Carnival
Compensation Insight

How Carnival Pays

Carnival's S1 to S10 shoreside ladder and its entirely separate M1 to M6 shipboard hierarchy, priced across 16 markets alongside 2020 Stock Plan RSUs, performance RSUs that settled at 170.4 percent of target, a 1993 ESPP, an $18.89M CEO package at 1,063:1, and 54 FY2026 H-1B filings.

~117,000 employees · NYSE: CCL · Carnival Corporation Ltd. · Miami, Florida · FY ends 30 November
Shipboard employees
101,000
Average active onboard employees during 2025, excluding those on leave between contracts. This population is priced separately from the shoreside ladder.
Shoreside employees
16,000
13,000 full-time plus 3,000 part-time or seasonal shoreside employees on average in 2025. A broader company narrative refers to more than 160,000 team members across the year.
Collective bargaining coverage
48% / 21%
Approximately 48 percent of shipboard and 21 percent of shoreside employees were covered by collective bargaining agreements in 2025.
CEO total pay
$18.89M
Josh Weinstein's FY2025 Summary Compensation Table total, of which $11.96 million was stock awards at grant-date value.
CEO pay ratio
1,063:1
Measured against a $17,773 median employee identified across a global workforce dominated by rotational shipboard contracts.
Performance RSU payout
170.4%
The 2023 to 2025 performance-share cycle certified on 10 February 2026 against a 0 to 200 percent opportunity. An executive long-term outcome, not the employee bonus.
FY2026 H-1B median
$115,440
Sponsor median guaranteed base across Carnival's FY2026 filings, with a 75th percentile of $138,258 across 54 labour condition applications.
FY2025 revenue
$26.6B
Record full-year revenue with $2.8 billion of net income and $7.2 billion of adjusted EBITDA; Q2 FY2026 revenue was $6.7 billion.
Locations
United States
United Kingdom
Australia
Germany
Italy
India
Philippines
1.00× base / 1.00× TC vs Miami

Band Hierarchy

Carnival publishes no global grade system and no title-to-grade catalogue. The S1 through S8 shoreside rows priced here are an analytical normalization built from current job postings, visa wage records and employee submissions. The shipboard M1 to M6 hierarchy is described but deliberately not priced on the same scale, because a fixed-length maritime contract with housing, meals and gratuities is not comparable to a twelve-month shoreside salary.

Shoreside ladder — S1 through S8

S8
Vice PresidentShoreside executive leadership · variable 23% · reported
Vice President, functional VP, regional VP
S7
Senior Director / Assistant Vice PresidentShoreside leadership · variable 17% · modeled
Senior director, assistant vice president, regional functional head
S6
DirectorShoreside leadership · variable 13% · reported
Functional director, brand director, director of product or operations
S5-T
Senior Manager, Delivery and SupportTechnology management · variable 12% · reported
Senior Manager Delivery and Support, engineering manager, IT service delivery lead
S5
Senior Manager / PrincipalShoreside management · variable 12% · verified
Senior Manager Restaurant and Bar Operations, senior operations manager, principal specialist
S4
ManagerShoreside management · variable 10% · verified
Manager Deployment and Marine Itinerary Planning, product manager, project manager, functional manager
S4-M
Technical / Marine SuperintendentMarine technical management · variable 10% · verified
Electrical Superintendent, technical superintendent, newbuild and refit technical lead
S3-T
Senior Software Engineer / Senior DBATechnology individual contributor · variable 7% · reported
Senior Software Engineer, Senior Database Administrator, senior platform and integration engineer
S3
Senior Analyst / Senior SpecialistShoreside professional · variable 7% · verified
Senior Analyst Finance, Senior Analyst Benefits ADA and Leave, senior compensation analyst, senior recruiter
S2-T
Solutions Developer / Technology AnalystTechnology individual contributor · variable 6% · reported
Solutions Developer, application developer, data and reporting analyst
S2
Analyst / SpecialistShoreside professional · variable 6% · verified
Performance Analytics Analyst, Analyst Onboard Revenue, Demand and Revenue Management Analyst, business analyst
S1
Coordinator / Personal Cruise AdvisorShoreside operations · variable 5% · modeled
Coordinator, Personal Cruise Advisor, junior recruiter, operations assistant, contact-centre agent

Disclosed executive layer

Chief Executive Officer
Josh Weinstein
Fully disclosed in the 2026 proxy statement, including salary, annual incentive, stock awards, other compensation and the CEO pay ratio.
Corporate C-suite
David Bernstein as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Accounting Officer, Bettina Deynes as Chief Human Resources Officer, Enrique Miguez as General Counsel, Lars Ljoen as Chief Maritime Officer
Named executive officers with Summary Compensation Table disclosure. Lars Ljoen's salary and annual incentive were not separately verified in the retrieved proxy extract.
Brand presidents
Christine Duffy at Carnival Cruise Line, Felix Eichhorn at AIDA, Paul Ludlow at Carnival UK and P&O Cruises, Mario Zanetti at Costa, Beth Bodensteiner at Holland America Line, Gustavo Antorcha at Princess, Mark Tamis at Seabourn
Named in the leadership catalogue but not in any compensation table. No brand president appears as a named executive officer, so their pay is not public.
Board of directors
Micky Arison as chair, plus Randall Weisenburger, Jonathon Band, Laura Weil, Stuart Subotnick, Jeffrey Gearhart and others
FY2025 director totals ranged from $45,495 for a part-year director to $418,661, disclosed in the proxy. This is a governance package rather than an employment band.
VerifiedS1 to S8 and M1 to M6 are analytical normalizations for navigation and comparison. They are not Carnival job grades and no Carnival document uses them.

Track divergence

S1 to S3
Cash only. Every observed package at these levels is base plus a confirmed but unquantified annual cash bonus, with no equity indicated in any current US posting. The Miami analyst and senior-analyst ranges overlap almost entirely, so the title step is larger than the pay step.
S2-T to S5-T technology track
Sponsored technology roles read materially higher than same-band commercial roles. A senior engineer record at $125,445 sits above the first-line manager anchor of $105,300, and the senior technology manager record of $138,258 sits above the senior operations manager anchor of $117,500.
S4-M marine technical track
Superintendents compete with the marine and offshore labour market rather than the corporate market. The Seattle Electrical Superintendent range of $83,200 to $112,300 sits below the commercial manager range despite carrying licence-level technical authority.
S6 and above
Director is the first level at which current US recruiting language says discretionary equity may apply, and the observed vice president package carries a $41,000 to $76,000 stock component. Between director and vice president the equity share of the package moves from zero disclosed to roughly a fifth.
M1 to M6 shipboard
A parallel hierarchy running cadet, rating, officer, senior officer, staff captain or chief engineer, and captain. Progression is governed by maritime licences and certification rather than corporate grades, and pay is set by brand, flag, itinerary, nationality and collective agreement.

Hierarchy qualifications and legacy structures

  • Carnival describes structured goal setting, check-ins, formal evaluations and succession pipelines in its Form 10-K, but it has never published a numerical grade system or a title-to-grade catalogue for any brand.
  • The group operates eight consumer brands, Carnival Cruise Line, Princess, Holland America Line, Seabourn, P&O Cruises, Cunard, AIDA and Costa, each of which can use different titles and market practices for economically similar roles. A single harmonised ladder should not be assumed simply because they share a parent.
  • P&O Cruises Australia was integrated into Carnival Cruise Line during 2025, so historical P&O Australia titles and pay observations carry a legacy break and are not treated as a separate ongoing hierarchy.
  • The May 2026 unification of the dual-listed company simplified the legal and listing structure but Carnival stated it did not change team-member roles, leadership or underlying operations. It is not evidence of pay-band harmonisation.
  • Roughly 48 percent of shipboard and 21 percent of shoreside employees were covered by collective bargaining agreements in 2025, so for a substantial minority of the workforce pay is set by agreement rather than by any company band structure.
  • Only the chief executive, the named executive officers and the board carry a disclosed compensation figure. Every row below them in this report is a third-party observation or a model built on one.

