Ray Romano Still Earns $18M a Year From ‘Raymond’

Ray Romano hasn’t filmed a new episode of Everybody Loves Raymond in over two decades. He’s still depositing checks from it every year.

The beloved CBS sitcom ended its nine-season run on May 16, 2005, but Romano has continued to earn an estimated $18 million annually in residuals, according to figures reported by both Vanity Fair and Forbes. That income flows from syndication deals and the show’s continued life on streaming platforms like Paramount+ and Peacock — where audiences are still finding Ray Barone, his chaotic Long Island family, and those parents next door, all these years later.

The residuals were baked into Romano’s final-season contract, which was already historic on its own. For Season 9, he was pulling in nearly $2 million per episode to play sportswriter Ray Barone — a number that earned him a Guinness World Record as the highest-paid TV actor per episode at the time. The royalty clause attached to that deal meant that every future airing, every syndication package, every streaming license would keep the money coming long after the cameras stopped rolling.

According to Celebrity Net Worth, Romano is currently worth $200 million. While he’s had a full career beyond Raymond — the Ice Age franchise, Parenthood, acclaimed dramatic work in The Big Sick and Vinyl — the Raymond royalties remain the foundation of his fortune.

The Salary That Shook the Set

Romano’s payday didn’t stay quiet for long. When reports surfaced in 2003 that he was earning around $1.8 million a week as part of a $40 million deal for Season 8, his co-star Brad Garrett — who played older brother Robert Barone and was making approximately $160,000 per episode — had enough. Garrett refused to show up to work until his contract was renegotiated, and his character was briefly pulled from the first episode of the season while CBS threatened to write him out entirely.

What made the standoff more pointed was the fine print: Romano’s deal included royalties on reruns of older episodes, something Garrett hadn’t secured for himself. “Ray deserves every penny,” Garrett’s representative said at the time. “All Brad wants is compensation commensurate with what other similarly situated actors have made in the past and are making today.”

Patricia Heaton, Doris Roberts, and Peter Boyle backed Garrett up, calling in sick in solidarity. CBS eventually came to the table. According to Entertainment Weekly, Garrett’s pay was raised to $250,000 per episode for Season 8 and $315,000 for Season 9.

Romano, for his part, never blamed anyone. “When my salary came out in the papers, I knew stuff would happen,” he said at the time. “I’d do exactly the same thing.” He later told the New York Daily News he didn’t hold it against the cast or the network. “I’m loyal to both of them. I wanted it to get resolved, but I knew it had to play its course.”

Thirty Years Later, No Reboot in Sight

The cast — Romano, Garrett, and Heaton — reunited last November for the show’s 30th anniversary special, a celebration that also honored the late Doris Roberts and Peter Boyle, both of whom have passed away. The evening was warm, nostalgic, and a little bittersweet.

It was also a reminder of why Romano has been firm about one thing: there will not be a reboot. Earlier in 2025, he told the New York Post plainly that reviving the show without Roberts and Boyle simply doesn’t make sense. “We’re all heartbroken. They’re a big part of the show, the dynamic,” he said. “Without them, I don’t know what the dynamic is. We love the show too much, we respect it too much to even try to do it.”

So the show lives on the only way it can now — in syndication, on streaming, and apparently in Romano’s bank account. Twenty years gone, and Everybody Loves Raymond is still one of the best-paying jobs in television history.