Kevin Costner Net Worth 2026: Yellowstone Pay, Horizon Gamble and Real Estate

Kevin Costner’s net worth is about $250 million, according to widely reported estimates cited by Newsweek in December 2024 and by other major outlets since. Some 2026 estimates are lower, because Costner has poured tens of millions of his own dollars into his western film series Horizon: An American Saga, which has not earned that money back.

Kevin Costner: quick facts

Net worth

$250 Million

Source of wealth

Films, Yellowstone, real estate

Profession

Actor, director, producer and musician

Nationality

American

Place of birth

Lynwood, California, United States

Date of birth

January 18, 1955 (age 71)

Costner built his fortune in two big waves. The first came in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when hits such as The Untouchables, Dances with Wolves, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and The Bodyguard made him one of the best-paid stars in Hollywood. The second came decades later with Yellowstone, the Paramount Network drama that paid him a reported $12 million per season by its fifth season.

His wealth is also tied up in land. He owns a large oceanfront compound in Carpinteria, California, near Santa Barbara, and a 160-acre ranch outside Aspen, Colorado. He has used that property as collateral to fund Horizon, one of the biggest personal bets any Hollywood star has made in recent years.

Kevin Costner at a glance

• Net worth: about $250 million (widely reported estimate; some 2026 estimates are lower)
• Born: January 18, 1955, in Lynwood, California
• Profession: actor, director, producer and musician
• Companies: Territory Pictures (production), Ocean Therapy Solutions (oil-cleanup technology), Kevin Costner & Modern West (band)
• Biggest payday: Dances with Wolves (1990), which Forbes reported helped him earn about $50 million in a single year
• Awards: two Academy Awards (Best Picture and Best Director), an Emmy and two Golden Globes (Best Director for Dances with Wolves and Best Actor for Yellowstone)
• Spouses: Cindy Silva (1978–1994) and Christine Baumgartner (2004–2024)
• Children: seven

His net worth by year is charted at the end of this article.

Where Kevin Costner’s money comes from

Source	Details	Estimate
Film salaries and profit shares	Star salaries and back-end deals from the late 1980s to today	Largest lifetime source; tens of millions per peak year
Yellowstone	Five seasons as John Dutton (2018–2024)	Reported $500,000 per episode early on, rising to $12 million per half-season
Real estate	Carpinteria oceanfront compound, Aspen ranch	Carpinteria compound reportedly valued at about $145 million
Ocean Therapy Solutions	Oil-water separation machines leased to BP in 2010	Reported $52 million BP deal
Music and other ventures	Modern West albums and tours, a casino, a bison museum, a travel app	Smaller share
Horizon (a cost, not income)	Self-financed western film series	About $38 million of his own money

Known earnings by project

Costner rarely talks about his pay, so only a handful of figures are on the record. These come from court testimony and major news reports.

Project	Year	Reported pay
Dances with Wolves and other work	1990–1991	About $50 million in one year (Forbes)
The Bodyguard	1992	Reportedly $20 million to $30 million, including profit share (Baltimore Sun)
Waterworld	1995	About $14 million (Wall Street Journal)
Yellowstone season 1	2018	About $500,000 per episode (Puck)
Yellowstone season 5	2022–2023	$12 million for each half of the season (his court testimony)
Total income	2022	About $19.5 million (divorce court filings)

Early life

Kevin Michael Costner was born on January 18, 1955, in Lynwood, California, and spent part of his childhood in nearby Compton. His father, William, was an electrician who became a utilities executive, and his mother, Sharon, was a welfare worker.

The family moved often for his father’s job. Costner graduated from Villa Park High School in 1973 and earned a business degree from California State University, Fullerton, in 1978.

He took a marketing job after college but quit after about a month to pursue acting. To pay for acting classes, he worked on fishing boats, drove a truck and gave bus tours of stars’ homes in Hollywood.

Early career and breakthrough (1981–1989)

Costner’s first years in film were lean. He made his debut in the low-budget Sizzle Beach, U.S.A. (1981), and his scenes in The Big Chill (1983) were famously cut from the final film.

His breakout came with the western Silverado (1985). Two years later he became a leading man, playing Eliot Ness in The Untouchables and starring in the thriller No Way Out, both released in 1987.

Two baseball films then made him one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars:

• Bull Durham (1988), a hit romantic comedy about minor league baseball
• Field of Dreams (1989), which earned a Best Picture Oscar nomination

Dances with Wolves and the peak years (1990–1994)

In 1990 Costner directed, produced and starred in Dances with Wolves, a three-hour western that many in Hollywood expected to fail. Instead it became a worldwide hit, earned 12 Oscar nominations and won seven, including Best Picture and Best Director for Costner.

