How much did presidential travel for golf cost taxpayers in 2025 overall?
Executive summary
Estimates of how much presidential golf travel cost taxpayers in 2025 vary widely because reporters and trackers apply an historical per‑trip figure from a 2019 GAO-style analysis to different counts of trips; lower published tallies put costs in the tens of millions (for example, “more than $26m” or “over $23m” by early April/March) while larger trackers and later summaries report figures near $71m to $84m for 2025 to date [1] [2] [3] [4]. Sources rely chiefly on an estimated per‑trip cost of about $3.38m (2017 dollars) derived from past GAO calculations and then multiply by the number of trips or days in 2025 [5] [6].
1. How reporters calculate the dollar figure: a reused per‑trip template
Most outlets and trackers cited here base their 2025 totals on a per‑trip estimate that originated from a Government Accountability Office assessment of four Mar‑a‑Lago trips during the previous presidency — about $3,383,250 per trip in 2017 dollars — and then multiply that figure (sometimes inflation‑adjusted) by the number of reported trips in 2025 [5] [6]. HuffPost and derivative reporting add small items (like charges billed to Mar‑a‑Lago) or adjust for longer trips, raising some single‑trip estimates as high as roughly $4.2m for atypical weekends [5] [7].
2. Divergent headline totals: tens of millions versus low eighties
Early‑term reporting gave totals in the low tens of millions: outlets citing HuffPost’s count reported “more than $26m” or “more than $23m” after several trips in the first months of 2025 [1] [2]. Independent trackers and later summaries that count many more trips or days reach much higher totals: The Independent and other aggregators reported figures like roughly $71m so far in 2025, and some trackers or summaries put an upper estimate near $84m [3] [4]. These differences reflect which trips are counted, whether per‑trip costs are inflation‑adjusted, and whether extra security/ancillary costs are included [3] [4].
3. What is and isn’t included in the math
The commonly cited $3.38m per‑trip figure includes aircraft operations, motorcade logistics and some security costs as calculated for four 2017 trips; many outlets note that this number excludes salaries of personnel whose pay would continue regardless of travel and omits a full accounting of all agency overtime and ancillary contracting, so the real total “is almost certainly higher than these unadjusted estimates,” according to The Independent [5] [3]. Some reporting adds discrete bills paid to the private properties or extra items like rental golf carts or portable toilets for Secret Service use to widen totals [5] [8].
4. Sources disagree on methodology and therefore on accountability
Watchdogs and reporters disagree about how to treat repeated travel to properties owned by the president: critics emphasize that frequent trips funnel security spending toward his private resorts and raise conflict‑of‑interest concerns, while methodological defenders caution that many estimates rely on assumptions and extrapolation from a small GAO sample rather than a comprehensive, trip‑by‑trip government ledger [2] [5]. Snopes documents the methodological lineage back to the HuffPost approach and shows how inflation adjustments and trip counts produce substantially different totals [5].
5. What the public record does not show (limitations)
Available sources do not mention a single, authoritative 2025 government line‑item total produced by the GAO or an administration disclosure that reconciles the differing public estimates; reporting is based on extrapolation from the 2019 GAO per‑trip analysis and press tracking of public schedules and Secret Service contracts [5] [9]. Precise components like overtime ledger entries, full aviation‑hours accounting, and interagency charges for each 2025 trip are not publicly consolidated in the cited reporting [5].
6. Bottom line for readers
If one uses the GAO‑derived $3.38m per‑trip baseline and multiplies by the number of 2025 trips counted by trackers, the commonly reported range for 2025 golf travel falls from the low tens of millions early in the year to roughly $71m (and some upper‑bound trackers near $84m) as additional trips accumulate; the variance stems from divergent trip counts, inflation adjustments, and whether ancillary costs are added [5] [3] [4]. Readers should treat any single headline total as an estimate rooted in a specific methodology and consult primary GAO or agency accounting if and when a comprehensive official tally is published — available sources do not provide such a consolidated 2025 government accounting [5].