Peer-level mapping

BandArchetypePeer mappingCaveat
S1Coordinator / Personal Cruise AdvisorRoyal Caribbean guest services coordinator, Norwegian reservations agent, Hilton and Marriott corporate coordinatorCruise-line entry titles vary by brand and are not standardised across Carnival's own eight brands, so this row is scope-based orientation only.No Miami entry-level range is published. Set below the $72,200 floor of the lowest employer-posted Miami analyst range and cross-checked against the Southampton Personal Cruise Advisor observation of £17,000 to £22,000.
S2Analyst / SpecialistRoyal Caribbean revenue analyst, Norwegian pricing analyst, Marriott corporate analystCarnival publishes no peer-level crosswalk; the mapping compares observed scope rather than any grade equivalence.Midpoint of the Miami Performance Analytics Analyst posted range of $72,200 to $97,500. The annual cash bonus is confirmed by current US recruiting language but no target percentage is published, so the bonus line is modeled.
S2-TSolutions Developer / Technology AnalystRoyal Caribbean software developer, Norwegian application analyst, Booking Holdings developerTechnology roles sit in the same normalized band as commercial analysts but are recruited against a separate labour market.Doral labour condition application guaranteed base of $83,658 for a Solutions Developer. A $68,474 Analyst, Onboard Revenue record and an $82,867 FOC Watch Leader record sit in the same cluster.
S3Senior Analyst / Senior SpecialistRoyal Caribbean senior analyst, Norwegian senior specialist, Hilton senior corporate analystThe Miami and Seattle senior-analyst ranges overlap the analyst ranges almost entirely, so the step between S2 and S3 is smaller than a title change implies.Set in the upper half of the two employer-posted senior-analyst ranges, Miami Senior Analyst Finance at $71,200 to $96,100 and Seattle Senior Analyst Benefits at $70,000 to $95,000, so the senior professional row sits above the analyst row.
S3-TSenior Software Engineer / Senior DBARoyal Caribbean senior software engineer, Norwegian senior systems engineer, Booking Holdings senior engineerThese are visa wage records for sponsored roles, which skew technical and are guaranteed base only with no bonus or equity attached.Midpoint of the Fort Lauderdale Senior Software Engineer record at $125,445 and the Tampa Senior Database Administrator record at $103,917. The FY2026 sponsor median across all Carnival filings was $115,440.
S4-MTechnical / Marine SuperintendentRoyal Caribbean marine superintendent, Norwegian technical superintendent, V.Group technical managerSuperintendent roles compete with the marine and offshore labour market rather than the corporate market, so a like-titled manager comparison misleads.Midpoint of the Seattle Electrical Superintendent posted range of $83,200 to $112,300, carried as the US anchor because no Miami superintendent range was published.
S4ManagerRoyal Caribbean manager of itinerary planning, Norwegian deployment manager, Marriott corporate managerFirst-line management at Carnival can sit below a senior technology individual contributor on cash, which is visible in this ladder.Midpoint of the Seattle Manager, Deployment and Marine Itinerary Planning posted range of $89,600 to $121,000.
S5Senior Manager / PrincipalRoyal Caribbean senior manager of onboard revenue, Norwegian senior manager of hotel operationsThis row rests on a single employer-posted snapshot, so it should be read as one observation rather than a band.Midpoint of the Seattle Senior Manager, Restaurant and Bar Operations posted range of $100,000 to $135,000.
S5-TSenior Manager, Delivery and SupportRoyal Caribbean senior manager of technology delivery, Norwegian IT delivery managerA single visa wage record. It is guaranteed base only and happens to be Carnival's disclosed FY2026 H-1B 75th percentile.Miami and Doral labour condition application record of $138,258 for a Senior Manager, Delivery and Support, which is also the FY2026 sponsor 75th percentile.
S6DirectorRoyal Caribbean director, Norwegian director, Marriott and Hilton corporate directorEight Glassdoor submissions. Director is the first level at which current US postings say discretionary equity may apply, but no grant value is disclosed anywhere.Glassdoor Miami director submissions: base $116,000 to $177,000, total $130,000 to $203,000 and a median bonus of $19,000 across eight submissions. Equity is carried as a real zero because no grant value exists in any source.
S7Senior Director / Assistant Vice PresidentRoyal Caribbean senior director, Norwegian AVP, large-cap hospitality senior directorNo employer-posted or crowdsourced Carnival range exists at this level; the row is interpolated between the director and vice president observations.Modeled between the Miami director and vice president observations. The equity line is a planning placeholder inside the disclosed director-and-above eligibility, not a disclosed grant.
S8Vice PresidentRoyal Caribbean vice president, Norwegian vice president, large-cap hospitality VPEight Glassdoor submissions with a disclosed stock component of $41,000 to $76,000. Brand presidents and corporate officers sit above this row and appear only in the proxy.Glassdoor Carnival Corporation vice president submissions: base $154,000 to $246,000, total $227,000 to $381,000 and stock of $41,000 to $76,000. The bonus line is the residual once the observed base and stock midpoints are removed from the observed total midpoint.

Critical evidence warning

Carnival does not publish grade codes, salary minima, midpoints or maxima, ordinary bonus targets, band-level equity grants, appraisal rating labels or a promotion matrix, and the FY2025 Form 10-K and 2026 proxy statement disclose pay only for named executives and directors. The S1 through S8 rows here are an analytical normalization: the strongest evidence is six current employer-posted US salary ranges, six labour condition application wage records and two Glassdoor samples of eight submissions each, and everything outside the United States is a crowdsourced total-pay estimate rather than an employer range. Use these figures for orientation, never as a quote of a Carnival pay band, and never apply the shoreside ladder to a shipboard contract.


Compensation by Band — Miami

Low / median / high annual values at 1.00× base and 1.00× total-compensation factors versus Miami. Total equals base plus bonus plus annualized equity.

BandTitleBaseVariableTotal TCEquity
S1
Coordinator / Personal Cruise Advisor
0–2 years · modeled
$49K$67K5%
$61K
$52K$70K
S2
Analyst / Specialist
1–4 years · verified
$72K$98K6%
$90K
$76K$103K
S2-T
Solutions Developer / Technology Analyst
2–5 years · reported
$71K$96K6%
$89K
$75K$102K
S3
Senior Analyst / Senior Specialist
3–7 years · verified
$75K$101K7%
$94K
$80K$108K
S3-T
Senior Software Engineer / Senior DBA
5–10 years · reported
$97K$132K7%
$123K
$104K$141K
S4-M
Technical / Marine Superintendent
6–12 years plus a marine engineering background · verified
$83K$112K10%
$108K
$91K$124K
S4
Manager
6–10 years · verified
$90K$121K10%
$116K
$98K$133K
S5
Senior Manager / Principal
8–14 years · verified
$100K$135K12%
$132K
$112K$151K
S5-T
Senior Manager, Delivery and Support
10–15 years · reported
$118K$159K12%
$155K
$132K$178K
S6
Director
10–18 years · reported
$125K$168K13%
$166K
$141K$190K
S7
Senior Director / Assistant Vice President
12–20 years · modeled
$146K$198K17%
$227K
$193K$261K
$25K
S8
Vice President
15–25 years · reported
$170K$230K23%
$304K
$258K$350K
$59K
Named as a principal shoreside operation in the FY2025 Form 10-K · 6 reported band cellsReportedModeledVerifiedWhere an employer-posted range exists the anchor is its arithmetic midpoint, which is not an employee-weighted median. Base and total are shown inside a plus or minus 15 percent planning envelope around that midpoint; equity, where disclosed at all, uses plus or minus 25 percent.

Total Compensation Range by Band

Total compensation in Miami across the employee bands. Ranges are planning envelopes around the median, not offer bands.

S1$52K$70KS2$76K$103KS2-T$75K$102KS3$80K$108KS3-T$104K$141KS4-M$91K$124KS4$98K$133KS5$112K$151KS5-T$132K$178KS6$141K$190KS7$193K$261KS8$258K$350K$0$50K$100K$150K$200K$250K$300K$350K

Global Footprint & Pay Arbitrage

Miami and Southampton are the only two shoreside operations the FY2025 Form 10-K names as principal. Seattle, Santa Clarita, Sydney, Rostock and Genoa are significant brand hubs, but Carnival publishes no city-level headcount anywhere. Miami is the pay anchor and every other market is calibrated against it.