Because he had a producer’s share of the profits, the film paid him far more than a normal salary. Forbes reported that he earned about $50 million in the year after its release.

He followed it with a run of big releases:

• Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991): one of the highest-grossing films of the year
• JFK (1991): Oliver Stone’s drama, which earned him a Golden Globe nomination
• The Bodyguard (1992): a global smash co-starring Whitney Houston, whose soundtrack became one of the best-selling albums ever
• A Perfect World (1993): a crime drama directed by Clint Eastwood

Waterworld, The Postman and a quieter decade (1995–2010)

The mid-1990s brought two famous misfires. Waterworld (1995) cost a reported $175 million or more, making it the most expensive film ever made at the time. It grossed about $264 million worldwide and eventually turned a profit through video and TV sales, but its reputation as a flop stuck. Costner was reportedly paid about $14 million.

The Postman (1997), which he directed and starred in, lost money and won five Golden Raspberry Awards.

He rebuilt slowly with smaller films, including Tin Cup (1996), Message in a Bottle (1999), Thirteen Days (2000) and the western Open Range (2003), which he directed and which became a surprise box-office success.

TV comeback and Yellowstone (2012–2024)

Costner won an Emmy for the History Channel miniseries Hatfields & McCoys (2012). He also kept working in studio films, playing Jonathan Kent in Man of Steel (2013) and appearing in Hidden Figures (2016) and Molly’s Game (2017).

His biggest late-career success was Yellowstone, created by Taylor Sheridan. Costner played ranch patriarch John Dutton from the show’s 2018 premiere, and it grew into the most-watched series on cable TV.

His pay rose with the show’s ratings:

• Season 1 (2018): a reported $500,000 per episode
• Season 5 (2022–2023): $12 million for each half of the season, as Costner testified in court in September 2023, or roughly $1.2 million to $1.3 million per episode
• Golden Globe: Best Actor in a TV drama in January 2023

Costner testified that the show later offered him less than in previous seasons, and talks broke down over money and scheduling. He did not return for the final episodes, and John Dutton was killed off in November 2024.

Horizon: the self-funded gamble (2022–present)

Horizon: An American Saga is a planned four-part western about the settling of the American West. Costner has worked on the idea since the late 1980s. When studios would not pay for it on his terms, he paid for much of it himself.

Key facts about the project:

• Personal investment: about $38 million of his own money, as Costner said in 2024 interviews
• Collateral: he mortgaged his 10-acre oceanfront parcel in Carpinteria to raise funds; he said the move sent his accountant into a fit
• Budget: about $100 million for the first two chapters combined, with outside investors covering the rest
• Distribution: Warner Bros. released the first chapter in U.S. theaters

Chapter 1 opened in June 2024 after a premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. It grossed only about $38.8 million worldwide against a reported budget of about $50 million.

Chapter 2 premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 2024, but Warner Bros. pulled its planned August 2024 theatrical release. As of 2026 it still has no release date, and a Warner Bros. source said in spring 2026 that a release this year was “not in the plans.” Chapter 3 began filming in 2024 but is stalled while Costner looks for new financing.

The project has also brought legal trouble. In 2025 a stunt performer sued Costner and the production over an unscripted scene, and in December 2025 a costume company sued over roughly $440,000 in unpaid rental fees. Costner has disputed the claims.

Recent work

In 2025 Costner hosted Kevin Costner’s The West, an eight-part documentary series on the History Channel. He has also said he plans to build a film studio in Washington County, Utah, where much of Horizon was shot.

Business ventures

Ocean Therapy Solutions

In the 1990s Costner bought rights to a government-developed technology that separates oil from water and spent years, and a reported large share of his own money, developing it. The company became Ocean Therapy Solutions.

After the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, BP agreed to use 32 of the machines in the Gulf of Mexico cleanup. The deal was reported at about $52 million, with an $18 million down payment. Actor Stephen Baldwin and a business partner later sued, claiming Costner had misled them about the deal, but a federal jury ruled in Costner’s favor in 2012.

Other ventures

• Midnight Star casino: a casino in Deadwood, South Dakota, that opened in 1991, closed in 2017 and was sold in 2020
• Tatanka: Story of the Bison: a visitor center near Deadwood that opened in 2004
• HearHere: a road-trip audio storytelling app he co-founded in 2020
• Kevin Costner & Modern West: his country-rock band, which has released several albums and toured the U.S. and Europe

Real estate

Costner’s homes are among his most valuable assets. Court filings in his 2023 divorce described a Carpinteria compound worth about $145 million.

