Final Cost of Paris Olympics and Paralympics Comes in at 6.6 Billion Euros
The final cost of the Paris Olympics and Paralympics to the French government has been tallied at €6.6 billion, per Agence France Presse.
The final amount, announced on Monday, marks an increase from €5.9 billion projected last June, though auditors consider that cost to the public to be “contained.”
The events cost €3.02 billion to host, of which €1.44 billion went to security. The other €3.63 billion are costs spent on related infrastructure process, including the cleanup of the River Seine.
Former French finance minister Pierre Moscovici, who estimated costs for the Games would tally, “three, maybe four, five billion euros,” characterized it as an “undeniable success” that included “no budgetary overspending.” A 2023 budget estimated a public investment of €2.44 billion.
The government figure is separate from the €4.4 billion in costs for the local organizing committee, which was primarily from private financing. That investment generated a surplus of €76 million.
The cost was less than that of many recent Olympics. Calculations on the Tokyo Olympics came in at around €12.1 billion (€13.23, adjusted for inflation), with a 20 percent overrun consisting mainly of public health costs and the delay by a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Rio Olympics saw costs balloon to $13.1 billion, the equivalent of around €11.7 billion (and €15.2 billion, adjusted for inflation). The current estimate for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics cost is $7.1 billion (€6.06 billion), though that is not in government funding but total cost, including sponsorships and private funds raised. It would be more comparable, then, to the combined figure of 11 billion that is the government contribution and organizing committee share in Paris.
All of the numbers are somewhat fuzzy. Figures from past Games are less clearly itemized than Monday’s French government numbers, with different amalgamations of public/private contribution and what that money paid for, rather than the clear delineation of government-only costs.
