Arnold Schwarzenegger's Net Worth Is Massive
Arnold Schwarzenegger's net worth is literally from a lot of his own blood, sweat and tears—both onscreen and off.
Even stronger (well, maybe) than the onetime Governator's biceps is his business acumen, both of which he's honed since he was a child.
“I had a feel for business, to make money and I was never shy of working. I’ve always loved working," he said (via Express). "Even when I was a little kid, at the age of 13, I was working at various different places and making my money so I could buy my gym outfits and training shoes. All of those things I never had to ask my parents for. First of all, they would have never bought it for me because they didn’t have the money so I bought it myself."
Despite his big bucks and megastardom, somehow, Schwarzenegger remains at least somewhat believably humble. When asked about his big screen legacy, he told The Hollywood Reporter, "I couldn't give you an honest evaluation because I don't analyze myself like that. I never felt like a star. I felt that I'm lucky I’m one of the few to be happy in his professional life and personal life. But I never felt like I was on top of the world—even in my bodybuilding days when I was winning Mr. Olympia. I always was hungry to do more and to do better."
Some of that "more and better" includes his new Netflix series FUBAR, as well as a potential Conan sequel. Here's what to know about Arnold Schwarzenegger's net worth in 2023 and how he made it.
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How did Arnold Schwarzenegger become famous?
Schwarzenegger was born in Austria in 1947 and grew up without much money at home. He was athletic and participated in sports from a young age, with a specific interest in bodybuilding. He began competing in bodybuilding competitions as a teen and became the youngest-ever winner of the Mr. Universe competition when he was just 20 years old. He went on to win the title four more times and Mr. Olympia seven times.
Schwarzenegger used some of his bodybuilding earnings to move to the United States in 1968. His big-screen debut came under the stage name Arnold Strong in 1970 with Hercules In New York. At the time, his Austrian accent—which would become one of his trademarks later—was so thick that his lines were overdubbed in post-production.
His next star turn came in 1976 alongside future Oscar winners Sally Field and Jeff Bridges in Stay Hungry, earning a Golden Globe for New Star of the Year (a category that's been since eliminated). For perspective, other recipients of the award included Robert Redford, James Earl Jones, Dustin Hoffman, Paul Newman, Warren Beatty, Sir Ben Kingsley and more, so it was a big deal at the time!
His first starring role came in 1982 with Conan the Barbarian, which proved that Ah-nold was a bankable marquee name—and his star has only risen ever since.
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What is Arnold Schwarzenegger's net worth in 2023?
Arnold Schwarzenegger's net worth in 2023 is estimated to be between $400 million and $450 million. His money comes largely from super-savvy contract negotiations for his movies, as well as from his business ventures and real-estate investments.
Schwarzenegger doesn't plan on slowing down his work anytime soon. "I add in my life, I never subtract. I don’t need money," he told The Hollywood Reporter. "I get money because you have to have a certain value and the agents negotiate. But I have a great time doing it. I love everything that I do. There’s no retiring."
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How much did Arnold Schwarzenegger get paid for Kindergarten Cop?
Universal Pictures
Schwarzenegger's salary for Kindergarten Cop was reportedly a cool $12 million (that's certainly more than a New York City public-school teacher makes!). Schwarzenegger has said Kindergarten Cop was one of his favorite movies to film because he loves comedy and enjoyed working with the precocious children in the cast, as well as with the late director Ivan Reitman. In December 2020, he reunited with the now-adult kids from the movie, and it was as adorable and wholesome as you'd expect.
How much money did Arnold Schwarzenegger make on Twins?
Universal Pictures
Surprise! Schwarzenegger didn't make any cash upfront for Twins, but he made a ton of money for it anyway. He explained to Business Insider that it was a labor of love to prove he could do comedy and not just action movies.
"Literally for Twins I took no salary—I just wanted to give it a shot. And it just happened to be my first movie to make $100 million domestic," he said. "So they realized that it works, Schwarzenegger can cross over."
