Olympic Games Budget Overruns: Every Games Since 1960
Every Olympic Games since 1960 for which cost data exist has run over budget: 23 of 23, by 159% on average in real terms, according to a 2026 peer-reviewed study by Ansar, Flyvbjerg and Budzier. For more than a third of the Games, reliable estimated and actual costs could not be found at all.
Overrun by Games, 1960-2016
| Host | Year | Type | Sports-related cost overrun (real terms) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Montreal | 1976 | Summer | +720% |
| Barcelona | 1992 | Summer | +266% |
| Atlanta | 1996 | Summer | +151% |
| Sydney | 2000 | Summer | +90% |
| Athens | 2004 | Summer | +49% |
| Beijing | 2008 | Summer | +2% |
| London | 2012 | Summer | +76% |
| Rio de Janeiro | 2016 | Summer | +352% |
| Grenoble | 1968 | Winter | +181% |
| Lake Placid | 1980 | Winter | +324% |
| Sarajevo | 1984 | Winter | +118% |
| Calgary | 1988 | Winter | +65% |
| Albertville | 1992 | Winter | +137% |
| Lillehammer | 1994 | Winter | +277% |
| Nagano | 1998 | Winter | +56% |
| Salt Lake City | 2002 | Winter | +24% |
| Torino | 2006 | Winter | +80% |
| Vancouver | 2010 | Winter | +13% |
| Sochi | 2014 | Winter | +289% |
| Average, Summer / Winter | +213% / +142% | ||
Table 3 of Flyvbjerg, Budzier and Lunn (2021), Regression to the Tail: Why the Olympics Blow Up, read 8 October 2026. Sports-related costs only, local currencies, real terms, against the bid-stage estimate. These are the 19 Games from 1960 to 2016 for which the authors found valid cost-overrun data; the average across them is 172%. Their 2026 update extends the series to 23 Games through Paris 2024 (mean 159%) but does not publish a new per-Games table, so later Games are not listed here.
Sources
- Ansar, A., Flyvbjerg, B. and Budzier, A. (2026). Do projects learn across space and time? Evidence from the Olympics. Public Management Review. doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2026.2650426, read 8 October 2026 (open access; Table 1: 23 of 23 Games overran, mean 159.3%).
- Flyvbjerg, B., Budzier, A. and Lunn, D. (2021). Regression to the Tail: Why the Olympics Blow Up. Environment and Planning A 53(2). doi.org/10.1177/0308518X20958724, read 8 October 2026 (free author copy on arXiv, 2009.14682).