Kylian Mbappé holds the record for the most goals at the men’s World Cup, with 22. He finished the 2026 tournament on 22 goals in 22 matches, one more than Lionel Messi’s final total of 21. Messi passed Miroslav Klose’s 16 in the group stage and Mbappé passed Messi in the match for third place, so the record changed hands twice in a single World Cup, after twelve years with Klose.
In all, 17 players have scored ten or more goals at World Cup final tournaments. The table below lists all seventeen as they stood after the 2026 tournament, with the matches each needed and the tournaments he scored in.
Every player with 10 or more World Cup goals
| # | Player | Country | Goals | Matches | Squads | Played | Scored in | Goals per match |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kylian Mbappé | France | 22 | 22 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1.00 |
| 2 | Lionel Messi | Argentina | 21 | 34 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 0.62 |
| 3 | Miroslav Klose | Germany | 16 | 24 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 0.67 |
| 4 | Ronaldo Nazário | Brazil | 15 | 19 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 0.79 |
| 5= | Gerd Müller | West Germany | 14 | 13 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1.08 |
| 5= | Harry Kane | England | 14 | 18 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 0.78 |
| 7 | Just Fontaine | France | 13 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2.17 |
| 8 | Pelé | Brazil | 12 | 14 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 0.86 |
| 9= | Sándor Kocsis | Hungary | 11 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2.20 |
| 9= | Jürgen Klinsmann | West Germany / Germany | 11 | 17 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 0.65 |
| 9= | Cristiano Ronaldo | Portugal | 11 | 27 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 0.41 |
| 12= | Helmut Rahn | West Germany | 10 | 10 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1.00 |
| 12= | Gary Lineker | England | 10 | 12 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0.83 |
| 12= | Gabriel Batistuta | Argentina | 10 | 12 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 0.83 |
| 12= | Teófilo Cubillas | Peru | 10 | 13 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 0.77 |
| 12= | Thomas Müller | Germany | 10 | 19 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 0.53 |
| 12= | Grzegorz Lato | Poland | 10 | 20 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 0.50 |
Squads counts every tournament a player was named for; Played counts those he appeared in. The two differ only for Ronaldo Nazário, an unused seventeen-year-old in Brazil’s winning 1994 squad.
How the record changed hands
Counted as FIFA counts it, from the end of the first tournament in 1930, ten players have held or shared the career record. Since then, 2026 has been the only tournament in which two different players took it.
| Player | Country | Held the record | World Cup goals |
|---|---|---|---|
| Guillermo Stábile | Argentina | 1930–1950 (shared from 1938) | 8 |
| Leônidas | Brazil | 1938–1950 (shared) | 8 |
| Ademir | Brazil | 1950–1954 | 9 |
| Sándor Kocsis | Hungary | 1954–1958 | 11 |
| Just Fontaine | France | 1958–1974 | 13 |
| Gerd Müller | West Germany | 1974–2006 | 14 |
| Ronaldo Nazário | Brazil | 2006–2014 | 15 |
| Miroslav Klose | Germany | 2014–2026 | 16 |
| Lionel Messi | Argentina | 16 June – 18 July 2026 (shared until 22 June) | 21 |
| Kylian Mbappé | France | Since 18 July 2026 | 22 |
2026: two changes in one tournament
Both men who passed Klose started the tournament behind him: Messi had thirteen World Cup goals, Mbappé twelve.
- 16 June: Messi equals the record. A hat-trick against Algeria in Argentina’s opening match, his first at a World Cup, in his sixth tournament, took him to sixteen.
- 22 June: Messi takes it outright. A brace against Austria put him on eighteen.
- Messi extends it. Goals against Jordan in the last group match, Cabo Verde in the round of 32 and Egypt in the round of 16 took him to twenty-one.
- 18 July: Mbappé takes it. Braces against Senegal, Iraq and Sweden, a penalty against Paraguay and the opener against Morocco took him to twenty; two more in the third-place match against England made it twenty-two.
Messi was not on the pitch when he lost the record: Argentina were preparing for the final, which they lost to Spain after extra time, while France and England played for third place.
Mbappé: 22 goals in 22 matches
A goal per match across three tournaments is what sets the total apart: Klose averaged 0.67, Messi 0.62. Of the seventeen players in the ten-goal club, only five have a rate of 1.00 or better, and two of those, Kocsis and Fontaine, played a single tournament each.
He won the Golden Boot in 2022 with eight goals and in 2026 with ten, the only player to finish a World Cup as top scorer twice. The 2026 tournament was the first with a round of 32, so a team reaching the final played eight matches rather than the seven required from 1998 to 2022: his tournament totals and Fontaine’s come from competitions of different lengths.
