Tour | $125M | $325M |
| 1989 | Pink Floyd | A Momentary Lapse of Reason Tour | $135M | $351M |
| 1990 | The Rolling Stones | Steel Wheels/Urban Jungle Tour | $175M | $431M |
| 1994 | Pink Floyd | The Division Bell Tour | $250M | $543M |
| 1995 | The Rolling Stones | Voodoo Lounge Tour | $320M | $676M |
| 2006 | U2 | Vertigo Tour | $333M | $532M |
| 2006 | The Rolling Stones | A Bigger Bang Tour | $437M | $698M |
| 2007 | The Rolling Stones | A Bigger Bang Tour (final) | $558.3M | $867M |
| 2011 | U2 | 360° Tour | $736.4M | $1,054M |
| 2019 | Ed Sheeran | ÷ Tour | $776.2M | $978M |
| 2023 | Elton John | Farewell Yellow Brick Road | $939.1M | $992M |
| 2023 | Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour (first $1B) | $1,039.3M | $1,098M |
| 2024 | Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour (final) | $2,077.6M | $2,132M |
Timeline as compiled in Wikipedia’s list, from Billboard, Pollstar and contemporary reports. Inflation adjustment ours.
Two things in that table are easy to miss in the raw numbers:
- U2’s Vertigo Tour (2006) took the record in raw dollars, but not in real ones. Its $333 million is worth about $532 million today, less than the $676 million the Rolling Stones’ Voodoo Lounge Tour earned in 1995 money. The Voodoo Lounge record stood for 11 years. The Stones set the all-time record three times, more than any other act.
- Two records fell in 2019 and 2023 only because of inflation. Ed Sheeran’s ÷ Tour passed U2 360° in raw dollars, but in 2025 dollars it is about $76 million short. Elton John’s farewell tour was smaller in real terms than U2 360° too. The first tour since 2011 to set a real-terms record was the Eras Tour.
The top tour of every year, in 2025 dollars
For four decades, the biggest tour of any one year mostly earned between $100 million and $550 million in today’s money. The best years before 2023 were the Rolling Stones in 2006 (about $679 million in 2025 dollars), Ed Sheeran in 2018 ($554 million) and the Stones again in 2003 ($524 million). Then the Eras Tour grossed about $1.1 billion in a single calendar year, twice. In real terms, that is about 60% more than any previous year’s leader.
2025 went back to the old pattern. Pollstar’s year-end analysis called it “a return to earth”:
| Pollstar top 100 worldwide tours | 2025 | Change vs 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Total gross | $8.9 billion | −6.1% |
| Tickets sold | 67.3 million | −3.7% |
| Average ticket price | $132.62 | −2.4% |
| No. 1 tour | Beyoncé, Cowboy Carter Tour, $407.6M | — |
| No. 2 tour | Oasis, Oasis Live ‘25, $405.4M | — |
| No. 3 tour | Coldplay, Music of the Spheres, $390.5M | — |
Pollstar also noted that the average ticket price, though lower, was still above its 2022 and 2023 levels. Average gross and attendance per show both rose.
Per show: why short tours can rank so high
Total gross rewards stamina. Elton John played 330 shows on his farewell tour and averaged $2.8 million each. Gross per show measures demand, and it puts a different set of tours on top:
- The Eras Tour averaged about $13.9 million a show, the highest on the list.
- BTS’s Arirang World Tour has grossed $516.8 million from just 44 shows in 2026, about $11.7 million each. That is enough to rank 19th all-time from a single year on the road.
- Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour made $579.9 million from 56 shows in 2023, about $10.4 million each.
- The Rolling Stones’ No Filter Tour averaged $9.4 million over 58 shows, decades into the band’s career. (We wrote about the business logic of heritage acts still putting out new albums.)
Per-show gross is a function of capacity and price, so it rewards acts that can fill the biggest rooms at the highest prices. That is a different skill from staying on the road for five years.
Why touring is where the money is
For the artists on this list, the road is where the largest sums are made. We break down every income stream in how artists actually get paid in 2026. A tour gross is not artist income, though. It is the box office before venue costs, promoter shares, production, crew and taxes. The artist’s take is a share of the profit after those costs, and its size depends on the deal.
Method
- Grosses and shows are as reported by Billboard Boxscore and Pollstar and compiled in Wikipedia’s list of highest-grossing concert tours, current to October 2026. Key figures are linked to the primary report.
- Inflation adjustment uses annual averages of the U.S. CPI-U (series CPIAUCSL from the Bureau of Labor Statistics via FRED). Each gross is converted from its tour’s final year, or from 2025 for tours that ran into 2026, to 2025 dollars. BLS published no index for October 2025, so the 2025 average uses the other eleven months. This is the same convention Wikipedia’s own adjusted column uses: one price level per tour, not show by show.
- Per-show gross is the reported gross divided by the reported number of shows.
- Caveats. Grosses are in U.S. dollars at the exchange rates the trades used, and a U.S. price index is a rough deflator for tours that sold most tickets abroad. Ongoing tours (The Weeknd, Metallica) will keep growing.
Last updated: October 28, 2026.
Frequently asked questions
What is the highest-grossing tour of all time? Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, which grossed $2,077,618,725 across 149 shows between March 2023 and December 2024. It was the first tour to pass $1 billion and is still the only one to pass $2 billion. Adjusted to 2025 dollars, it is worth about $2.13 billion, about 40% more than the next tour on the list.
Which tours have grossed more than $1 billion? Three: Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour ($2.08 billion), Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres World Tour ($1.52 billion) and The Weeknd’s After Hours til Dawn Tour, which reached $1.07 billion in September 2026 according to Pollstar and was still running. Adjusted for inflation, U2’s 360° Tour (2009–2011) would also clear $1 billion in 2025 dollars.
What is the highest-grossing tour adjusted for inflation? Still the Eras Tour, at about $2.13 billion in 2025 dollars. Inflation adjustment changes the order below it. U2’s 360° Tour rises from seventh to fourth (about $1.05 billion), Ed Sheeran’s ÷ Tour rises above his own later +−=÷× Tour, and the Rolling Stones’ A Bigger Bang Tour is worth about $867 million in today’s money.
Which tour made the most money per show? The Eras Tour averaged about $13.9 million per show. Among the all-time top 20, the next highest are BTS’s 2026 Arirang World Tour (about $11.7 million per show over 44 shows), Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour ($10.4 million over 56) and the Rolling Stones’ No Filter Tour ($9.4 million over 58).
Was 2025 a bigger year for touring than 2024? No. Pollstar’s year-end analysis found that its top 100 worldwide tours grossed $8.9 billion in 2025, 6.1% less than in 2024, on 67.3 million tickets (down 3.7%). The average ticket price fell 2.4% to $132.62. The year’s top tour was Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter Tour at $407.6 million, followed by Oasis ($405.4 million) and Coldplay ($390.5 million).
