The safest comparison starts with the reporting date. All four clubs published financial statements in 2026 for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025. In that same accounting snapshot, total liabilities, understood here as current liabilities plus non-current liabilities, were approximately R$ 2.757 billion at Corinthians, R$ 2.455 billion at São Paulo, R$ 1.585 billion at Palmeiras and R$ 1.232 billion at Santos.
Those four figures can be placed side by side because they come from the same part of the balance sheet. Even so, they do not mean that each club will have to pay out exactly that amount. Accounting liabilities include obligations of different kinds, including revenue received or contracted in advance that will be recognized over time. That is why rankings that call everything "debt" can produce conclusions that are incompatible with one another.
The first metric: total accounting liabilities
At Corinthians, the 2025 financial statements report R$ 979.759 million in current liabilities and R$ 1.778 billion in non-current liabilities. The sum is R$ 2.757 billion. Within that total are suppliers, loans, image rights, social and tax obligations, installment agreements, contingencies and R$ 680.242 million in revenue to be recognized.
At São Paulo, current liabilities total R$ 1.038 billion and non-current liabilities R$ 1.416 billion. Total liabilities therefore reach R$ 2.455 billion. The biggest difference from a simplified reading of "debt" lies in revenue to be recognized: R$ 401.197 million in the short term and R$ 986.104 million in the long term, totaling R$ 1.387 billion.
Palmeiras ended 2025 with R$ 653.312 million in current liabilities and R$ 931.301 million in non-current liabilities, for a total of R$ 1.585 billion. The club's own report separates R$ 452.930 million from that total as contract advances, which are treated as delivery obligations rather than actual debt requiring a cash outflow.
At Santos, current liabilities were R$ 470.741 million and non-current liabilities R$ 761.218 million, totaling R$ 1.232 billion. The financial statements also identify R$ 233.458 million in deferred revenue, or performance obligations, which do not represent a future cash outflow in the same way as a loan or an account payable.
Why Corinthians appears with R$ 2.7 billion in debt
The R$ 2.723 billion figure disclosed for Corinthians is a different measure from the R$ 2.757 billion in total liabilities. The total gross debt presented from the 2025 accounts was divided into approximately R$ 2.081 billion of club debt and R$ 642 million of financing for Neo Química Arena.
The Arena portion is crucial to understanding the comparison. The notes to the financial statements state that the outstanding balance of the financing with Caixa Econômica Federal was R$ 642 million on December 31, 2025. The contract was structured outside the conventional list of loans in the club's balance sheet, within the corporate and financial structure connected to the Arena, but Corinthians controls that structure and the financing payments are supported by revenue and guarantees related to the stadium and the club itself.
This explains why simply adding the loans and financing lines in Corinthians' balance sheet does not come close to R$ 2.7 billion. The gross-debt concept used in the disclosure incorporates a much broader set of club obligations and adds the Arena financing.
There is also a timing particularity. The tax renegotiation with the Procuradoria-Geral da Fazenda Nacional was formally signed on January 2, 2026, but its effects were recognized in the financial statements as of December 31, 2025 because management considered that the substantive economic conditions had already been defined and accepted in December. The agreement reduced to R$ 678.929 million a set of tax debts that had been consolidated at R$ 1.272 billion before the discounts.
Palmeiras: R$ 1.58 billion in liabilities is not R$ 1.58 billion in debt
Palmeiras' financial report makes the distinction explicitly. Accounting liabilities were R$ 1.585 billion, but the club classifies R$ 452.930 million as contract advances. After excluding those delivery obligations, it arrives at "total debt", also called total payable liabilities in the document, of R$ 1.132 billion.
Palmeiras divides this total debt into R$ 985.497 million of operating debt and R$ 146.186 million of historical debt. Therefore, a ranking that uses R$ 1.13 billion for Palmeiras may be correct under the club's own methodology, while another that shows R$ 1.58 billion may also be correct if it is referring to accounting liabilities.
Allianz Parque offers an even clearer example of how a stadium can distort a comparison. Of the R$ 452.930 million in contract advances, R$ 366.725 million relates to the stadium. The financial statements explain that this balance arises from the real surface right granted to Real Arenas for 30 years and is amortized for accounting purposes over that period. It is therefore not stadium bank debt comparable to the R$ 642 million financing of Neo Química Arena.
The same report records R$ 581.592 million in costs related to the construction of Allianz Parque within property, plant and equipment. That figure is a recorded asset, not debt. Adding the stadium's value to indebtedness simply because both appear on the balance sheet would mix assets and liabilities.