101,000
Average active shipboard employees in 2025
16,000
Average shoreside employees, 13,000 of them full-time
16
Markets modelled in this report, across seven countries
8
Consumer brands, each with its own title conventions

Office and market catalogue — calibration factors versus Miami

LocationLikely office profilePresenceBaseTC
Miami
United States · USD
Global headquarters at Doral, Carnival Cruise Line brand operations and every corporate functionNamed as a principal shoreside operation in the FY2025 Form 10-K1.00×1.00×
Seattle
United States · USD
Holland America Line and Seabourn brand headquarters plus marine, deployment and support functionsOfficial brand headquarters with five current employer-posted salary ranges0.99×0.99×
Santa Clarita
United States · USD
Princess Cruises brand operations; a verified office with no verified Carnival salary rangeOfficial brand office; carried at anchor parity rather than a fabricated differential1.00×1.00×
Fort Lauderdale
United States · USD
South Florida cruise operations and a technology worksite appearing in labour condition application recordsOne Senior Software Engineer visa wage record at $125,4451.00×1.00×
Tampa
United States · USD
Florida worksite covering remote and technology roles rather than a brand headquartersOne Senior Database Administrator visa wage record at $103,9171.00×1.00×
Southampton
United Kingdom · GBP
Carnival UK headquarters running P&O Cruises and Cunard; the second principal shoreside operationNamed as a principal shoreside operation in the FY2025 Form 10-K0.46×0.44×
London
United Kingdom · GBP
Commercial, legal and support roles with no verified London-specific salary rangeVerified but limited; carried at Southampton parity rather than a London premium0.46×0.44×
Sydney
Australia · AUD
Carnival Australia headquarters and regional operations, reshaped by the 2025 P&O Cruises Australia integrationOfficial regional headquarters with three sparse employee-reported observations0.80×0.78×
Brisbane
Australia · AUD
Regional cruise operations and port-facing activity with no verified salary rangeVerified but limited; carried at Sydney parity0.80×0.78×
Melbourne
Australia · AUD
Regional commercial activity with no verified Carnival salary rangeVerified but limited; carried at Sydney parity0.80×0.78×
Rostock
Germany · EUR
AIDA Cruises headquarters, the largest continental European hub and the source of most German pay evidenceOfficial brand headquarters with six crowdsourced observations and a published benefit page0.70×0.64×
Hamburg
Germany · EUR
Commercial and maritime ecosystem presence with no verified Carnival salary ladderVerified but limited; carried at Rostock parity0.70×0.64×
Genoa
Italy · EUR
Costa Cruises headquarters and the centre of Carnival's southern European operationOfficial brand headquarters with two sparse employee-reported observations0.45×0.41×
Rome
Italy · EUR
Commercial and regional support activity with no verified location-specific rangeVerified but limited; carried at Genoa parity0.45×0.41×
Mumbai
India · INR
Carnival Support Services India, a crew recruitment, deployment and support entity rather than a corporate delivery centreOfficial entity that reported deploying more than 22,000 personnel in 20230.06×0.06×
Manila
Philippines · PHP
Carnival recruiting, training and crew payroll support; the largest seafarer sourcing hub in the groupOfficial footprint with no verified Carnival salary range; carried at Mumbai parity0.06×0.06×

Carnival also operates verified destination and port businesses at Nassau, Grand Bahama and Celebration Key, and Grand Turk, and a crew sourcing and training footprint in Manila. No shoreside compensation was verified for any Caribbean destination, and some of that work involves contractors and joint-venture personnel rather than Carnival employees, so those locations are described here but not priced. Bengaluru, Jakarta, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Shanghai and Vancouver were checked and no material current Carnival employment hub was verified in any of them.

Miami anchor medians — the basis of every modeled cell

BandBaseStockBonusTotal
S2$85K$0$5K$90K
S2-T$84K$0$5K$89K
S3$88K$0$6K$94K
S3-T$115K$0$8K$123K
S4-M$98K$0$10K$108K
S4$105K$0$11K$116K
S5$118K$0$14K$132K
S5-T$138K$0$17K$155K
S6$147K$0$19K$166K
S8$200K$59K$46K$304K
  • Miami is the anchor because it is the verified global headquarters. The original research brief defaulted to Bangalore, but no material Carnival office was verified there, so Bengaluru is recorded as a research gap rather than presented as an office.
  • The strongest Miami evidence is two current employer-posted ranges, a Performance Analytics Analyst at $72,200 to $97,500 and a Senior Analyst, Finance at $71,200 to $96,100, plus Glassdoor director and vice president samples of eight submissions each.
  • Four Seattle employer-posted ranges are used as US anchors for the manager, superintendent and senior manager rows, because Carnival published no equivalent Miami postings. Seattle and Miami analyst midpoints differ by under 1 percent, which is why Seattle carries a 0.99 factor rather than a materially different one.
  • Southampton is the only non-US market with more than a handful of observations, and every one of them is a crowdsourced total-pay estimate rather than an employer-posted range. UK total pay reads about 44 percent of Miami at entry level and about 65 percent at the manager band, which is why Southampton and London carry separate junior and senior factors.
  • Mumbai runs the opposite way. Observed pay falls from about 6 percent of the Miami anchor at coordinator level to under 3 percent at head-of-operations level, because Carnival Support Services India is a crew recruitment and deployment entity rather than a corporate delivery centre. A flat factor is used and no seniority interpolation is applied.
  • Executive pay is a global parent-company disclosure. It does not change when the location selector changes, and no named executive officer or brand president row appears in the priced ladder.

Model rules

  • Every modeled cell is the Miami anchor midpoint multiplied by the city base or total factor and then by the locked 25 August 2026 foreign-exchange snapshot. No cell is a payroll or tax calculation.
  • Total compensation is base plus the modeled annual cash bonus plus any disclosed equity. No employer benefit load, superannuation, pension contribution, provident fund or 13th-month payment is added into total pay, because those are employer cost rather than pay to the employee.
  • Bonus lines below the named executive level are modeled. Carnival confirms that US non-sales roles participate in an annual cash bonus and sales roles have an incentive plan, but publishes no target percentage for any band.
  • Equity is carried as a real zero below director because current US recruiting language reserves discretionary equity for director and above, and the Form 10-K states awards are principally for management-level employees and directors.
  • Markets with a verified Carnival presence but no verified salary range, Santa Clarita, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, London, Brisbane, Melbourne, Hamburg, Rome and Manila, are carried at parity with the nearest evidenced market rather than given a fabricated differential. Their cells are planning envelopes, not benchmarks.
  • Monthly maritime contract rates, such as the AIDA First Engineer posting at €5,432 a month, are deliberately not annualized, because the paid-month and rotation pattern is not disclosed.

Variable Pay & Annual Cash Incentive

Carnival discloses its executive incentive design in the proxy and discloses nothing quantitative about the employee bonus grid. Current US recruiting language confirms that every non-sales role participates in an annual cash bonus programme and that sales roles have an incentive plan, but no target percentage, payout curve, payment month or proration rule is published for any band below the named executive level.

BandTargetMechanismRecent payout
S1
Coordinator / Personal Cruise Advisor
Not publicly disclosedAnnual cash bonus for US non-sales roles; contact-centre and sales roles move to an incentive plan.Not publicly disclosed
S2
Analyst / Specialist
Not publicly disclosedAnnual cash bonus confirmed in current US postings with no quantified target.Not publicly disclosed
S3
Senior Analyst / Senior Specialist
Not publicly disclosedAnnual cash bonus confirmed in current US postings with no quantified target.Not publicly disclosed
S4
Manager / Technical Superintendent
Not publicly disclosedAnnual cash bonus. Current wording reserves potential discretionary equity for director and above, so the manager package is cash only.Not publicly disclosed
S5
Senior Manager / Principal
Not publicly disclosedAnnual cash bonus; equity is not indicated until director in current US postings.Not publicly disclosed
S6
Director
Approximately 13% of base impliedAnnual cash incentive, plus discretionary equity for which director is the stated eligibility threshold.Median bonus of $19,000 across eight Miami director submissions
S7
Senior Director / Assistant Vice President
Not publicly disclosedAnnual cash incentive with discretionary equity; award mix depends on role, market, performance and retention need.Not publicly disclosed
S8
Vice President
Approximately 23% of base impliedAnnual cash incentive plus discretionary equity within the management-level award population.Implied from the $227,000 to $381,000 observed total range net of base and stock
S9–S10
Brand president and corporate C-suite
Not publicly disclosed except for named executivesAnnual cash incentive on Compensation Committee financial, operational and strategic measures, plus time- and performance-based RSUs.170.4% of target on the 2023 to 2025 performance-RSU cycle
M1–M6
Shipboard ratings, officers and command
Not publicly disclosedMay include gratuities, service charges, contract allowances or role incentives depending on brand, flag, itinerary and collective agreement.Not publicly disclosed
ModeledVerifiedThe 2026 proxy identifies structured annual and long-term incentives tied to financial, operational and strategic measures approved by the Compensation Committee, but the retrieved disclosure does not expose a target percentage of salary for any named executive. The clearest quantified outcome in the file is the 2023 to 2025 performance-RSU cycle, which the committee certified at 170.4 percent of target against a 0 to 200 percent opportunity and which settled on 10 February 2026. Target rows above are shown as zero because no target figure exists in any source, not because the target is zero.