Messi: 21 goals in 34 matches
Messi’s 34 matches are the most in this table, seven more than Cristiano Ronaldo’s 27. The first came in 2006, as an eighteen-year-old substitute against Serbia and Montenegro. Fifteen of his 21 goals came in his last two tournaments, both played after his thirty-fifth birthday; before 2022 he had six World Cup goals in four tournaments, too few to appear on this list.
He has since announced his retirement from international football, so his total is final. Klose’s record stood for twelve years; Messi held it outright for less than four weeks.
Goals tournament by tournament
The totals hide the shape of a career: some were scored in a single month, others across two decades.
| Player | Goals, tournament by tournament |
|---|---|
| Kylian Mbappé | 2018: 4 · 2022: 8 · 2026: 10 |
| Lionel Messi | 2006: 1 · 2010: 0 · 2014: 4 · 2018: 1 · 2022: 7 · 2026: 8 |
| Miroslav Klose | 2002: 5 · 2006: 5 · 2010: 4 · 2014: 2 |
| Ronaldo Nazário | 1994: 0 · 1998: 4 · 2002: 8 · 2006: 3 |
| Gerd Müller | 1970: 10 · 1974: 4 |
| Harry Kane | 2018: 6 · 2022: 2 · 2026: 6 |
| Just Fontaine | 1958: 13 |
| Pelé | 1958: 6 · 1962: 1 · 1966: 1 · 1970: 4 |
| Sándor Kocsis | 1954: 11 |
| Jürgen Klinsmann | 1990: 3 · 1994: 5 · 1998: 3 |
| Cristiano Ronaldo | 2006: 1 · 2010: 1 · 2014: 1 · 2018: 4 · 2022: 1 · 2026: 3 |
| Helmut Rahn | 1954: 4 · 1958: 6 |
| Gary Lineker | 1986: 6 · 1990: 4 |
| Gabriel Batistuta | 1994: 4 · 1998: 5 · 2002: 1 |
| Teófilo Cubillas | 1970: 5 · 1978: 5 · 1982: 0 |
| Thomas Müller | 2010: 5 · 2014: 5 · 2018: 0 · 2022: 0 |
| Grzegorz Lato | 1974: 7 · 1978: 2 · 1982: 1 |
Fontaine and Kocsis scored all their goals in one tournament. Cristiano Ronaldo needed six tournaments and twenty years to reach eleven, and is the only player to have scored at six World Cups. Thomas Müller scored all ten of his goals in 2010 and 2014, then played two more tournaments without scoring.
Related scoring records
Most goals in a career, in one tournament and in one match are three separate records. Today they belong to three different men. It has not always been so: Ademir in 1950, Kocsis in 1954 and Fontaine in 1958 each took the career and single-tournament records with goals from one tournament, and each also scored four in a match, level with the single-match record of the time. Fontaine held all three until Gerd Müller passed his career total in 1974.
| Record | Holder | Mark | Set |
|---|---|---|---|
| Most goals, career | Kylian Mbappé | 22 goals in 22 matches | July 2026 |
| Most goals, one tournament | Just Fontaine | 13 goals in six matches | June 1958 |
| Most goals, one match | Oleg Salenko | 5 goals, against Cameroon | 28 June 1994 |
Salenko scored his five in Russia’s 6–1 win over Cameroon in the group stage and finished the 1994 tournament as joint top scorer, with six goals in three matches.
Most goals in one tournament
| Player | Country | Tournament | Goals | Matches |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Just Fontaine | France | 1958 | 13 | 6 |
| Sándor Kocsis | Hungary | 1954 | 11 | 5 |
| Gerd Müller | West Germany | 1970 | 10 | 6 |
| Kylian Mbappé | France | 2026 | 10 | 8 |
| Ademir | Brazil | 1950 | 9 | 6 |
| Eusébio | Portugal | 1966 | 9 | 6 |
The single-tournament record — Just Fontaine, 13 goals in 1958 — had survived seventeen tournaments by the end of 2026. The closest anyone had come since was ten, by Gerd Müller in 1970 and Mbappé in 2026, and Mbappé needed eight matches to Fontaine’s six.
Most goals in one match
| Player | Country | Match | Year | Goals |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oleg Salenko | Russia | Russia 6–1 Cameroon | 1994 | 5 |
| Ernst Wilimowski | Poland | Brazil 6–5 Poland, after extra time | 1938 | 4 |
| Ademir | Brazil | Brazil 7–1 Sweden | 1950 | 4 |
| Sándor Kocsis | Hungary | Hungary 8–3 West Germany | 1954 | 4 |
| Just Fontaine | France | France 6–3 West Germany | 1958 | 4 |
| Eusébio | Portugal | Portugal 5–3 North Korea | 1966 | 4 |
| Emilio Butragueño | Spain | Spain 5–1 Denmark | 1986 | 4 |
Salenko’s five are the only five-goal haul in a World Cup match. Exactly four has been scored six times, most recently by Emilio Butragueño in 1986; no one scored more than three in a match at the 2026 tournament.
