How to Turn Pro Cycling

Home / Pathway / From Continental team to WorldTour: how riders turn pro

From Continental team to WorldTour: how riders turn pro

Updated 28 September 2026 · every figure is sourced below

The step from a Continental team to a WorldTeam is the biggest money jump in cycling. Below it, a rider can race for nothing. Above it, the rules guarantee at least €35,721 a year. Very few riders make that step, and most of what decides it is not written down anywhere.

This guide puts the known rules, numbers and odds in one place.

The ladder in one table

LevelTeams in 2026Minimum salary, employedMinimum salary, self-employed
WorldTeam18€44,150 (neo-pro €35,721)€72,404 (neo-pro €58,582)
ProTeam16€35,392 (neo-pro €29,601)€58,043 (neo-pro €48,545)
Continentalabout 324nonenone

The minimums come from the joint agreement between the riders' union (CPA) and the teams (AIGCP). It applies only to WorldTeams and ProTeams. Continental teams are not covered, so there is no minimum salary at that level at all. The 2025 figures were frozen for 2026.

Two more rules from the same agreement matter for a first contract. Contracts end on 31 December. And a trial period is not allowed.

What Continental riders actually earn

With no UCI minimum, pay depends on national labour law and on the team. Cyclingnews surveyed it country by country:

Many young riders get nothing beyond a bike, travel and a place to sleep. "There is no rule we have to pay them, and they agree to that," Mihkel Räim, manager of a Continental team, told Cyclingnews. Prize money does not fill the gap. A win might be worth €800, and after tax, UCI fees and sharing with teammates a rider can be left with around €100.

Development teams linked to WorldTour squads tend to pay better. In 2022, The Inner Ring reported that Groupama-FDJ's Continental team paid a €22,000 minimum, while riders at Hagens Berman Axeon earned about half that or less.

The road now runs through development teams

For decades the main route to the WorldTour went through national teams and the U23 Nations' Cup. That is changing fast.

The Inner Ring has warned that this can turn U23 racing into "the preserve of the big World Tour teams" and squeeze out riders from countries with weaker junior programmes.

Continental teams without a WorldTour link still matter, especially in smaller cycling nations. At the 2026 CRO Race, Nicolas Gojković of Pogi Team Gusto Ljubljana, a Continental team, finished second on stage 2 behind Uno-X's Carl-Frederik Bévort and ahead of UAE sprinter Juan Sebastián Molano. The race called it the best Croatian result at CRO Race in more than eight years. Results like that, against WorldTour riders, are what teams notice.

How the jump happens

Stagiaires. From 1 August each year, teams can take young riders on as trainees, called stagiaires, for the rest of the season. It is often the audition for a first contract.

The neo-pro contract. A rider joining a WorldTeam or ProTeam for the first time at a young age counts as a neo-pro for his first seasons, with the lower minimums shown above.

No transfer fees. UCI rules still ban transfer fees. Since June 2023, a WorldTeam signing a rider's first WorldTour contract pays a development fee instead: €2,000 for each season the rider spent with other teams from age 15, up to eight seasons. The maximum is about €16,000. Team managers call it symbolic. Tomaž Poljanec, manager of Pogačar's former team in Ljubljana, said an international rider costs his team around €30,000 a year to develop.

The odds

Nobody publishes an independent figure for how many U23 or Continental riders reach the WorldTour. Only the teams' own claims exist.

Riders are also signing younger. Between 2008 and 2017, WorldTour teams signed four to eight riders under 20 each year. Between 2022 and 2024 it was 15 to 19 a year.

What a first contract pays

The minimum is only the floor. Agents quoted by Cyclingnews put the best neo-pro deals at €150,000 to €500,000 a year. For comparison, the median WorldTour salary in 2026 is €216,000 for employed riders and €350,000 for self-employed riders, according to figures presented at the UCI's WorldTour seminar.

You can see estimated salaries for every WorldTour and ProTeam rider in our rider pages and how we calculate them in our methodology.

Where agents come in

In 2025 there were 103 registered UCI agents. Becoming one means passing a UCI exam with a CHF 600 fee. Parents, brothers, sisters, spouses and lawyers can represent a rider without it.

Two facts are worth knowing early. The agent is paid by the rider, not by the team. And commission is calculated on the fixed salary, usually 5 to 7%. The market is concentrated: 13 agencies with more than 30 riders each represent 43.5% of all professional riders. See which agency represents whom in our agencies section.

What this means in practice

Sources

Know a figure here that is wrong or out of date? Tell us.