(NewsNation) — Grammy Award-winning pop star Taylor Swift has already had a huge year in 2024 as she continues her Eras tour, adding her brand new album “The Tortured Poets Department” to the mix. But how much is the international star worth?
Swift was officially added to Forbes’ billionaires list on April 2, ranking No. 2,545. She’s worth an estimated $1.1 billion on the low end, based on analyses of her fortune by both Bloomberg and Forbes.
While many successful pop stars have generated income streams through brand deals and product lines across industries, Swift has built her empire almost exclusively through her music. More than $500 million of her fortune is from music royalties and touring, Forbes reported.
Her revenue streams include concert ticket sales, her music catalog, streaming deals and record sales. She first hit billionaire status in October 2023 after releasing 1989 (Taylor’s Version).
Here is how her wealth breaks down.
Eras tour revenue
Swift’s Eras Tour concert has become the highest grossing music tour of all time and the first to cross a billion dollars, according to Pollstar.
Swift made an estimated $190 million after taxes from the first leg of the Eras Tour and another $35 million from the first two weeks of screenings of the concert film, “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour,” according to Forbes. It became the highest-grossing concert movie in history.
Bloomberg estimates Swift has earned at least $370 million from touring throughout her career. The Eras Tour alone has generated over $5 billion for local economies in the U.S. so far, according to the U.S. Travel Association.
“We consistently see other artists underpricing tours and leaving so much money on the table because the secondary market is profitable,” Carolyn Sloane, a labor economist at University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, told CBS. “Taylor is pricing much closer to market demand than her peer artists, and she has an authenticity and level of trust with her fans that allow her to do that.”
She has even boosted the NFL’s number of fans and Americans’ spending on football since going public about dating Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.
Taylor Swift’s streaming deals
Bloomberg estimates Swift has earned $175 through her contracts with music streaming platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music and others.
In 2023, she was named Spotify’s top-streamed artist of the year with 26.1 billion streams globally. This feat came after the success of her new album Midnights, released in late 2022, and the re-recordings Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) and 1989 (Taylor’s Version.)
According to Billboard‘s royalty calculator, Swift’s 26.1 billion streams amounted to about $97 million in recorded music royalties, just from Spotify.
Billboard estimates that her catalog racked up a total of 38.3 billion streams through the end of 2023, amounting to a total of about $160 million in recorded royalties. With publishing, Swift’s total on-demand streaming revenue gets close to $200 million.
Swift’s catalog revenue
In 2019, Swift went up against Scooter Braun, the owner of her former label Big Machine Records, over the ownership of the master tapes of her first six albums. Following the feud, Swift re-recorded and released new versions of her previous albums.
Swift’s music catalog is worth an estimated $400 million, according to Bloomberg.
“Taylor Swift’s catalog of music reigns supreme in both the digital and terrestrial radio formats, seemingly amassing an average of over 4 billion streams and 1.2 billion in airplay impressions per quarter in the U.S. alone during 2022 and 2023,” Alex Heiche, CEO and founder of Sound Royalties, told CBS.
Taylor Swift’s other income streams
While physical album sales have deteriorated for most artists, Swift continues to find creative ways to bring in money. In 2023, Swift earned an estimated $80 million in royalties from record sales, according to Bloomberg.
In 2022, she released her 10th album, Midnights, in different color vinyls at different price points. Super fans could collect all four and place them together to form a wall clock.
“Taylor Swift’s ability to leverage streaming platforms while maintaining a strong physical sales presence creates a unique financial advantage,” Heiche said.
Swift’s net worth is also boosted by the properties she owns. Swift owns a condo, an estate and three other homes in Nashville, Tennesse. She also has an estate in Los Angeles, an apartment in New York City and a summer home in Watch Hill, Rhode Island.
Her real estate adds an estimated $110 million to the singer’s net worth.