Executive incentive targets — percent of salary

Chief Executive Officer
Not publicly disclosed as a percentage
The FY2025 non-equity incentive payout was $5,420,100 against a $1,435,577 salary, so the realised annual cash incentive was roughly 3.8 times salary.
Chief Financial Officer and Chief Accounting Officer
Not publicly disclosed as a percentage
FY2025 payout of $2,523,150 against a $988,462 salary, roughly 2.6 times salary.
General Counsel
Not publicly disclosed as a percentage
FY2025 payout of $1,168,125 against a $692,789 salary, roughly 1.7 times salary.
Chief Human Resources Officer
Not publicly disclosed as a percentage
FY2025 payout of $934,500 against a $568,269 salary, roughly 1.6 times salary.
Chief Maritime Officer
Not publicly disclosed
Salary and annual incentive were not separately verified in the retrieved proxy extract; the disclosed total was $2,826,115 including $977,672 of stock.

Named-executive outcomes

ExecutiveTargetPaidAttainment
Josh Weinstein$0$5,420,100Target not disclosed; 170.4% certified on the 2023–2025 performance-RSU cycle
David Bernstein$0$2,523,150Target not disclosed; 170.4% certified on the 2023–2025 performance-RSU cycle
Enrique Miguez$0$1,168,125Target not disclosed
Bettina Deynes$0$934,500Target not disclosed

Employee payout timing and history

No defensible companywide ordinary-employee bonus payout percentage was located for FY2023, FY2024 or FY2025, and no companywide 2025 or 2026 salary-hike percentage, freeze or cut announcement was found in the two-year review window. Financial performance improved materially through FY2025 and the second quarter of FY2026, but strong results do not prove a specific employee bonus or salary outcome, and the absence of an announcement is not evidence that no changes occurred.

Sales and special incentives

Current US recruiting language separates sales roles onto an incentive plan rather than the annual cash bonus. The cadence, whether monthly, quarterly or annual, the metrics and the payout curve are all undisclosed. Onboard revenue roles, personal cruise advisors and trade sales roles are the populations most likely to sit on that plan.


Equity — RSUs, PSUs, Options & ESPP

Carnival is a US issuer, so employee equity means restricted share units, performance restricted share units and an employee stock purchase plan rather than an Indian-style employee stock ownership plan. The 2020 Stock Plan permits options and stock appreciation rights, but the awards actually granted are time-based and performance-based share units, and the practical eligibility threshold in current US recruiting language is director and above.

Carnival Corporation Ltd. 2020 Stock Plan
Active; approved 6 April 2020 and amended through 8 May 2026
Verified
Permits stock options, stock appreciation rights, restricted shares, time-based restricted share units, performance-based restricted share units and other share-based awards. Options and appreciation rights must be priced at no less than 100 percent of fair market value with a maximum ten-year term. Awards generally vest over three years. Shares purchased in the market or unissued and treasury shares may satisfy awards.
Reserve: 46,650,000 shares authorised with 22,700,000 available for future grant at 30 November 2025 and 12,564,103 awards outstanding
FY2025 Form 10-K, 2026 proxy statement and the 2020 Stock Plan as amended
1993 Employee Stock Purchase Plan
Active legacy plan; additional shares registered on Form S-8 in June 2025
Verified
Payroll-deduction share purchase advertised in current US job postings alongside the 401(k), health and travel benefits. The 2026 purchase discount, lookback period, contribution limits and the list of eligible employing entities were not verified in any retrieved source and should not be assumed to match a typical 15 percent plan.
Reserve: Share count registered by S-8 filing rather than a disclosed remaining balance
Current Carnival US job postings and the June 2025 Form S-8
Carnival plc 2005 Employee Stock Purchase Plan
Legacy; transitioned during the May 2026 unification
Verified
A legacy UK and North American employee share purchase plan. Former Carnival plc interests were converted one-for-one in connection with the unification into Carnival Corporation Ltd. Post-unification participation mechanics should be verified from current plan administration materials rather than assumed to have continued unchanged in every country.
Reserve: Not separately disclosed after the unification
Shareholder FAQ on the dual-listed-company unification and Bermuda redomiciliation
  • FY2025 grants totalled 6,025,742 shares at a weighted-average grant-date fair value of $17.76, against a 25 August 2026 close of $26.14.
  • Unrecognised compensation cost was $157 million at 30 November 2025, expected to be recognised over a weighted-average 1.6 years.
  • A simple capacity calculation of 46,650,000 authorised less 22,700,000 available implies 23,950,000 shares, or 51.3 percent, used or committed. This is directional only: plan recycling and forfeiture rules affect legal availability, so it is not an accounting utilisation measure.
  • Outstanding awards of 12,564,103 are not the same thing as cumulative shares used, because settled and forfeited awards leave the outstanding balance without leaving the used figure.
  • The Form 10-K states that equity awards are principally granted to management-level employees and directors, which is the closest Carnival comes to publishing an eligibility rule.

2020 Stock Plan capacity at 30 November 2025

46.65M
Shares authorised
The absolute plan limit, subject to the plan's own share-counting rules.
22.70M
Available for future grant
48.7 percent of the authorisation remained available at the FY2025 year end.
12.56M
Awards outstanding
26.9 percent of the authorisation; outstanding is not the same as cumulative shares used.
6.03M
Granted during FY2025
At a weighted-average grant-date fair value of $17.76 per share.
$157M
Unrecognised compensation cost
Expected to be recognised over a weighted-average 1.6 years.
51.3%
Simple capacity used or committed
Derived from 46.65 million less 22.70 million. Directional only, not an accounting measure.

Vesting — common reported employee schedule

Grant
0%
+Awards accumulate dividend equivalents and settle only in shares · annual tranche
Year 1
33%
+33% — first pro-rata tranche, April for the 2026 executive grants · annual tranche
Year 2
67%
+33% — second pro-rata tranche · annual tranche
Year 3
100%
+33% — final tranche for time-based awards · annual tranche
Performance cycle
0% until certification
+Cliff settlement after a three-year performance period at 0% to 200% of target · annual tranche

Time-based awards vest pro rata over three years. Josh Weinstein's 8 May 2026 grant of 190,965 units and Bettina Deynes's grant of 20,778 units both vest one third in April 2027, 2028 and 2029, accumulate dividend equivalents and settle only in shares. Performance awards work differently: they cliff-settle after a three-year period at anywhere between 0 and 200 percent of target, and the 2023 to 2025 cycle settled at 170.4 percent on 10 February 2026, one share per vested unit subject to tax withholding.

Eligibility by hierarchy level

  • S1 to S3: no routine grant disclosed. US employees may have ESPP access, but ordinary restricted share unit grants are not indicated by any current posting.
  • S4 to S5: no routine grant disclosed. Annual cash bonus only; current US wording points to director as the potential discretionary-equity threshold.
  • S6 director: may be eligible. Grants are discretionary and commonly annual for selected leaders, driven by role, performance, retention need and management or Compensation Committee decisions. No grant size is published.
  • S7 to S9: likely within the management-level award population described in the Form 10-K, but not automatic. Award mix and value depend on role, market, performance and succession considerations.
  • S10 named executives: yes. Actual grants are disclosed in the proxy and in Forms 4, in time- and performance-based restricted share units, with no standard band schedule.
  • M1 to M6 shipboard: not publicly disclosed. Do not assume the shoreside director threshold applies to a maritime contract.

