The insight: The most expensive (Category-1) 2026 final ticket is $10,990 face value — 6.8× the 2022 price ($1,607) and far beyond any prior edition. Resale listings peaked near $32,970; the cheapest "Supporter Entry" seat is $60 (a small allotment). On May 27 2026, the New York & New Jersey attorneys general subpoenaed FIFA over variable (dynamic) pricing after >90 of 104 matches rose by an average 34%.
Why now: the AG subpoena is days old (May 27 2026) and the tournament kicks off June 11 — the story is live.
Each edition, with its gaps shown
Tracked across editions, the most expensive (Category-1) final ticket — face value, nominal USD — was flat in the hundreds-to-low-thousands range for decades before spiking in 2026. Two editions are genuine gaps with no reliable primary source (1998 and 2006), and they are left as gaps rather than interpolated. 2014's widely-cited ~$6,000 figure is disputed (likely a resale price) and is excluded from the trend. The clean, low-inflation comparison is 2018 → 2022 → 2026, and that is where the jump to $10,990 stands out.
Sources
- SI.com — per-edition prices (cites Statista + FIFA).
- NY/NJ AG press release — the FIFA subpoena over dynamic pricing.
- FIFA — the $60 Supporter Entry tier.
- The World Cup Guide — historical, real-terms prices since 1994.