2026 Fifa World Cup: Economic boost will not be felt by all

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JIMMY MOYAHA: With the Fifa World Cup set to kick off today in a couple of hours – probably even less than a couple of hours at this stage – I thought we’d take a look at what this potentially means for the host countries of this year’s World Cup.

We already know the states of these economies in the form of the United States, Mexico and Canada, but we’re going to take a deeper dive into what could be the result of a World Cup across three countries.

I’m joined on the line by the sector advisor at Allianz Trade, Maria Latorre, to look at this and see what we make of it. Maria, lovely having you on the show. Thanks so much for taking the time.

Now you and the team at Allianz have put together quite an interesting report that suggests that the Fifa World Cup this year could provide almost $9 billion to the North American GDP across the three countries. How did you arrive at that number? It is quite an interesting number.

MARIA LATORRE: Yes. Hello, Jimmy. Thanks for inviting me. Well, from a macroeconomic perspective, sporting events entail four types of spending which impact the GDP growth of the domestic economy.

The first type is, of course, foreign tourism spending. The second one is domestic tourism spending. The third one is security, public administration spending, which is mostly government consumption. And the fourth is infrastructure spending or infrastructure investments.

All these events are expected to generate an around $9.1 billion GDP boost between June and July across the three nations.

The US is expected to capture the vast majority of the economic benefits, simply because it hosts the majority of the matches – 78 out of 104 matches in total. Relative to its economy the effects will be small.

So for the US we estimate a GDP lift of around $6.1 billion, followed by Mexico with a gain of $1.7 billion. The last beneficiary will be Canada, with a GDP boost of around $1.3 billion.

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So in terms of quarterly non-annualised GDP growth, which is mostly falling in Q3, this is expected to represent a boost of a 0.1 percentage point above a counterfactor with our Fifa World Cup in the US, a boost of a 0.3 percentage point in Mexico and a 0.2 percentage point in Canada.

So in a relative view, a relative perspective, it’s not that huge – the economic boost of the of these sporting events.

JIMMY MOYAHA: Maria, when we compare these numbers that are projected – obviously we don’t know what the end result will be because the World Cup hasn’t yet taken place – but when we look at these numbers versus what we know from previous World Cups, where does this rank, this particular World Cup?

MARIA LATORRE: Well, I would say that the main difference this time is the fact that that this World Cup is going to test whether a World Cup can successfully evolve from a single-country event into a distributed continental experience without sacrificing atmosphere, attendance or commercial performance.

So we are going to see or witness something different, which is that we are now including more nationalities.

This time we are expanding from 32 to 48 teams and from 64 to 104 matches across 16 host cities and in three different countries. So this is going to be an unprecedented event.

Expectations are that in terms of TV viewers, and in terms of stadium attendance, numbers are going to be higher.

Still, as you mentioned, the event has not started yet, so we cannot fully say what is going to be the real outcome of the attendance.

Normally the Fifa World Cup has the capacity to host around a 6.5 million attendance, considering that all the stadiums have, on average, a capacity of 65 000 people per stadium, and assuming that all of them can be pooled at around 85% to 90% of their capacity.

JIMMY MOYAHA: Maria, I want to look at something that you touched on. You mentioned that when you measured the GDP impact of World Cups, you looked at a couple of factors – one being international tourism, the other being domestic tourism.

You mentioned those as two separate factors, but I want to zoom in on the international tourism aspect of it. Leading up to this tournament we’ve seen various reports around hotels and accommodations being half-booked, and match tickets being expensive. We haven’t really seen the international uptick that there might have been with other World Cups that happened before.

Alongside that, we’ve also most recently seen the likes of the United States making it exceptionally difficult for those who want to attend the World Cup to get in and out of America – everything from visas to all of the other logistical arrangements around that.

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Do you think that that will have a significant impact on the international tourism aspect of the GDP we are expecting to grow there?

MARIA LATORRE: Well, there are some early signs of uneven demand, but it’s still early to say that the hospitality upside is overstated for this six-week event.

For major global events like the World Cup, ticket sales and hotel bookings typically accelerate closer to match dates, and are highly concentrated in key cities and fixtures.

What we are more likely to see is not a weaker overall outlook, but a more uneven distribution of demand across time and cities. So the hospitality sector should still see a meaningful uplift, but it will be more selective and more driven than uniform across all cities.

In Mexico, for example, a weaker exchange rate, lower entry or border barriers – as you mentioned – and the stronger football culture of the country are attracting more tourists.

In contrast, for example, what we are seeing so far is that in Canada more limited hotel capacities are likely to drive higher room prices – or in the US, for example, stricter visa requirements may also deter some international visitors.

But yes, as you mentioned, international visitors are an important boost for the GDP lift that these countries are going to experience.

In our calculations, in our assumptions, tourism spending itself is expected to increase by $8 billion in North America in total – largely dominated by foreign spending, as I was saying.

So indeed, the split is expected to be $6.8 billion in tourism export – this is foreign tourism spending – and then $1.2 billion in household consumption or domestic tourism spending.

If we look by country, the split of the tourism spending benefit will be $5.4 billion in gains for the United States. $1.4 billion for Mexico, and $1.2 billion for Canada.

And if we go now to a sector level, the lodging sector is positioned to be among the clearest beneficiary of the tournament.

Also outcomes will vary considerably by city. For example, New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Dallas and even San Francisco – those cities posted extensive hotel inventories and significant experience hosting large-scale international events, so these cities are likely to absorb demand relatively efficiently.

In contrast, cities such as Seattle or Vancouver may face more meaningful capacity constraints.

Then, if we continue with the sector angle, we have airlines, which are also clear winners from this tournament – supported by their constrained capacity but also their strong pricing power right now.

But this is more a temporary event-driven boost than a structural improvement in the profitability of the sector overall.

And then the sector of food and beverage will also benefit from strong but localised demand, specifically in fan zones or in large cities.

And then, of course, the largest gain will also go to global TV media with broadcasting rights and advertising generating a lot of revenue as well for these companies.

JIMMY MOYAHA: So clearly, there will be winners and losers in this World Cup, regardless of its outcome, and we look forward to seeing how that shapes up or what that outcome does indeed look like as the event kicks off in a couple of minutes. We’ll leave the conversation on that note.

Maria Latorre, the sector advisor at Allianz Trade, joined us to look at their report which suggests that this World Cup could add $9 billion to North American GDP.