Most Goals Scored at the FIFA World Cup (All Time)
About This Dataset
Most Goals Scored at the FIFA World Cup (All Time)
Players ranked by total goals scored across all their FIFA World Cup appearances, from official FIFA records. Kylian Mbappé leads on 22 goals, ahead of Lionel Messi on 21 and Miroslav Klose on 16.
The record has changed hands three times in this table. Gerd Müller's 14 stood from 1974 until Ronaldo passed him in 2006; Ronaldo's 15 lasted until Klose scored his 16th in 2014; Klose's mark held until the 2026 tournament, when Mbappé and Messi both went past it.
Every total at the top of this list was built across several tournaments rather than in one run. The exception is Just Fontaine, seventh on 13, who scored all of his in a single tournament in 1958 — a haul no player has come within three of since.
The record has changed hands three times in this table. Gerd Müller's 14 stood from 1974 until Ronaldo passed him in 2006; Ronaldo's 15 lasted until Klose scored his 16th in 2014; Klose's mark held until the 2026 tournament, when Mbappé and Messi both went past it.
Every total at the top of this list was built across several tournaments rather than in one run. The exception is Just Fontaine, seventh on 13, who scored all of his in a single tournament in 1958 — a haul no player has come within three of since.
Analysis
Kylian Mbappé (22), Lionel Messi (21) and Miroslav Klose (16) take the top three in FIFA World Cup Goals. No single entity dominates: the leader, Kylian Mbappé, holds 6.9% of the combined total of all 28. Below the top two the field is tightly packed: the remaining 26 run from 16 down to 9 FIFA World Cup Goals.
Source:
Wikipedia
Key Findings
🏆
Kylian Mbappé leads in FIFA World Cup Goals with 22.
📊
Average FIFA World Cup Goals: 11 · median: 10.
↔️
Gap: Kylian Mbappé is 2.4× larger than Uwe Seeler.
Data Insights
Numbers, trends & sources behind this chart
Methodology & source
- Data source
- Wikipedia
- Coverage
- 28 entities · 28 observations
- Measure
- FIFA World Cup Goals
- Last updated
- 16 September 2026
- Compiled by
- The ANYSTAT team, from the source above
How the figures are calculated
- Values are shown as reported by the source. Nothing is rescaled, rebased or converted — the only changes are thousand separators and decimals shown to two places.
- Entities are ranked highest-first on their value.
An article using this data
Kylian Mbappé Is Now the World Cup's All-Time Top Scorer
For twelve years the record belonged to Miroslav Klose. The 2026 World Cup broke it twice in a single tournament.
Data Sources & References
All external sources cited in this dataset
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