São Paulo: liabilities exceed R$ 2.45 billion, but the club calculates indebtedness of R$
858 million São Paulo is probably the best example of how two headlines can look incompatible while still coming from the same balance sheet. Total liabilities amount to R$ 2.455 billion. However, the management report presents a specific indebtedness section in which it first excludes revenue to be recognized and arrives at R$ 1.067 billion of consolidated obligations.
The club then considers R$ 209.230 million in net rights, consisting of receivables net of the corresponding revenue to be recognized. With this offset, the "final indebtedness" reported comes to R$ 858.205 million.
Therefore, R$ 2.45 billion and R$ 858 million are not two competing estimates of the same concept. The first figure is total accounting liabilities. The second is a management metric that starts from a smaller set of obligations and also deducts net rights.
MorumBIS should likewise not be treated as if it had a separate debt equivalent to that of Neo Química Arena. In the 2025 financial statements, the stadium appears as part of the club's assets and as a revenue-generating
unit. The report records R$ 118.942 million in stadium revenue and R$ 29.334 million in operating expenses related to it during the year. The published accounts do not show an autonomous MorumBIS financing of the same nature and presentation as the R$ 642 million balance of the Corinthians Arena.
Santos: R$ 1.23 billion in liabilities and adjusted indebtedness of R$ 998.5 million
Santos also provides its own reconciliation. Total liabilities of R$ 1.232 billion include R$ 233.458 million in deferred revenue, classified as a performance obligation. After removing those items, the club presents total indebtedness of R$ 998.501 million.
Within that amount, Santos separates R$ 690.629 million of operating indebtedness and R$ 307.872 million of historical indebtedness. The first portion includes current operating commitments such as wages, payroll charges, suppliers, image rights and other accounts. The second mainly concentrates tax installment agreements, provisions and liabilities from previous periods that were renegotiated or are still in the process of being regularized.
Vila Belmiro, in turn, appears in Santos' property, plant and equipment. The club states that the stadium, CT Rei Pelé and the multisport complex are presented at revalued amounts based on a 2006 appraisal. In 2025, management also reported more than R$ 18 million in work at Vila Belmiro and the training center, carried out in partnership with NR Sports and other sponsors. That is investment in an asset, not a stadium-debt line comparable to Neo Química Arena's.
The comparison that makes sense across all four clubs
If the question is "which club has the largest total liabilities on the same date and under the same accounting logic?", the financial statements as of December 31, 2025 place Corinthians at R$ 2.757 billion, São Paulo at R$ 2.455 billion, Palmeiras at R$ 1.585 billion and Santos at R$ 1.232 billion.
If the question changes to "what is each club's debt?", there is no longer a single metric in the published documents. Corinthians discloses R$ 2.723 billion in total gross debt when it includes R$ 642 million of Arena financing. Palmeiras defines total debt as R$ 1.132 billion after removing contract advances. São Paulo arrives at R$ 858.205 million in final indebtedness after excluding revenue to be recognized and deducting net rights. Santos presents R$ 998.501 million in indebtedness after removing deferred revenue.
Putting those last four figures in order as though they formed a homogeneous ranking is methodologically weak. They arise from different adjustments. The most comparable figure across the four clubs is current liabilities plus non-current liabilities; the management debt metrics are useful for understanding each club, but they should not be mixed without reconstructing the same formula for all of them.
How to read a debt ranking without falling into the biggest-number trap
Before comparing clubs, it is worth checking the reporting date and the definition used. "Liabilities", "gross debt", "indebtedness", "operating debt" and "net debt" are not automatically synonymous. One report may exclude advance revenue; another may offset receivables; a third may add a separate stadium structure.
It is also necessary to separate cash obligations from performance obligations. When a club receives payment in advance for broadcasting, sponsorship, advertising or commercial exploitation, accounting may recognize a liability because there is still something to be delivered to the contracting party. That does not necessarily mean the club will have to return that amount in cash.
Finally, a stadium can appear in three completely different ways: as a property asset, as a performance obligation connected to an exploitation contract, or as financing actually owed to a financial institution. In 2025, Neo Química Arena has a financing balance explicitly disclosed in Corinthians' notes; Allianz Parque generates a large contract advance that Palmeiras does not treat as payable debt; MorumBIS and Vila Belmiro appear mainly as assets and operating units of their respective clubs.
The practical conclusion is that the large numbers circulating in 2026 do not have to be wrong to be incomparable. The right question is not only "how much is owed?", but "how much is owed under which
concept, on what date, and with which items included?" Once that metric is explicit, the differences among R$ 2.7 billion, R$ 2.45 billion, R$ 1.13 billion or less than R$ 1 billion stop being a contradiction and become a question of methodology.