According to The Los Angeles Times, Schwarzenegger opted to get 15% of box office profits instead of his upfront fee, and it paid off in spades, earning him a reported $30 million.
"Arnold bet on himself," producer Tom Pollock, who ran Universal Pictures at the time of Twins' release, said. "If the movie went out and bombed, he would have made much less."
A sequel to Twins, Triplets, was in the works and set to star Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito reprising their roles, plus the addition of Eddie Murphy or Tracy Morgan as a new third sibling, but Schwarzenegger revealed in May 2023 that the project has been put on ice indefinitely following the death of director Ivan Reitman.
Related: Eddie Murphy's Net Worth and How Much He Made From Shrek
What businesses does Arnold Schwarzenegger own?
Schwarzenegger owns Arnold's Sports Festival, Oak Productions and Fitness Publications. He also has a slew of real-estate investments and has ownership stakes in Dimensional Fund Advisors and Columbus’ Easton Town Center. Express estimates he may have ownership stakes in as many as 100 different businesses total.
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What movie did Arnold Schwarzenegger make the most money from?
Despite being a critical disappointment, Batman and Robin earned Schwarzenegger a whopping $30 million, making it one of his biggest paydays of his career. His biggest upfront payday was $29.5 million for Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines—plus bonuses (more on all of these in a minute).
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Who is richer, Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger?
Depending on which figures you trust, Schwarzenegger is either equal in wealth to his pal Sylvester Stallone or $50 million richer, as Stallone's net worth is reportedly $400 million.
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Does Arnold Schwarzenegger get royalties?
Schwarzenegger earns royalties from many of his projects, most notably Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, which nets him 20% of gross profits and more from TV airings, video sales, merchandise and more. (He made a lot of money for this film—more on that later!)
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How much did Arnold Schwarzenegger make from bodybuilding?
Schwarzenegger's exact earnings from bodybuilding aren't known, but we do know that he invested the money he made from it very wisely: He used some of his earnings for a down payment on an apartment building, and thanks to the 1970s real-estate market, he made big bucks that way.
"Buildings that I would buy for $500K within the year were $800K and I put only maybe $100K down, so you made 300% on your money," he told author Tim Ferriss in Tools of Titans (via CNBC). “I quickly developed and traded up my buildings and bought more apartment buildings and office buildings on Main Street down in Santa Monica and so on … I became a millionaire from my real estate investments.”
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How much money did Arnold Schwarzenegger have when he came to America?
Schwarzenegger famously saved up $27,000 before moving to the United States in 1968. Adjusted for inflation, that's about $240,000 in 2023.
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How much did Arnold Schwarzenegger make for Batman and Robin?
Schwarzenegger got paid $25 million upfront to chew the scenery in Batman and Robin as Mr. Freeze—and he earned more than Batman himself. The film was poorly reviewed, and George Clooney took a lot of flak for playing Bruce Wayne in the project.
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Clooney said on The Howard Stern Show, "Schwarzenegger was paid, I think, $25 million for that, which was like 20 times more than I was paid for it, and, you know, we never even worked together! We worked together one day. But I took all the heat." Still, he has no hard feelings, explaining that Schwarzenegger was a bigger star at the time. He added, "I couldn't have done that one differently. It's a big machine, that thing. You have to remember at that point, I was just an actor getting an acting job. I wasn't the guy who could greenlight a movie."
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How much does Arnold Schwarzenegger make per movie?
At his peak, Schwarzenegger earned $20 million to $30 million per movie, often with additional box office bonuses attached as well.
How much did Arnold Schwarzenegger make for Terminator?
Orion Pictures
For his inaugural role as the T-800 in the original The Terminator in 1984, Schwarzenegger made $75,000 (about $223,000 when adjusted for inflation). The reason his pay seems so low, despite him being the face of the film? He didn't actually speak much in the movie.
Schwarzenegger has 17 lines total in The Terminator, meaning he got paid about $4,400 per word he spoke. In today's dollars, that'd be about $13,100 per word.