Indicative annual grant value by band — Miami

BandAnnual value (USD)MedianShares at $26.14
S7$19K$31K$25K~7171,195
S8$44K$73K$59K~1,6782,797

Annualized planning value (±25%), not the face value of every new-hire grant. Share equivalents use the $26.14 reference price at 25 August 2026 close and ignore plan valuation rules and PSU performance. Highlighted rows are disclosed grant-date stock awards.

Named executive target equity

ExecutiveTargetUnits / structure
Josh Weinstein
Chief Executive Officer
$11,961,027 of FY2025 stock awards at grant-date valueMix of time- and performance-based restricted share units. A further 190,965 time-based units were granted on 8 May 2026 vesting pro rata in April 2027, 2028 and 2029.
David Bernstein
Chief Financial Officer and Chief Accounting Officer
$3,364,685 of FY2025 stock awardsTime- and performance-based units. 333,805 performance units settled on 10 February 2026 at 170.4 percent of target.
Enrique Miguez
General Counsel
$1,543,466 of FY2025 stock awardsTime- and performance-based units under the 2020 Stock Plan.
Bettina Deynes
Chief Human Resources Officer
$1,354,193 of FY2025 stock awardsTime- and performance-based units. A further 20,778 time-based units were granted on 8 May 2026 with three-year pro-rata vesting.
Lars Ljoen
Chief Maritime Officer
$977,672 of FY2025 stock awardsTime- and performance-based units; salary and annual incentive were not separately verified.
VerifiedThe employee stock purchase plan is the only equity component an ordinary Carnival employee is evidenced to have access to, and it is also the least documented. Current US postings advertise it consistently and a June 2025 Form S-8 registered additional shares under the 1993 plan, but the discount, lookback, purchase cadence, contribution cap and the list of eligible employing entities were not verified anywhere in the source register. An ESPP is an employee-funded purchase opportunity, not employer-granted equity, and it should never be added into a total compensation figure without knowing the employee contribution and the discount.

Executive Compensation

FY2025 Summary Compensation Table values from the 2026 proxy statement, covering the year ended 30 November 2025. Stock is a grant-date accounting value rather than cash received, and for a package that is roughly 63 percent stock the two diverge sharply.

CEO total — Josh Weinstein
$18.89M
Stock awards are 63.3% of the reported total; salary 8% and non-equity incentive 29%
8%
29%
63%
Salary $1.44M
Incentive $5.42M
Equity $11.96M
Base salary$1,435,577
Non-equity annual incentive$5,420,100
Stock awards at grant-date value$11,961,027
All other compensation$71,072
Reported total$18,887,776

Reading the package

Salary was 7.6 percent of the FY2025 reported total, the annual cash incentive 28.7 percent and stock awards 63.3 percent. The stock figure is grant-date fair value, not realised gain. Realised value ran ahead of it during 2026: 635,820 performance units settled on 10 February 2026 at 170.4 percent of target, worth about $21.1 million at the same-day withholding price, with 271,172 shares withheld for tax.

CEO-to-median-employee ratio
1,063:1
Median employee $17,773 · The median employee is identified across the whole global workforce, which in Carnival's case is dominated by rotational shipboard contracts held largely by employees resident outside the United States. It is not a United States median and it is not a full-year salary for many of the people in it, which is why cruise-industry ratios sit an order of magnitude above technology or banking ratios..
Peer CEO comparison
Royal Caribbean Group · Jason Liberty · FY2025$23.98M
Royal Caribbean 2026 proxy statement; pay ratio 1,260:1 against a $19,027 median
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings · Harry Sommer · FY2025$13.75M
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings 2026 proxy statement; pay ratio approximately 530:1

Carnival sits in the middle of the listed cruise trio on chief executive pay and in the middle on pay ratio. All three ratios are elevated for the same structural reason: a global shipboard workforce on seasonal and rotational patterns pulls the median employee figure down to between $17,000 and $20,000. Comparing a cruise-line pay ratio with a technology or banking ratio compares workforce composition, not executive restraint.


Named Executive Officers & Board

Carnival runs a corporate C-suite alongside seven brand presidents. Only the chief executive and four other corporate officers appear in the FY2025 compensation tables; no brand president does, so the pay of the people running Carnival Cruise Line, Princess, Holland America Line, Seabourn, P&O Cruises and Cunard, AIDA and Costa is not public.

Josh Weinstein · Chief Executive Officer$18.89M
Salary $1.44M · Cash incentive $5.42M · Stock $11.96M · Other $71K · Equity 63.3%
David Bernstein · Chief Financial Officer and Chief Accounting Officer$6.94M
Salary $988K · Cash incentive $2.52M · Stock $3.36M · Other $63K · Equity 48.5%
Enrique Miguez · General Counsel$3.46M
Salary $693K · Cash incentive $1.17M · Stock $1.54M · Other $58K · Equity 44.6%
Bettina Deynes · Chief Human Resources Officer$2.89M
Salary $568K · Cash incentive $935K · Stock $1.35M · Other $30K · Equity 46.9%

Lars Ljoen, Chief Maritime Officer, was a named executive officer for FY2025 with a disclosed total of $2,826,115 including $977,672 of stock awards and $224,914 of other compensation, but his salary and annual incentive were not separately verified in the retrieved proxy extract, so he is described here rather than shown as a reconciled row. Micky Arison, the founding family chair, took $126,507 of director compensation rather than executive pay in FY2025.

Board compensation framework

ElementAmountNotes
Highest FY2025 director total$418,661Randall Weisenburger, reflecting committee chair responsibilities.
Typical continuing director total$328,661 to $358,661Helen Deeble, Jason Cahilly and Katie Lahey at $328,661; Jonathon Band, Laura Weil and Stuart Subotnick at $358,661; Jeffrey Gearhart at $348,661.
Lowest continuing director total$318,661Nelda Connors.
Part-year director total$45,495Sara Mathew, reflecting a partial year of board service.
Founding family chair$126,507Micky Arison is compensated as chair of the board rather than as an executive; his figure is not comparable with the independent director totals.
Retainer and committee scheduleNot separately itemisedThe retrieved proxy extract discloses director totals rather than a component breakdown of cash retainer, committee fees and equity.

These are FY2025 proxy totals and do not necessarily equal current-year retainers or the board roster after the May 2026 unification into Carnival Corporation Ltd. Indian promoter, SEBI SAST and stock-exchange disclosure concepts do not apply to Carnival; significant holdings and changes are governed by SEC beneficial-ownership and Section 16 rules.

Regional heads and other officers

The seven brand presidents, Christine Duffy at Carnival Cruise Line, Felix Eichhorn at AIDA Cruises, Paul Ludlow at Carnival UK and P&O Cruises, Mario Zanetti at Costa Cruises, Beth Bodensteiner at Holland America Line, Gustavo Antorcha at Princess Cruises and Mark Tamis at Seabourn, are executive officers whose compensation is not disclosed because none qualified as a named executive officer for FY2025. Their pay is visible only through Section 16 share movements if they file at all. That gap matters for anyone benchmarking a brand-level general management role, because the highest disclosed non-C-suite figure in this report is a Glassdoor vice president sample.


Insider Trades — SEC Forms 3/4/5

Carnival is NYSE-listed, so the governing record is SEC Forms 3, 4 and 5 plus Form 144 for planned sales. A settlement at no stated price is a restricted share unit converting into shares, and the withholding line beside it is shares surrendered to cover tax rather than a discretionary sale. The sample below is verified recent activity, not a complete ownership ledger.

