On Feb. 9, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump became the first sitting president to attend the Super Bowl. Amid the new administration's focus on government spending, people online jumped to calculate exactly how much this trip cost American taxpayers. Snopes received dozens of requests to look into the matter, with many claiming that the excursion cost anywhere from $4 million to $20 million.
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Although it's impossible to know the exact amount given how enormous the operation was and how costs may fluctuate, it is possible to estimate some of the likely costs of Trump's Super Bowl attendance. Below, we break down what we know:
Transportation
Air Force One flew to Trump's private Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on Feb. 7 before flying to New Orleans for the Super Bowl. According to the press pool report, the flight from Washington to Mar-a-Lago was one hour and 48 minutes. The Feb. 9 pool report said the flight from Mar-a-Lago to New Orleans was approximately one hour and 34 minutes and the return flight from New Orleans to Washington was one hour and 51 minutes, bringing the total flight time for the journey to an estimated five hours and 13 minutes. This does not count flight time in Marine One to and from the White House.
So how much does Air Force One cost taxpayers per minute? In 2022, defense industry news outlet The War Zone published FOIA findings showing that, according to the Air Force, the president's plane costs approximately $177,843 per flight-hour. This means that it cost taxpayers around $927,747.65 for an estimated 313 minutes of flight time to and from the Super Bowl.
An Air Force spokesperson told The War Zone that this cost includes fuel, flight consumables, and aircraft and engine overhaul. This estimate does not include calculations for other aircraft that fly alongside Air Force One, and these figures have also likely changed since 2021.
The Feb. 9 pool report said Trump's ride in the motorcade from Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base New Orleans to the Caesars Superdome took 27 minutes using backroads, and we can assume it took a similar amount of time to return to the base. It's unknown how much the presidential motorcade costs per minute. The number of cars in the motorcade varies from location to location, and for security reasons the Secret Service does not provide details of current presidential transportation. However, according to footage of the motorcade leaving the airport for the Superdome, at least 15 vehicles were in the procession.
Secret Service
At any given time, the U.S. president travels with at least 80 Secret Service members, according to Ronald Kessler, an author who specializes in the Secret Service. This is a conservative estimate, given the enormous exposure and high-stakes nature of the Super Bowl event. It's also possible that the Secret Service upped security standards following the assassination attempt on Trump in July 2024.
However, for the sake of estimating a minimum cost, we assumed 80 Secret Service agents were present. According to the official Secret Service website, starting salaries for agents range from $49,508 to $64,009. Assuming the median salary for the 80 agents present was somewhere around $57,000 and the daily salary for a 40-hour work week is about $219, the Secret Service cost at least $17,520 for the day. Again, this is a conservative estimate.
New Orleans police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick told Axios that Secret Service agents were already in New Orleans as of Feb. 4, and Axios also reported that local law enforcement officials estimated several hundred Secret Service members would join local law enforcement in security efforts.
A law enforcement sniper is seen in the French Quarter before the Super Bowl on Feb. 8, 2025. (Aaron M. Sprecher/Getty Images)
Broader security measures
Preparation for a presidential appearance often begins months in advance. According to a 2015 interview with Kessler and former Secret Service agent Jeffrey Robinson, agents and White House staff travel to the destination up to three months in advance to secure safe locations and nearby hospitals in case of an attack, clear airspace at the airport, use bomb-sniffing dogs to clear areas the president will visit, clear streets of cars to prevent the threat of a car bomb and coordinate routes and safety procedures with local law enforcement. The cost of these months of preparation and the extensive work of local law enforcement is beyond our scope to calculate.
For reference, the Department of Homeland Security deployed 385 security personnel at the 2024 Super Bowl in Las Vegas. At the 2025 Super Bowl, the DHS deployed more than 690 personnel. It's unclear whether Trump's presence was the reason for this increase in security.
In light of the January 2025 attack in which a man drove a car into a crowd in New Orleans, killing 14 people before engaging in a shootout with police, it's possible New Orleans upped security for more than one reason.
Kirkpatrick told reporters that the city heightened security for Trump's presence, and said officials would "have to shut down some additional streets a little longer in order to provide a safe corridor for him." She also confirmed that there would be 2,000 law enforcement officers in the Super Bowl grounds and surrounding areas.
As of this writing, there is no way to confirm the amount or cost of security equipment used to protect Trump specifically, such as bomb-detection equipment and security scanners.
Other factors
Trump was accompanied in the VIP suite by his daughter Ivanka Trump, his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, at least six Republican senators, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, since-confirmed Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, among others. It's unclear whether their attendance added to taxpayers' cost for Trump's visit.
Other factors to consider also include the indirect cost of flights stopped while Trump was in the vicinity, but it's impossible to accurately determine such a cost.
In sum …
While we can provide a bare-minimum estimate of select costs such as air transportation and Secret Service work — nearly $1 million — this is only a fraction of the total cost of Trump's presence at the Super Bowl to American taxpayers.
Other factors, including the months of preparation leading up to the Super Bowl, local law enforcement work, amped-up security personnel by the DHS, extra security equipment, motorcade and helicopter trips to and from the game to the airport and the cost of attendance (and transportation) for other members of Trump's party are impossible to accurately estimate, as of this writing.
This is due, in part, to the fact that many details surrounding presidential security operations are not publicly available. As one of the biggest events in the U.S., it is also unclear what portion of the security measures were in place generally vs. for Trump specifically.