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How much did Arnold Schwarzenegger make for Terminator 2?
TriStar Films
According to Entertainment Weekly, Schwarzenegger got a big raise for Terminator 2: Judgment Day, boosting his fee from $75,000 to $14 million. No wonder he said he'd be back.
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How much did Arnold Schwarzenegger make for Terminator 2 per word?
Schwarzenegger's script lines went up from 17 to 700 for Terminator 2. This means he made something like $20,000 per word he uttered in the sequel. Adjusted for inflation (just for funsies!), that fee would be about $45,000 per word.
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How much did Arnold Schwarzenegger make for Terminator 3?
Schwarzenegger made a killing for Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines—and he would have made it whether or not the movie even got made. According to Slate, Schwarzenegger had a "pay or play" fee of $29.25 million, a record-high salary at the time.
Schwarzenegger reportedly made $3 million of that fee up front, and his contract indicated he'd get an additional $1.6 million per week if the shoot went over its allotted 19-week schedule. He also negotiated an additional 20% of global grosses from not just the box office, but also video sales, DVD sales, licensing (for TV, video games, merchandise, etc.) and in-flight viewing on airlines. Additionally, Schwarzenegger got perks including use of a private jet, top-of-the-line accommodations and lodging, personal bodyguards, his choice of director and more for the duration of production. Schwarzenegger's contract included provisions to make sure he got paid at a "break-even" point that he and his lawyers defined, making it harder for studios to obscure numbers or short-change him, and a special tax rider that meant he paid minimal chunks of his salary to Uncle Sam.
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How much did Arnold Schwarzenegger make for Conan the Barbarian?
Schwarzenegger was reportedly paid $250,000 for Conan the Barbarian in 1982. The film had an overall budget of $20 million and made close to $69 million globally, making it a financial success. It spawned one sequel, Conan the Destroyer, in 1984, but that installment grossed less than half of its predecessor.
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How much did Arnold Schwarzenegger make for Terminator 4?
Schwarzenegger's likeness was created using CGI for Terminator: Salvation, as he was serving as Governor of California at the time of filming and couldn't be present on the shoot. It's unknown how much he was paid for the digital cameo.
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How much did Arnold Schwarzenegger make for Predator?
20th Century Fox
Schwarzenegger earned $3.5 million for Predator. According to Variety, negotiations for his appearance in the first sequel in the franchise tanked over $250,000, but the precise figures haven't been revealed publicly.
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How much did Arnold Schwarzenegger get paid for Total Recall?
Instead of doing Predator 2, Schwarzenegger took on Total Recall alongside Sharon Stone for a reported $11 million.
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How much did Arnold Schwarzenegger make as Governor of California?
Schwarzenegger famously eschewed the $175,000 to $187,000 salary he would have made as Governor of California, later calling it "petty cash" compared to what he made as a movie star.
How much did Arnold Schwarzenegger get paid for Expendables?
Lionsgate
Schwarzenegger appeared in the first three Expendables movies, and his salary for each of the ensemble action flicks isn't publicly known. We do know, however, that he probably won't appear in The Expendables 4.
"You know, I think the first and second one were terrific," Schwarzenegger told Entertainment Weekly in 2017. "But, the third one, I thought my part was not written well. It was also not playing well in the movie, as far as I was concerned. Maybe other people believed differently. But I didn't believe that I had any value in the movie. I love the franchise, by the way. I think it’s a spectacular franchise, The Expendables. I think that Sly has good ideas, what he wants to do with it, and I think if they write a really good script [in] which my part is very well-developed, I would do it. If not, then I won’t do it."
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How much was Arnold Schwarzenegger paid for Commando?
20th Century Fox
Schwarzenegger is rumored to have been paid $2 million for Commando in 1985, which had an overall budget of $9 million, but these figures haven't been well substantiated. We do know that the movie was a hit, earning nearly $60 million worldwide and establishing him once more as a true action hero.