Most pages about Babar Azam’s earnings repeat a figure that stopped being true in August 2025. This one does not. Below is what the Pakistan Cricket Board actually pays him now, what the Pakistan Super League and Big Bash League pay him, and why those three numbers tell very different stories.
The figure almost every site gets wrong
Search for Babar Azam’s salary and you will repeatedly find this claim:
Babar Azam holds a PCB Category A+ contract worth PKR 4.5 million per month.
Both halves of that sentence are wrong.
First, the PCB has no “A+” category. Its central contract structure has four tiers: A, B, C and D. No board release has ever listed an A+ tier.
Second, Babar is not in Category A. On 19 August 2025 the PCB announced central contracts for the 2025–26 cycle and demoted both Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan from Category A to Category B. In the same announcement it placed no player at all in Category A, spreading thirty players across B, C and D instead.
So the correct figure is PKR 3 million per month, not 4.5 million. Here is what that demotion actually cost him:
| Before (Category A) | Now (Category B) | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly retainer | PKR 4,500,000 | PKR 3,000,000 |
| Annual retainer | PKR 54,000,000 | PKR 36,000,000 |
| Difference per year | PKR 18,000,000 (PKR 1.8 crore) | |
How the PCB retainer is actually built
The monthly retainer is not a single payment from one pot, and this is the part that rarely gets explained.
When Category A was worth PKR 4.5 million per month, roughly PKR 2.07 million of that came from the players’ 3% share of PCB’s ICC revenue, not from the board’s own funds. That revenue-sharing clause was won in the 2023 contract negotiations, when Babar, Rizwan, Shaheen Shah Afridi and Shadab Khan negotiated as a bloc. It was the first time Pakistani players had secured any share of ICC money.
It matters now because reporting in 2025 indicated the PCB was considering removing that clause. If it goes, every centrally contracted player takes a second cut on top of any category change.
Match fees, separately
Retainers are only the base. Match fees are paid per appearance and are the same across all four categories:
| Format | Fee per match |
|---|---|
| Test | PKR 1,257,795 |
| ODI | PKR 644,620 |
| T20I | PKR 418,584 |
Our own calculation: a season of five Tests, ten ODIs and ten T20Is would add roughly PKR 1.69 crore in match fees. That is an illustration using the published fees, not a figure any source has reported — actual totals depend entirely on how many matches he plays and is selected for.
Franchise cricket pays him roughly four times more
This is the number that reframes everything else on this page.
| Source | Amount | Period |
|---|---|---|
| PCB retainer (Category B) | PKR 3.6 crore | Full year |
| PSL 2026 (Peshawar Zalmi, retained Platinum) | PKR 7 crore | One season |
| BBL 15 (Sydney Sixers) | AUD 420,000 ≈ PKR 7.8 crore | One season |
Two T20 league contracts, each lasting a few weeks, together pay him around PKR 14.8 crore. Twelve months of representing Pakistan pays PKR 3.6 crore in retainer.
A single BBL season is worth more than two full years of his national retainer.
This is not unique to Babar — it is the economics facing every Pakistani cricketer, and it explains why player availability for leagues has been such a persistent point of friction with the board. Pakistani players are also excluded from the IPL, the one league that would dwarf all of these figures.
His PSL earnings, season by season
Babar’s PSL pay tracks his rise almost perfectly:
| Season | Team | Category | Reported salary |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Islamabad United | Silver | USD 25,000 |
| 2017–2019 | Karachi Kings | Gold → Diamond | USD 50,000 → 70,000 |
| 2020–2022 | Karachi Kings (captain) | Platinum | USD 130,000 – 170,000 |
| 2023–2024 | Peshawar Zalmi (captain) | Platinum | USD 170,000 |
| 2025 | Peshawar Zalmi | Platinum | USD 220,000 |
| 2026 | Peshawar Zalmi | Platinum (retained) | PKR 7 crore |
One note on the 2026 figure: because it was a retention rather than a draft pick, it is published in rupees rather than dollars, so it is not directly comparable to earlier seasons without accounting for the exchange rate at the time.
Where the net worth estimates disagree — and why
There is no audited figure for Babar Azam’s net worth. What exists is a spread:
| Estimate | Approx. USD | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| INR 41 crore | ~$4.9 million | Indian cricket media, 2025 |
| $5 million | $5 million | Widely repeated 2025 figure |
| $6–7 million | $6–7 million | 2026 aggregator estimate |
The gap is not really disagreement about Babar. It is three different things being measured:
- Currency and date. A figure quoted in Indian rupees in mid-2025 and one quoted in dollars in 2026 are not the same measurement, and the Pakistani rupee moved considerably between them.
- Whether the BBL deal is counted. The Sydney Sixers contract landed between these estimates. Sources published before it naturally sit lower.
- Whether property is included. His DHA Phase 5 residence and a Lahore farmhouse appear in some tallies and not others. No source we found values them from public records.
Our position: the earnings figures above are documented and worth publishing. A single net worth number is not, so we do not print one as fact. Anyone who gives you a precise figure to two decimal places is guessing.
Endorsements
Babar’s brand portfolio spans telecoms, banking, FMCG and sports equipment: Pepsi Pakistan, Head & Shoulders, HBL, Bank Alfalah, JazzCash, Ufone, Gatorade, Alkaram Studio, and bat sponsors CA Sports and Gray Nicolls.
A January 2025 deal with CA Sports as brand ambassador and exclusive bat sponsor was reported at around PKR 7 crore annually. We have flagged that figure as single-source in the table below — it appears in aggregator coverage but we could not trace it to a company announcement or a filing, and endorsement values are rarely disclosed.
Why was Babar Azam demoted?
The PCB did not itemise its reasoning, but the demotion followed a run of poor returns in major tournaments: the 2024 T20 World Cup, the 2025 ICC Champions Trophy, and bilateral series against Bangladesh and the West Indies. The board’s decision to leave Category A empty entirely suggests the change was about resetting the standard for the top tier rather than singling out two players.
How much does Babar Azam earn per month?
From the PCB, PKR 3 million as a Category B retainer. That is the only regular monthly payment. Everything else — match fees, PSL, BBL, endorsements — arrives in lumps tied to matches, seasons or contracts, so a single monthly figure understates his actual income by a wide margin.
What could change these numbers
- A return to Category A. Worth PKR 1.8 crore a year to him. It requires the PCB to reinstate the tier at all.
- The 3% ICC revenue clause. If removed, every contracted player loses a meaningful share of their retainer.
- League demand. The BBL contract shows overseas leagues now outbid his national board several times over. More of those deals move his income far more than any PCB category change.
- Exchange rates. With most of his large payments denominated in USD and AUD, rupee movement alters his rupee income without a single contract changing.
