How tall is Neymar?

How tall is Neymar?

Neymar is 175 cm, which is about 5′9″. Two independent football databases agree on that figure. Wikidata records a height of 175 cm, citing the player profile once published by Paris Saint-Germain, and the transfer-market site Transfermarkt lists him at 1.75 m on its current profile, which follows his move back to Santos. Wikidata also records his weight as 69 kg.

The PSG club page that Wikidata cites no longer loads at its original address after his 2023 departure, but the figure it supported has been stable across his clubs. A 175 cm listing fits his reputation as a quick, low-to-the-ground dribbler rather than a physically dominant striker.

From the Santos academy to Barcelona

Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior was born in Mogi das Cruzes, in São Paulo state. His father, Neymar Santos Sr., is a former footballer who became his son's adviser. Santos spotted him early and gave him a contract in 2003, bringing him into the same youth academy that had produced Pelé, Robinho and Philippe Coutinho. At 14 he went to Spain for trials with Real Madrid's youth team, but his father decided he should keep developing at Santos.

He made his professional debut for Santos in 2009 and was soon being called the new Pelé. In 2011 he led the club to the Copa Libertadores, its first since the Pelé era of the 1960s, and was named the tournament's best player. That same year, his solo goal against Ronaldinho's Flamengo, in a 5–4 defeat, won the FIFA Puskás Award.

The Barcelona doctor and the weight question

When Neymar signed for Barcelona in 2013, he passed his medical and was presented at the Camp Nou in front of 56,500 fans, a record for a Brazilian player. One detail from that period connects directly to his build: Barcelona's doctor suggested he might need to gain weight to cope physically with Spanish football. For a 175 cm attacker listed today at 69 kg, the concern was about coping with physical contact rather than about height.

Early honors before Europe

By the time he left Brazil, Neymar already had a long list of achievements. In 2010 he scored 42 goals in 60 matches in all competitions and helped Santos win its first Copa do Brasil, finishing as the tournament's top scorer with 11 goals. That summer Santos received bids from Premier League clubs Chelsea and West Ham United, the former reported at around £20 million. In 2013, just before joining Barcelona, he won the Golden Ball at the FIFA Confederations Cup as Brazil lifted the trophy.

How height shapes Neymar's game

Neymar's style is the opposite of a target man's. His Wikipedia profile lists his main traits as vision, agility, passing, finishing, dribbling, feints and first touch. He is two-footed, takes free kicks and penalties, and is known for the rainbow flick. Early in his career he usually played on the left of a front three in a 4–3–3, a position that let him cut inside onto his stronger foot. At PSG he developed into a complete number 10.

None of those traits depends on height, and his game has never relied on winning aerial duels. The flip side of a slight, dribbling-heavy style has been physical punishment. A report in early 2022 found that Neymar had been the most fouled player in Europe since 2016, and during his time in Ligue 1 he was fouled more than any other player, which contributed to frequent injuries.

Career at a glance

At Al-Hilal, his time was cut short by a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament suffered on international duty in October 2023. Transfermarkt records that he rejoined Santos on 31 January 2025.

Neymar compared with his teammates and rivals

Neymar's most famous partnerships put him beside players of very different sizes. The site's data gives these heights:

MSN: Messi, Suárez and Neymar

At Barcelona, Neymar formed the MSN attack with Lionel Messi and Luis Suárez. In 2014–15 he finished as joint top scorer in both the Champions League and the Copa del Rey as Barcelona won the continental treble. The trio's heights were nicely staggered: Messi at 169 cm, Neymar at 175 cm and Suárez at 182 cm. Neymar was the middle man in height.

PSG with Mbappé and Cavani

After his record transfer to Paris in 2017, Neymar joined Kylian Mbappé and Edinson Cavani in a new front three. The three scored 16 of PSG's record 25 Champions League group-stage goals that season. Mbappé, at 178 cm, is about 3 cm taller than Neymar, and Cavani, at 184 cm, about 9 cm taller.

Neymar and Pelé

Neymar spent much of his early career being compared with Pelé, another Santos product. At 173 cm, Pelé was about 2 cm shorter. Neymar finished his international career as Brazil's all-time top scorer with 80 goals and its leading provider of assists, with 59, across 130 caps, the second-most for the country. He appeared at four consecutive World Cups, from 2014 to 2026, scoring nine goals in 15 matches, before retiring from international football in 2026.

Against the modern target forward

The contrast with today's tallest strikers is stark. Erling Haaland, listed at 195 cm and 87 kg, is 20 cm taller and 18 kg heavier than Neymar. The two represent opposite ways of being an elite attacker: one built on reach, strength and aerial threat, the other on balance, feints and close control. Neymar's record shows how far the second route can go. Opta's performance statistics ranked him the best-performing player in Europe in both 2016–17 and 2017–18, ahead of Messi, and in 2020–21 he became the first player to score 20 Champions League goals for two different clubs.

You can line up any of these players in the height comparison tool to see the differences side by side.

How Neymar compares with the average Brazilian man

Neymar's height is almost exactly typical for his country and generation. According to the NCD-RisC estimates used on the site's Brazil average height page, Brazilian men born in 1996 reached an average adult height of 173.6 cm, up from 171.6 cm for men born in 1976 and 163.2 cm for men born in 1896. Neymar, born in 1992, is about 1.4 cm taller than the 1996 cohort average.

That century of growth is one of the clearest in the data. Brazilian men gained more than 10 cm in average height between the 1896 and 1996 birth cohorts, and Neymar's generation sits at the top of that curve.

For readers in the United States, the comparison is even closer. The CDC's measured national survey for 2015–2018 found that American men aged 20 and over averaged 175.3 cm, with a median of 175.4 cm. Neymar is, almost to the millimeter, a median American man. The height percentile calculator will place any height against the same reference data.

Weight and build

Neymar's listed weight is 69 kg, about 152 lb. Combined with his 175 cm height, that gives a body mass index of about 22.5, calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared (69 ÷ 1.75²).

Compared with other forwards on the site, he is light: Cristiano Ronaldo is listed at 85 kg and Kylian Mbappé at 75 kg, while Lionel Messi is listed at 72 kg. Neymar's lighter frame matches the Barcelona doctor's early remark and his reputation as a player who relies on speed and touch rather than strength. The body visualizer can show what a 175 cm, 69 kg build looks like next to other body types.

Fame far beyond the pitch

Neymar's profile outside football has been as large as his talent. In February 2013 he became the first Brazilian athlete on the cover of Time, in an issue that presented him as the next Pelé and used his career to explain Brazil's economy. In 2017 he was the only footballer on the Time 100 list of the world's most influential people. SportsPro has named him the world's most marketable athlete, and he has appeared regularly on Forbes' list of the highest-paid athletes.

Inside Brazil, the term Neymardependência, or Neymar dependency, became shorthand for how much the national team relied on him. A younger generation of players has since named him as their idol: after Paris Saint-Germain won the Champions League in 2025, Désiré Doué asked Marcelo to pass on his greetings to Neymar, and after Spain won the 2026 World Cup, Nico Williams dedicated the victory to him. David Beckham called him a once-in-a-generation talent. None of that reputation rests on physical size, which is the clearest sign that in football, a 175 cm frame is no barrier to the very top.

The bottom line

Neymar's 175 cm is about as ordinary as a superstar's height can be: close to the average man in Brazil and the median man in the United States. What made him extraordinary was never size. It was the balance, agility and close control that made him the most fouled player in Europe and Brazil's record goalscorer. For more footballers and athletes, browse the celebrities hub.