DatePersonTransactionSharesPriceValue
2026-05-28
Bettina Deynes
Chief Human Resources Officer
Sale
Open-market sale at a weighted-average price; individual trades ranged from $28.1000 to $28.1150.
43,058$28.10$1.21M
2026-05-08
Josh Weinstein
Chief Executive Officer
Award
Time-based restricted share unit grant vesting one third in April 2027, 2028 and 2029. Value shown at the 25 August 2026 close, not grant-date fair value.
190,965$4.99M
2026-05-08
Bettina Deynes
Chief Human Resources Officer
Award
Time-based restricted share unit grant on the same three-year pro-rata schedule.
20,778$543K
2026-04-21
Bettina Deynes
Chief Human Resources Officer
Withholding
Shares surrendered to cover tax on the April 2025 time-based restricted share units.
3,918$28.74$113K
2026-04-21
Bettina Deynes
Chief Human Resources Officer
Withholding
Shares surrendered to cover tax on the April 2024 time-based restricted share units.
2,304$28.74$66K
2026-02-10
Josh Weinstein
Chief Executive Officer
Settlement
2023 to 2025 performance restricted share units certified at 170.4 percent of target. Value uses the same-day withholding price for scale only.
635,820$21.12M
2026-02-10
Josh Weinstein
Chief Executive Officer
Withholding
Two withholding lots of 250,196 and 20,976 shares. Transaction code F, an issuer-administered tax settlement rather than an open-market sale.
271,172$33.22$9.01M
2026-02-10
David Bernstein
Chief Financial Officer and Chief Accounting Officer
Settlement
2023 to 2025 performance restricted share units certified at 170.4 percent of target.
333,805$11.09M
2026-02-10
David Bernstein
Chief Financial Officer and Chief Accounting Officer
Sale
Transaction code S on the Form 4; the filing context should be read alongside the related Form 144.
361,790$33.22$12.02M

Reading guide

Code F is not a saleShare withholding under code F is an issuer-administered tax settlement on a vesting event. Reading Weinstein's 271,172-share withholding as an executive selling down misreads the filing.
Award acquisitions at zero price are compensationA settlement or grant recorded at $0 is a compensation event, not a purchase. Its economic value depends on vesting, restrictions and the share price on the day.
February 2026 was a certification cluster, not a signalFive of the nine sampled filings fall on 10 February 2026 because that is when the Compensation Committee certified the 2023 to 2025 performance cycle. It is a calendar artefact.
The sample is not a ledgerAn exhaustive all-insider history cannot be inferred from a sampled Form 4 set, and no complete Carnival insider ledger was reconstructed for this report.
SAST and promoter rules do not applyCarnival is a US issuer. Indian takeover-code and promoter-group concepts have no application; SEC beneficial-ownership and Section 16 rules govern.

Benefits & Perks

Benefits are better evidenced than pay, because current job postings and brand career pages itemise them while no filing itemises salary. The picture diverges sharply by country, and statutory floors are recorded as floors rather than as Carnival policy.

United States

  • HealthMedical, dental and vision plus company-paid life and disability. Employee assistance and mental-health resources are included. The insurer, plan tiers and employee cost share were not verified in any retrieved source. [official]
  • Retirement401(k) with a company match. The match percentage, the contribution cap it applies to and the vesting schedule are not publicly disclosed, which makes the plan impossible to value from public sources. [official]
  • EquityEmployee Stock Purchase Plan, plus discretionary equity at director and above. The ESPP is advertised in every current US posting reviewed. The discount, lookback and contribution limit are not disclosed. Discretionary equity is described as a director-and-above possibility, not an entitlement. [official]
  • LeaveEight holidays plus two floating holidays, 14 to 19 vacation days and 80 sick hours. Manager and below start at 14 vacation days and director and above at 19, with tenure increasing the entitlement. Full-time employees receive 80 sick hours. This is one of the few places Carnival publishes a level-dependent benefit rule. [official]
  • DevelopmentTuition and professional-certification reimbursement. Training and professional development are named in postings; annual caps were not verified. [official]
  • Travel and workplaceStand-by cruises, employee discounts and family and friend rates. Miami carries on-site fitness. Schedules are role-dependent hybrid or fully in-office rather than a single company policy. [official]

Global programs

  • Shipboard living costsHousing, meals, medical care, transport and repatriation. These can be central to shipboard total rewards and have no shoreside equivalent, but they vary by brand, flag, nationality and agreement and are not quantified anywhere in public sources. A shipboard cash figure without them is not comparable with a shoreside salary. [official]
  • TrainingCSMART maritime academy and brand training. Covers bridge, engineering, safety, environmental, guest service and leadership development. It is the group's main structured progression mechanism for the shipboard population. [official]
  • Collective agreements48 percent of shipboard and 21 percent of shoreside employees covered in 2025. For that share of the workforce, pay and conditions are negotiated rather than set by a company band structure, which limits how far any single global compensation policy can describe Carnival. [official]
  • Performance frameworkGoal setting, regular check-ins and formal evaluations. Applies to both shoreside and shipboard team members and informs compensation, promotion and succession planning. No rating scale or distribution is published. [official]

Benefit fields not publicly quantified

The following were requested and could not be verified as Carnival-specific, current and broadly applicable: the health insurer and provider network, the family floater amount, the exact US 401(k) match and vesting, the National Pension System employer contribution, phone and internet allowances, transport policy, meal coupons, detailed paternity leave, sabbatical rules and certification reimbursement limits. Statutory floors quoted above are the law of the country, not evidence of Carnival's own policy, and the company may well sit above them.


Performance Review & Pay Progression

Carnival discloses that it runs structured goal setting, regular check-ins and formal evaluations for shoreside and shipboard team members, and that manager assessments inform compensation, promotion and succession planning. It discloses nothing about how any of that converts into money.

Not publicly disclosed

No rating scale was verified. There is no evidence of a 1 to 5, A to E or any other published label set, so no rating-to-hike table can exist.
No forced distribution or calibration quota is published. Carnival states that managers are equipped to conduct fair and consistent assessments; this report does not infer a bell curve from that language.
No companywide salary-review effective month was verified for any country or brand.
No ordinary-employee increment matrix by rating was found, and no companywide 2025 or 2026 average hike percentage was announced.
No band-tenure requirement or promotion-hike percentage schedule exists in any reviewed source, so the experience ranges in this report are market-normalization aids rather than Carnival service requirements.
No global probation or confirmation period was verified. Terms necessarily vary by country, employing entity, collective agreement, maritime contract and role.
No same-band comparison of internal promotees against lateral hires is available. Employer-posted ranges show a market envelope but never the placement decision inside it.
No current global gender-pay-gap remediation matrix, adjusted pay-gap result or band-by-band diversity pay analysis was exposed by the retrieved compensation evidence.

Modeled promotion planning timeline

BandYears to next scopePromotion hikeStatus
S1Not publicly disclosed; movement to an analyst posting is a market heuristicNot disclosedModeled planning interval
S2Not publicly disclosedNot disclosedModeled planning interval
S2-TNot publicly disclosedNot disclosedModeled planning interval
S3Not publicly disclosedNot disclosedModeled planning interval
S3-TNot publicly disclosedNot disclosedModeled planning interval
S4-MNot publicly disclosedNot disclosedModeled planning interval
S4Not publicly disclosedNot disclosedModeled planning interval
S5Not publicly disclosedNot disclosedModeled planning interval
S5-TNot publicly disclosedNot disclosedModeled planning interval
S6Not publicly disclosedNot disclosedModeled planning interval
S7Not publicly disclosedNot disclosedModeled planning interval
S8Not publicly disclosedNot disclosedModeled planning interval

Equity timing is better evidenced than cash timing. Annual executive grants have historically clustered in April, and the 2026 grants were made on 8 May around the structural unification, with three-year pro-rata vesting starting in April 2027. Performance cycles run three years and settle in February after Compensation Committee certification. Nothing equivalent is published for ordinary salary reviews.

Pay progression evidence

The honest answer on progression is that Carnival does not publish one. What the observed ranges do show is that the pay step between adjacent shoreside titles is small in the professional bands and large at the leadership transition: the Miami analyst and senior-analyst posted ranges overlap almost entirely, the manager and senior-manager anchors sit about 12 percent apart, and the jump from the director anchor of $165,500 total to the vice president anchor of $304,000 is about 84 percent, driven mainly by the arrival of an equity component. The other real discontinuity is track rather than level: a sponsored senior engineer record of $125,445 sits above the first-line manager anchor of $105,300, so moving into people management is not automatically a pay event.


