Yellow jersey statistics
Since the first Tour de France in 1903, there have been 2,289 stages, up to and including the final stage of the 2025 Tour de France. Since 1919, the race leader following each stage has been awarded the yellow jersey.
Although the leader of the classification after a stage gets a yellow jersey, he is not considered the winner of the yellow jersey, only the wearer. Only after the final stage, the wearer of the yellow jersey is considered the winner of the yellow jersey, and thereby the winner of the Tour de France.
In this article first-place-classifications before 1919 are also counted as if a yellow jersey was awarded. There have been more yellow jerseys given than there were stages: In 1914, 1929, and 1931, there were multiple cyclists with the same leading time, and the 1988 Tour de France had a "prelude", an extra stage for a select group of cyclists. As of 2021 a total of 2,208 yellow jerseys have been awarded in the Tour de France to 295 riders.
Individual records
In previous tours, sometimes a stage was broken in two. On such occasions, only the cyclist leading at the end of the day is counted. The "Jerseys" column lists the number of days that the cyclist wore the yellow jersey; the "Tour wins" column gives the number of times the cyclist won the general classification. The next four columns indicate the number of times the rider won the points classification, the King of the Mountains classification, and the young rider competition, and the years in which the yellow jersey was worn, with bold years indicating an overall Tour win. For example: Eddy Merckx has spent 96 days in the yellow jersey, won the general classification five times, won the points classification three times, and won the mountains classification twice, but never won the young rider classification. He wore the yellow jersey in the Tours of 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1974 and 1975. Three cyclists have won the Tour de France with only two yellow jerseys in their career.Until the results of Lance Armstrong were annulled for cheating in 2012, he was ranked second in this list, leading the Tour for 83 stages from 1999 to 2005. Alberto Contador was stripped of the yellow jersey and 6 days of wearing it in 2010 Tour de France because he tested positive for doping.
Fabian Cancellara is, as of 2024, the rider with the most yellow jerseys for someone who has not won the Tour with twenty-nine days in yellow.
This table is updated through the 2025 Tour de France.
| Cyclists who are still active |
| Cyclists who won the Tour de France |
| Rank | Name | Country | Yellow jerseys | Tour wins | Points | Mountains | Young rider | Years | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1 | Eddy Merckx |  Belgium#tag:ref|Merckx may have worn it 97 times, but out of respect for Luis Ocaña, who - then the race leader - crashed on 14th stage of the 1971 Tour and was forced to leave the race due to injury, refused to accept the yellow jersey during closing ceremony of this stage. His request not to wear it in the next stage was granted.|group="n"|name="n16"Number of wearers per yearThe largest number of riders wearing the yellow jersey in any year is 8. The smallest is 1.
Per countryThe yellow jersey has been awarded to 25 countries since 1903. In the table below, "Jerseys" indicates the number of yellow jerseys that were given to cyclists of each country. "Tour wins" stands for the number of tour wins by cyclists of that country, "Points" for the number of times the points classification was won by cyclist of that country, "Mountains" for the number of times the mountains classification in the Tour de France was won by a cyclist of that country, and "Young rider" for the number of times the young rider classification was won by a cyclist of that country.The "Most recent holder" column shows the cyclist of the country that wore the yellow jersey most recently. The "Different holders" column gives the number of cyclists of the country that wore the yellow jersey.
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France