What an FRC Team Costs

Registration is just the start

The most visible cost is the FIRST registration fee. For the current season the base season registration fee is $6,500, and it is the same for rookie and veteran teams. That fee already covers a fair amount:

• Your official FRC team number, if you are a new team.
• The Kit of Parts: the Kickoff Kit, the Virtual Kit, and FIRST Choice credits you redeem for components.
• Award eligibility.
• Event participation: one Regional event under the Regional model, or two District events under the District model.

Additional event costs

Most veteran teams attend more events than the fee covers. The figures FIRST publishes are:

• Additional Regional event: $3,200 each.
• Additional District event, in-district or inter-district: $1,000 each.
• District Championship: $4,000, paid only if you qualify.
• FIRST Championship: $6,000 if you advance.

Beyond registration: the real budget

A realistic team budget has to cover a lot more than registration and events:

• Robot parts and materials: motors (for example the REV NEO and NEO Vortex, or the CTR Electronics Kraken X60 and Falcon 500), gearboxes, wheels, metal stock, pneumatics, and batteries beyond what the Kit provides.
• Tools and shop equipment. For a new team this is often the single biggest one-time cost.
• Spare parts and a practice robot, since competitive teams often build two robots.
• Travel: buses, hotels, and food. For far events this can rival or exceed registration.
• Team apparel, branding, and outreach materials.
• Software and subscriptions, though much of the core FRC software is free. WPILib is one example.

FIRST publishes a "Median Team Budget" resource, revised Aug. 2025. Once parts, tools, and travel are counted, team budgets commonly run from roughly $15,000 to $30,000 or more per year, and well-resourced veteran teams spend far beyond that. The highest-budget teams exceed $200,000. For one documented example, FRC 6636 (Full Metal Beavers) reported spending about $15,622 on its program in 2018.

Rookie vs. veteran cost profiles

Rookies carry the heaviest first-year burden. Registration, tools, and starter parts all land in the same year, before the team has any fundraising track record. That is why rookie-focused grants exist, and those are covered later in this module. Veterans spend less on tools but more on travel, additional events, and more ambitious robot designs.

The takeaway

Never quote only the $6,500 fee when you explain costs to a sponsor or to your school. Build the full budget first. It tells you your true number, it lets you ask sponsors for an amount that actually covers it, and it keeps you out of the mid-season cash crunch that derails unprepared teams.