H-1B / LCA Visa Footprint — United States

Carnival is a small, technology-concentrated H-1B sponsor rather than a volume filer, and the FY2026 file runs to 54 labour condition applications. These wages are guaranteed base salary for sponsored roles only. They exclude bonus, equity and benefits and should never be compared directly with a total compensation figure.

FY2026 sponsor median salary
$115,440
DOL-derived snapshot of guaranteed base. Bonus and equity are excluded by definition.
FY2026 75th percentile
$138,258
The 25th percentile was not reliably surfaced in the retrieved snapshot.
FY2026 labour condition applications
54
An application count, not an employee headcount; it can include amendments, extensions and future hires.
FY2026 I-129 outcomes
26 approved, 1 denied
A 96.3 percent approval rate across the 27 reported outcomes only. It is not a universal Carnival approval rate for every visa category or period.

Dataset summary

DatasetResultInterpretation
H1BGrader sponsor profileFY2026 median guaranteed salary of $115,440 with a 75th percentile of $138,258The primary current-year wage snapshot used in this report.
H1BData salary records64 FY2025 salary records at a $110,572.50 medianRecord counts differ from application counts because of filtering and deduplication.
MyVisaJobs employer profile54 FY2026 labour condition applications, 12 PERM petitions and 12 prevailing-wage requestsUpdated 18 August 2026. Aggregators disagree because of fiscal-year boundaries, employer aliases, certified versus submitted cases and deduplication.

City-level H-1B wage history

CityP25MedianP75Records
Royal Palm Beach, FL
Two observed records; the highest city median in the file and a very small sample.
$150K$149,906$150K2
Doral, FL
FY2025 city median at the headquarters campus; the record count was not separately verified.
$125K$125,445$125K0
Fort Lauderdale, FL
A single Senior Software Engineer record, so the quartiles collapse onto the point estimate.
$125K$125,445$125K1
Redwood City, CA
Small California sample; the exact record count was not verified.
$119K$119,371$119K0
Tampa, FL
A single Senior Database Administrator record.
$104K$103,917$104K1
Miami, FL
FY2025 city median across the broader Miami worksite; the count was not separately verified.
$103K$102,742$103K0
Denton, TX
A single observed record and the lowest in the file, well below the sponsor median.
$68K$67,995$68K1

All-years aggregates. P25/P75 are rounded reconstruction values marked modeled; medians and record counts are the stronger fields.

Selected title / worksite records

TitleWorksiteProffered wageNotes
Senior Manager, Delivery and SupportMiami and Doral, FL$138,258The highest observed title-level wage and the FY2026 sponsor 75th percentile; normalises to the senior technology management row.
Senior Software EngineerFort Lauderdale, FL$125,445Normalises to the senior technology individual contributor row, above the first-line manager anchor.
Senior Database AdministratorTampa, FL$103,917The other half of the senior technology individual contributor anchor.
Solutions DeveloperMiami and Doral, FL$83,658The anchor for the technology analyst row in this report.
FOC Watch LeaderMiami and Doral, FL$82,867A fleet operations centre role; the clearest evidence that operational technical roles are sponsored alongside software roles.
Analyst, Onboard RevenueMiami and Doral, FL$68,474The lowest Miami observation in the file and the bottom of the analyst cluster.

Reading the data correctly

  • A labour condition application wage is guaranteed base salary. It excludes the annual cash bonus, any equity and every benefit, so it understates total compensation for the same role.
  • Filing counts are not employee headcount. A single employee can generate several filings through amendments, extensions and worksite changes.
  • The sponsored population skews heavily to technology and analytical roles, so these wages describe a slice of Carnival's US workforce rather than its shoreside median.
  • The 96.3 percent approval figure is calculated only from the 27 I-129 outcomes reported by one aggregator for FY2026. It is not a universal Carnival approval rate.
  • City medians with a record count of zero above are published medians whose underlying sample size was not separately verified, so they should be read as directional.

Key Nuances & Insights

01Two labour markets share one employer

Carnival averaged 101,000 shipboard employees against 16,000 shoreside in 2025, so the typical Carnival employee is a seafarer on a fixed-length contract, not an office worker. Shipboard pay is set by maritime licence, flag, itinerary, nationality and collective agreement, and it carries housing, meals, medical care and repatriation that have no shoreside equivalent. Folding both populations into one interpolated ladder would misstate every market, which is why only the shoreside professional population is priced here.

02Director is the equity line, and it is a practice not a rule

The 2020 Stock Plan legally permits awards to selected employees generally. What actually happens is narrower: the Form 10-K says awards go principally to management-level employees and directors, and current US postings say director and above may be eligible. The threshold you will be quoted in a negotiation is the recruiting language, not the plan document, and even at director the word is may rather than will.

03The 170.4 percent figure is not your bonus

It is the certified outcome of the 2023 to 2025 executive performance-RSU cycle against a 0 to 200 percent opportunity, settled on 10 February 2026. It says nothing about the annual cash bonus that ordinary US non-sales employees participate in, for which no target and no payout history exists in any public source. Conflating the two is the single most likely misreading of Carnival's disclosures.

04Technology individual contributors out-earn first-line managers

The sponsored Senior Software Engineer record of $125,445 and the Senior Database Administrator record of $103,917 straddle the Seattle manager posting midpoint of $105,300, and the Senior Manager, Delivery and Support record of $138,258 sits well above the Senior Manager, Restaurant and Bar Operations midpoint of $117,500. Moving into people management at Carnival is a scope decision, not automatically a pay event.

05Marine superintendents are priced against a different market

The Seattle Electrical Superintendent range of $83,200 to $112,300 sits below the commercial manager range despite requiring licence-level technical authority over vessels. Superintendents compete with the marine and offshore sector rather than with corporate hiring, so benchmarking one against a like-titled corporate manager understates the specialisation and overstates the pay.

06The pay ratio is a workforce statistic, not a governance verdict

A 1,063 to 1 ratio against a $17,773 median looks extreme until you compare it with Royal Caribbean at 1,260 to 1 against a $19,027 median. All three listed cruise lines report the same structural pattern because the median employee is a rotational shipboard worker, often on a part-year contract and usually resident outside the United States. The ratio measures workforce composition first and executive pay second.

07India runs the opposite way to an offshore delivery centre

In an IT-services company, offshore pay sits far below the anchor at junior levels and converges at senior levels. Carnival Support Services India does the reverse: observed pay falls from about 6 percent of the Miami anchor at coordinator level to under 3 percent at head-of-operations level. CSSI recruits and deploys seafarers rather than delivering corporate work, so applying a standard onshore-to-offshore multiplier to it is a category error, and this report uses a flat factor with no seniority interpolation as a result.

08Brand autonomy shows up directly in the pay data

The same Revenue Analyst title in Southampton reads about £29,000 to £36,000 at Carnival Corporation, £31,000 to £35,000 at Cunard and £39,000 to £41,000 at P&O Cruises. That is a spread of roughly 30 percent on the same job title inside one city and one group. Which brand's payroll an offer sits on is a real variable, not a cosmetic one.

09The May 2026 unification changed the paper, not the pay

On 7 May 2026 the Carnival Corporation & plc dual-listed structure became Bermuda-incorporated Carnival Corporation Ltd. with a single NYSE listing, Miami headquarters and a continuing Southampton operation. Carnival stated it did not change team-member roles, leadership or operations. The one live compensation consequence is that legacy Carnival plc share-purchase interests were converted one-for-one, and post-unification plan mechanics should be checked rather than assumed.

10An ESPP is not employer-granted equity

Carnival advertises the 1993 Employee Stock Purchase Plan in every current US posting reviewed, and it is the only equity mechanism an ordinary employee below director is evidenced to reach. It is also employee-funded. Without the discount, lookback and contribution cap, which none of the retrieved sources disclose, it cannot be valued, and it should never be added into a total compensation figure the way an RSU grant would be.

11Nearly half the shipboard workforce is covered by collective agreements

Approximately 48 percent of shipboard and 21 percent of shoreside employees were covered by collective bargaining agreements in 2025. For that share of the workforce, pay and conditions are negotiated instruments rather than outputs of any company band structure, which is a structural reason Carnival could not publish a single global pay policy even if it wanted to.

