Cristiano Ronaldo total goals: how many has CR7 scored, and how close is 1,000?

Cristiano Ronaldo has scored 976 goals in his career — 830 for his clubs and 146 for Portugal. That leaves him 24 short of 1,000, a number no footballer has reached in officially recognised matches.

All figures are current to 8 August 2026.

Cristiano Ronaldo total goals: the full breakdown

Team	Matches	Goals
Real Madrid	438	450
Portugal	233	146
Manchester United	346	145
Al Nassr	148	129
Juventus	134	101
Sporting CP	31	5
Total	1,330	976

The Manchester United row covers both spells, 2003-2009 and 2021-2022. The full club-by-club history, with the years, honours and transfer fees, is on our Cristiano Ronaldo clubs page.

Nearly half the total came in nine seasons at Real Madrid, where he scored more goals than he played matches — 450 in 438 — and finished as the club’s all-time leading scorer.

How close is he to 1,000 goals?

Twenty-four away, and he has been open about wanting to get there.

The arithmetic is straightforward. At Al Nassr he has scored 129 goals in 148 games, a rate of 0.87 a match, so 24 more would take roughly 28 further appearances at that rate. His contract runs to 2027, when he turns 42, and Al Nassr play a domestic season plus continental football.

So it is well within reach on the numbers. What the numbers cannot tell you is whether a 41-year-old keeps scoring at the rate he has managed since he was 37, and that is the whole question.

Is Ronaldo really football’s all-time top scorer?

On officially recognised competitive matches, yes — no player has a higher verified total, and that is the basis FIFA and the mainstream record books use.

Two names come up every time the record is quoted, though, and both deserve a straight answer. Pele is credited with around 1,280 goals and Josef Bican, the Austrian-Czech forward of the 1930s and 40s, with totals of a similar order. The catch in both cases is what is being counted.

Pele’s figure includes Santos’ exhibition tours, which were a huge part of his career. Strip those out and the specialist archive RSSSF has him on 767 goals in 831 competitive matches — and neither Guinness nor FIFA publishes the match list behind the larger number, so it cannot be checked. We set the whole dispute out on our who is the King of Football page.

The honest summary: Ronaldo has the most goals anyone can verify. Whether he has the most goals anyone has ever scored is a question the records are not good enough to answer.

Ronaldo’s scoring records

Record	Ronaldo
International goals	146 — the men’s all-time record
International caps	233 — also the men’s all-time record
Champions League goals	140 in 183 appearances — the competition record
World Cup goals	11, across six tournaments
Goals for Real Madrid	450 — the club record

The World Cup row is the shortest, and the one he has run out of chances to lengthen. At the 2026 tournament he became the first player to score at six different World Cups, against Uzbekistan in Houston, before Portugal went out in the last 16 to the eventual champions Spain. He had said beforehand it would be his last.

Ronaldo’s goals compared to Messi’s

Ronaldo leads on the raw total, 976 to 921. It is worth knowing how, because the gap is smaller than it looks: he has played 164 more matches to get there, which is why Messi leads on goals per game, 0.79 to 0.73. Messi also has 419 career assists to Ronaldo’s 261.

The full side-by-side, competition by competition, is on our Cristiano Ronaldo vs Lionel Messi stats page.

Cristiano Ronaldo total goals: quick answers

How many goals has Cristiano Ronaldo scored?
976 — 830 for his clubs and 146 for Portugal, in 1,330 appearances.

How many goals does he need for 1,000?
Twenty-four. At his Al Nassr scoring rate that is about 28 more appearances.

Which club did he score the most for?
Real Madrid, with 450 in 438 matches, which is the club record.

How many international goals has he scored?
146 in 233 caps for Portugal. Both are all-time records in men’s football.

Is Ronaldo the highest goalscorer of all time?
In officially recognised matches, yes. Higher figures are quoted for Pele and Josef Bican, but those counts include exhibition and unofficial games and cannot be checked against a published match list.

How many World Cup goals has he scored?
Eleven, across six tournaments. He is the first player to score at six different World Cups.

Photo credit: Alamy