When we announced increases in USEF membership, horse recording, and other fees (the first in more than eight years) last fall, members had a lot of questions — and a lot of frustrations. One of the most common questions we got was where money goes at US Equestrian. In a series kicking off today, we’ll try to make the answer to this question easier to understand.
Per USEF bylaws and US Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) requirements, the Federation undergoes an independent financial audit each year and is required to publish our audited financials and IRS Form 990. The most recent years’ documents are available on our website in the For The Record section here. In addition to our required independent financial audit annually, USEF also undergoes thorough audits from the USOPC every four years, which include a separate set of financial reviews.
Our 2025 audited financials are due to be published this week. If you’re not someone who regularly combs through financial documents, it can be easy to get lost or confused by a category with a broad name.
These charts break down the sources of revenue and spend from USEF in 2025.
The money that pays for USEF’s budget each year doesn’t just come from your dues. Membership dues and fees, including horse recording fees, made up 28% of USEF’s $38.7 million budget in 2025. The drugs and medications fee that competing members pay at licensed competitions made up another 15%, all of which goes right back out to pay for the more than 11,000 samples tested annually at 455 competitions, as well as the contractors who collect those samples at horse shows and the personnel who run the program. Next month’s Insider will feature an article that looks more closely at this program’s costs.
Event and team sponsorship makes up another 12% of USEF’s annual income. Competition dues and fees, which come from competition licensing, are another 12%. USET and USOPC funding comes in at 10% of our overall budget, and can only be used to support high performance programs. You can learn more about how high performance programs are funded here.
Then, there are smaller portions of the pie – sales of USEF merchandise, fees collected at specific championships or events, and investment activity. Like many non-profit organizations, USEF maintains an investment portfolio to remain financially diverse and, crucially, to be a source of funding in the event of an emergency. You’ll learn more about this in an article in the next USEF Insider newsletter.
On the expense side, fairness, safety, and welfare education make up 16% of expenses. This area covers a lot of services that are available to all members, even though many don't plan to ever need them. This includes our drugs and medications program, as well as our Regulations department, which processed 634 reports in 2025 alone. This also includes the Licensed Officials department, which licenses and maintains continuing education and evaluations for 2,204 officials who hold more than 4,000 combined licenses. In 2025, the department processed 248 applications, hosted 27 licensed officials’ education sessions, and handled 739 competition evaluations related to officials.
High performance sport programs also make up 16% of USEF’s expenses. Most people don’t realize that high performance sport programs bring in their own funding which pays entirely for those programs. Learn more in this Insider article.
Marketing and Communications makes up 11% of USEF’s expense distribution, which includes the staff who sell the sponsorships and advertising that makes up part of the income, as well as managing the USEF Network, which is available to all members and broadcasts 116 live streams last year. This department also creates written and multimedia content promoting equestrian sport across all 29 breeds and disciplines and produces six e-newsletters per month and five magazine issues per year for our members. The annual meeting, Pegasus and Horse of the Year awards programs, and USEF championship coverage falls within this area as well.
National breeds and disciplines and non-Olympic international disciplines programs are 10% of USEF expenses. That department maintains the rulebook and supports national sport, including USEF championships and events.
Information Technology, Executive and Legal, Finance/HR, Member, Competition, and Horse Services, and FEI expenses are all roughly 7% each of the expenses graph. The Information Technology Department created and maintains the member-facing functions for required trainings, results, horse services, and programs that include EZ Entry and Lifetime Care. Our Finance team processes more than 65,000 transactions per year and works to keep our members’ information secure throughout the process. The FEI expenses represent the FEI fees collected by USEF at international events which are paid through to the FEI to make the entry process easier for the competitor. The Horse Services teams fields 200-250 calls per week, and last year handled 34,755 horse applications, 3,766 passports, and over 1.7 million individual lines of results data. Competition Services handled the licensing process for 2,091 competitions in 2025, and investigated 1,967 reported compliance issues from officials and members and via site inspections.
Included in each of these sections is the cost of staff – the people who answer your phone calls, respond to your emails, keep our programs moving forward, and are on-site at competitions, providing you and your horses fairness, safety, and enjoyment. Those are also the people who see and hear the questions you have about how the organization works. If you have some you’d like to ask, reach out to [email protected]. They may become the subject of a future USEF Insider article.