How Sumo Wrestlers Are Paid
Everything else on this site describes the sekitori line in words. This page puts numbers on it — and the numbers are more dramatic than the words were.
There is one thing to understand before any figure makes sense.
Below the second division, there is no monthly salary. Not a small one. None. Wrestlers in the third division and below receive an allowance for each tournament instead, six times a year.
From the second division upward — the sekitori — a wrestler is on a monthly salary.
The cliff
The figures, and the change coming in January 2027
These are being raised. The current amounts apply up to the November 2026 tournament; new amounts take effect from the January 2027 tournament.
Rank | Monthly, now | From January 2027 |
|---|---|---|
| ¥3,000,000 | ¥3,300,000 |
| ¥2,500,000 | ¥2,750,000 |
| ¥1,800,000 | ¥2,000,000 |
| ¥1,400,000 | ¥1,550,000 |
| ¥1,100,000 | ¥1,200,000 |
A yokozuna is on roughly two and a half times a juryo wrestler's salary. That is a real gap, but it is an ordinary one — the kind of spread you would find in any profession.
Below the line, per tournament
Here is the same information for everyone below juryo. Note the unit: this is per tournament, six times a year, not per month.
Division | Per tournament, now | From January 2027 |
|---|---|---|
| ¥165,000 | ¥180,000 |
| ¥110,000 | ¥120,000 |
| ¥88,000 | ¥95,000 |
| ¥77,000 | ¥82,000 |
Take the two ranks either side of the line. A makushita wrestler's allowance comes to about ¥990,000 a year. A juryo wrestler's salary comes to about ¥13,200,000 a year. On these two published figures alone, crossing the line multiplies the money by roughly thirteen. That is the arithmetic behind the sekitori article — and it is the arithmetic behind the bouts at the bottom of the second division that nobody watches.
Winning is paid separately
Salary is not the whole of it. Winning is paid for on top, and those amounts are also rising in January 2027.
Championship | Now | From January 2027 |
|---|---|---|
Top division | ¥10,000,000 | ¥20,000,000 |
Second division | ¥2,000,000 | ¥3,000,000 |
Third division | ¥500,000 | ¥700,000 |
Fourth division | ¥300,000 | ¥500,000 |
Fifth division | ¥200,000 | ¥300,000 |
Sixth division | ¥100,000 | ¥200,000 |
The top-division championship prize is doubling. Reporting on the change noted that it had stood unchanged since 1994 — so this is the first move in more than thirty years.
The three special prizes awarded in the top division are rising from ¥2,000,000 to ¥3,000,000 each, also for the first time since 1994.
Wrestlers below juryo also earn small amounts per win and for a winning record, again on the scale of a few thousand yen at a time.
The trap for new viewers
Do not read the lower figures as what a junior wrestler lives on. He lives in the stable, where accommodation and meals are provided — the arrangement described in the chanko article. The allowance is not a wage he pays rent out of. It is also, equally, not a salary: he has no monthly income at all, and that is the point.
And then there are the envelopes
One more stream, and it is the one you can see from your seat.
As the kensho article sets out, sponsors put money on individual bouts in the top division. Each banner is worth ¥60,000 to the wrestler who wins that bout.
Set that against the table above. A top-division wrestler on ¥1,400,000 a month who wins a bout carrying ten banners has earned ¥600,000 in a few seconds — close to half a month's salary, decided by one charge.
That is why the banners matter, and why counting them tells you something the ranking sheet does not.
The Sumo Association does not publish a table of salaries by rank on its website — we looked. The amounts here come from press reporting of the January 2027 revision and from published summaries of it, cross-checked against each other. The championship, special-prize and yokozuna figures are confirmed by a national news agency; the full rank-by-rank breakdown is not, so treat the middle rows as well-reported rather than official.
What to watch for
Find a bout at the bottom of the second division, late in a tournament, between two men you have never heard of.
One of them is defending about thirteen million yen a year. The other is trying to take it. Nothing on the card looks less important, and now you know what it is actually worth.
The same line, described rather than counted.
Sources: Jiji Press, report of the pay and prize revision, 30 July 2026 (yokozuna salary, top-division championship and special prizes); together with published summaries of the same revision supplied to us, used for the rank-by-rank breakdown. The Japan Sumo Association does not publish salaries by rank on its own site. Figures retrieved 9 September 2026 and are in Japanese yen. Amounts marked "from January 2027" had not yet taken effect at the time of writing.