Property	Year	Reported price
Carpinteria, California, oceanfront home (1.4 acres; main house and two guest houses)	1988	Not disclosed
Carpinteria, California, Padaro Lane parcel (17.25 acres; part later sold)	2006	About $28.5 million
Same parcel, remaining 10 acres listed for sale	2017	Asking about $60 million (later reports cited a lower price)
Dunbar Ranch, Aspen, Colorado (160 acres)	2000	Not disclosed

The Carpinteria compound is the family home where Costner’s children grew up. He bought the original property in 1988 and added a 17.25-acre parcel next door in 2006. Part of that parcel became a baseball diamond. He later mortgaged the remaining 10 acres, where he once planned to build a final family home, to help pay for Horizon.

The Aspen ranch is named Dunbar Ranch after his Dances with Wolves character. It sits at the base of Independence Pass and has a main house, a lake house and a river house. Costner married Christine Baumgartner there in 2004. When he is not using it, the ranch has been offered as a rental for a reported $36,000 a night.

He has also been reported to own a home in Austin, Texas.

Personal life

Costner married Cindy Silva, a college classmate, in 1978. They had three children before divorcing in 1994. Silva received a reported $80 million settlement, one of the largest Hollywood divorce settlements of its time.

He also has a son, born in 1996, with Bridget Rooney.

Costner married Christine Baumgartner, a model and handbag designer, on September 25, 2004. They have three children. Baumgartner filed for divorce in May 2023, and the case drew wide attention because of its money disputes:

• Prenup: the couple had a prenuptial agreement that limited spousal support. It required Baumgartner to leave the family home within 30 days of filing, which led to a public fight over the house.
• Child support: Baumgartner asked for about $248,000 a month. A judge first set temporary support at about $129,000 a month, then cut it to $63,209 a month in September 2023.
• Legal fees: the judge ordered Baumgartner to pay about $14,000 of Costner’s legal fees.
• Income: filings put Costner’s 2022 income at about $19.5 million, and he told the court he expected to earn much less in 2023.
• Settlement: the couple settled in September 2023 and the divorce was finalized in February 2024. Full terms were not made public.

Costner has seven children in total. He splits his time mainly between California and Colorado.

Philanthropy

Costner’s charity work is mostly low-key. Examples include:

• Organizing an auction in 2009 to help the children of a fan killed in a stage collapse at a Canadian music festival
• Donating signed items to children’s hospital fundraisers
• Serving on an honorary board of the National World War I Museum in Kansas City
• Supporting American history education through his documentary and museum projects

How Kevin Costner compares

Actor	Estimated net worth	Main source
George Clooney	About $500 million	Acting, Casamigos tequila sale
Sylvester Stallone	About $400 million	Rocky and Rambo franchises
Harrison Ford	About $300 million	Star Wars and Indiana Jones
Denzel Washington	About $300 million	Film salaries
Kevin Costner	About $250 million	Films, Yellowstone, real estate

Figures are widely reported estimates as of 2026. Unlike most of his peers, Costner has put a large part of his own fortune back into his films. See more stars in our actors net worth list.

Frequently asked questions

How much is Kevin Costner worth?

About $250 million, according to widely reported estimates. Some 2026 estimates are lower because of his spending on Horizon.

How much did Kevin Costner make from Yellowstone?

He was reportedly paid about $500,000 per episode in season 1. By season 5 he earned $12 million for each half of the season, about $1.2 million to $1.3 million per episode.

How much of his own money did Kevin Costner put into Horizon?

About $38 million, and he mortgaged part of his Carpinteria property to help pay for the films.

How much child support does Kevin Costner pay?

A judge set his child support at $63,209 a month in September 2023 for his three children with Christine Baumgartner.

How much did Kevin Costner’s first divorce cost?

His 1994 divorce from Cindy Silva reportedly cost him about $80 million.

Where does Kevin Costner live?

Mainly at his oceanfront compound in Carpinteria, California, near Santa Barbara. He also owns a 160-acre ranch near Aspen, Colorado.

Sources: Newsweek (December 2024), Parade (2026), Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Puck, Elle Decor (September 2025), Montecito Journal, Fox News and Entertainment Tonight divorce court coverage (2023–2024), Wikipedia. All net worth figures are estimates.