Goals per match
Sorted by rate instead of total, the ten-goal club reads differently.
- Sándor Kocsis — 2.20 (11 goals in 5 matches, 1954)
- Just Fontaine — 2.17 (13 in 6, 1958)
- Gerd Müller — 1.08 (14 in 13)
- Kylian Mbappé — 1.00 (22 in 22)
- Helmut Rahn — 1.00 (10 in 10)
Kocsis is easy to miss: he is joint ninth on goals, so a list that stops at the top eight never reaches him, yet his rate is the highest in the ten-goal club, just ahead of Fontaine’s. A rate built over five or six matches is not the same quantity as one built over twenty-two.
The highest rate in World Cup history belongs to no one in the ten-goal club: Ernst Wilimowski of Poland scored four goals in the only World Cup match he played, against Brazil in 1938, a rate of 4.00.
Who can still move on this list
Four of the seventeen were still playing international football when the 2026 tournament ended, and the next World Cup is in 2030.
- Kylian Mbappé — 22 goals. He was twenty-seven at the time of the 2026 final and would be thirty-one in 2030, younger than Messi was when he scored seven in 2022 and younger than Klose was when he scored four in 2010.
- Harry Kane — 14 goals. He was thirty-two during the 2026 tournament. Fifteen would draw him level with Ronaldo Nazário in fourth, sixteen with Klose in third.
- Cristiano Ronaldo — 11 goals. He was forty-one in 2026. No player has yet been to a seventh World Cup.
- Lionel Messi — 21 goals, and has since announced his retirement from international football.
The other thirteen no longer play international football, so fourteen of these seventeen totals are final. Three can still move: Mbappé’s, Kane’s and Cristiano Ronaldo’s.
The ten-goal club by country
The seventeen come from nine countries.
| Country | Players | Who |
|---|---|---|
| Germany / West Germany | 5 | Klose, Gerd Müller, Klinsmann, Rahn, Thomas Müller |
| Argentina | 2 | Messi, Batistuta |
| Brazil | 2 | Ronaldo Nazário, Pelé |
| England | 2 | Kane, Lineker |
| France | 2 | Mbappé, Fontaine |
| Hungary | 1 | Kocsis |
| Peru | 1 | Cubillas |
| Poland | 1 | Lato |
| Portugal | 1 | Cristiano Ronaldo |
Germany and West Germany together account for almost a third of the club, from Rahn, who scored in 1954, to Thomas Müller, who scored in 2014. No other country has more than two, and Brazil, the most successful team in the tournament’s history, has as many as England.
Eight of the seventeen never won the World Cup. Kocsis is the only one of the eight to have played in a final: Hungary lost the 1954 final 3–2 to West Germany. Cubillas is the starkest case: ten goals for a Peru side that never reached a semi-final.
Sources and method
Goals, matches and the tournament-by-tournament splits come from FIFA’s all-time leading scorers list, published on 19 July 2026, and were checked line by line against Wikipedia’s list of World Cup top goalscorers. Record holders and their dates come from FIFA’s progression of the record, single-tournament totals from FIFA’s top scorers in one World Cup, and four-goal matches from Wikipedia’s list of World Cup hat-tricks. Every pre-1998 total in the progression, single-tournament and single-match tables was also recounted match by match on RSSSF’s World Cup match reports.
As in FIFA’s own record, only goals in final-tournament matches count: qualifying, the Confederations Cup and penalty shoot-outs do not. Goals per match are our own calculation, rounded to two decimals. There is no minutes-per-goal column: it would be the fairer measure, but minutes played are not yet sourced for all seventeen players to the standard of their goals.
Where sources disagree
FIFA and Wikipedia agree on goals and matches wherever both give them, and every RSSSF recount matched. The sources differ on smaller details, which is why minutes of goals are not given here and the single-tournament record is dated to the month.
| Detail | Sources | Used here |
|---|---|---|
| Minutes of Salenko’s first and third goals against Cameroon, 1994 | RSSSF: 16th and 45th minutes (the 45th-minute goal a penalty). Wikipedia’s list of hat-tricks: 14th and 44th; its 1994 Group B page: 15th and 44th. | Minutes not given |
| Date of France 6–3 West Germany, the 1958 third-place match in which Fontaine reached 13 | RSSSF: 26 June 1958. Wikipedia: 28 June 1958. | June 1958 |
| When Stábile began sharing the record with Leônidas | FIFA’s progression says 1938 in Leônidas’s entry and 1930 in Stábile’s; Leônidas reached eight goals only in 1938. | Shared from 1938 |