12Monthly maritime rates must not be annualized

The AIDA First Engineer posting quotes €5,432 a month on a three-month contract. Multiplying by twelve produces a figure that describes nobody, because the paid-month pattern, the rotation, the unpaid leave periods and the tax residence are all unknown. This report leaves that observation as a monthly rate and prices no shipboard band.

13The Australia data has a legacy break in it

P&O Cruises Australia was integrated into Carnival Cruise Line during 2025. The three Sydney observations available are sparse, cover different functions and do not form a monotonic pattern by level, which is why Sydney carries a flat factor rather than the level-dependent factors used for Southampton and Genoa. Historical P&O Australia titles and pay should not be treated as describing the current organisation.

14The missing figures are themselves the finding

Carnival does not publish grade codes, band minima or maxima, ordinary bonus targets, equity grants by band, appraisal labels, a salary-review month, promotion tenure rules or a country benefit schedule. Every one of those absences is recorded here as not publicly disclosed rather than estimated, because a company with 117,000 employees choosing not to publish any of it is a meaningful fact about how it manages pay.

Research control

Against its two listed peers Carnival sits in the middle on both chief executive pay and pay ratio: $18.89 million and 1,063 to 1, between Royal Caribbean at $23.98 million and 1,260 to 1 and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings at $13.75 million and roughly 530 to 1. On the employee side no peer comparison is possible with any rigour, because none of the three publishes salary bands and the crowdsourced samples for cruise-line corporate roles are thin. The defensible qualitative conclusion is that US corporate and technology roles carry the highest verified cash ranges in the group, Western Europe and Australia sit materially lower in dollar terms for the observed roles, and Mumbai support observations are far lower again but describe a different operating model rather than the same job priced offshore.

Evidence classification

LabelMeaningExamples and permitted use
VerifiedA Carnival SEC filing, an official Carnival or brand career and benefit page, a current Carnival job posting, or a government or statutory rule.Executive pay, the stock plan, the pay ratio, headcount, collective bargaining coverage, benefits, US salary ranges and foreign-exchange rates.
ReportedA named third-party dataset with observable records, chiefly Department of Labor derived visa wage aggregators, Glassdoor and Kununu.The director and vice president rows, the technology rows, and every non-US city observation.
ModeledThe Miami anchor midpoint multiplied by a city calibration factor and the locked foreign-exchange snapshot, inside a planning envelope.The coordinator and senior director rows, every bonus line below the named executive level, and every market with no direct observation.
Not publicly disclosedNo source in the research bundle supports a figure.Recorded as such rather than estimated. This applies to most of the variable-pay table.

Explicit “Not publicly disclosed” index

Official Carnival grade identifiers and any global title-to-grade mapping.
Band-specific salary minima, midpoints and maxima for any part of the workforce.
Ordinary employee bonus target percentages, maximums and actual payout percentages by year.
Ordinary employee RSU grant value, share count and the minimum eligible band beyond the current US director-and-above wording.
The exact US 401(k) match percentage and vesting schedule.
The 1993 ESPP purchase discount, lookback period, contribution limit and eligible-entity list for 2026.
Global employee attrition, quarterly net hiring and any headcount trend beyond the 2025 averages.
The companywide salary-review month and any average hike percentage for 2025 or 2026.
Appraisal rating labels, any forced distribution and increment by rating.
Promotion tenure requirements and promotion-hike percentages.
Any same-grade onshore-to-offshore differential or lateral-hire versus internal-promotion placement rule.
Brand president compensation for all seven brands, and any city-level headcount anywhere in the group.
Carnival-specific India, Philippines and Italy benefit schedules beyond statutory floors.
Current salary ladders for Bengaluru, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Shanghai, Vancouver and the Caribbean destinations.
An exhaustive Form 4 insider-trade ledger; only a verified recent-activity sample was reconstructed.

Known gaps and diligence before relying on a cell

  1. 1Only the shoreside professional population is priced. The shipboard M1 to M6 hierarchy is described in the level and benefit sections and referenced in the key metrics and news, but it is deliberately excluded from the band table and from every location factor, because gratuity-based pay, fixed-length contracts, maritime collective agreements and employer-provided housing and meals behave in the opposite direction to a shoreside salary across the same cities. Blending them would misstate both populations.
  2. 2No named executive officer or brand president row appears in the priced ladder. The chief executive's $18.89 million package and the four other named executive packages are carried in the executive section only, so that a single worldwide executive figure cannot drag every location's factor toward parity at the top of the ladder. The top priced row is the vice president observation.
  3. 3Total compensation is rebuilt from base plus modeled bonus plus disclosed equity. No employer benefit load, superannuation, workplace pension, provident fund or 13th-month payment is folded into total pay anywhere in this report, because those are employer cost rather than pay received. This matters most for Germany and Australia, where the statutory and advertised additions are large.
  4. 4The Miami senior-analyst posted range sits marginally below the Miami analyst posted range, at $71,200 to $96,100 against $72,200 to $97,500. The senior professional row is set in the upper half of the observed range so that it reads above the analyst row, which is a smoothing decision rather than an observed Carnival policy.
  5. 5Two US anchor rows, the manager and the senior manager, use Seattle employer-posted ranges because Carnival published no equivalent Miami postings. Miami and Seattle analyst midpoints differ by under 1 percent, so the substitution is small, but it is a substitution.
  6. 6Sydney's three observations do not rise monotonically with level, and Mumbai's four fall with level. Both markets therefore carry flat factors with no seniority interpolation, rather than a fabricated compression curve.
  7. 7Nine of the sixteen priced markets have a verified Carnival presence but no verified salary range, and are carried at parity with the nearest evidenced market. Nassau, Grand Bahama and Celebration Key, and Grand Turk are verified operational footprints that are described but not priced at all, partly because some of that work involves contractors and joint-venture personnel.
  8. 8The 2026 proxy extract used here does not expose a target percentage of salary for any named executive, so the variable-pay outcome rows show a zero target with the realised payout beside it rather than an attainment percentage.
  9. 9Lars Ljoen's salary and annual incentive were not separately verified, so he is described in the executive notes rather than shown as a reconciled compensation row.
  10. 10Bengaluru appears in the underlying research bundle only to make an original template assumption explicit. No material Carnival office was verified there, so it is omitted from the location table entirely rather than shown as an office with no data.

FX rates used — 1 USD equals, snapshot 2026-08-25

0.733198
GBP
0.856689
EUR
1.396879
AUD
95.249031
INR
61.701984
PHP

Single-date conversion layer for comparability; it ignores payroll-date FX, tax, purchasing power, benefits valuation and hedging. Compensation intelligence, not legal, tax, investment, immigration or employment advice.

Source register — 49 sources

S1Carnival Corporation & plc FY2025 Form 10-K for the year ended 30 November 2025 · SEC / Carnival · 2026-01-28. Workforce averages, principal shoreside operations, human capital, collective bargaining coverage, equity plan accounting and financials.
S2Carnival Corporation 2026 Proxy Statement, DEF 14A · SEC / Carnival · 2026 proxy covering FY2025 pay. Chief executive and named executive pay, the pay ratio, director compensation and incentive design.
S3Carnival Corporation 2020 Stock Plan, as amended · SEC / Carnival · 2020 with amendments through 2026. Award types, the 46.65 million share authorisation, exercise-price and term rules.
S4Shareholder FAQs on the dual-listed-company unification and Bermuda redomiciliation · Carnival Corporation Ltd. · Updated 2026. Legal entity status, the single NYSE listing, headquarters continuity and share-plan transition.
S5Leadership catalogue · Carnival Corporation Ltd. · 2026-08-26. Corporate C-suite and brand president roster.
S6Senior Analyst, Compensation, Corporate — Miami job posting · Carnival careers · 2026-08-26. Annual bonus participation, director-and-above equity eligibility and the US benefit schedule.
S7Demand and Revenue Management Analyst — Seattle job posting · Carnival careers / Seabourn · 2026. Seattle analyst base range of $75,000 to $95,000 and benefits.
S8Manager, Deployment and Marine Itinerary Planning — Seattle job posting · Carnival careers / Holland America Line · 2026-02-23. Manager base range of $89,600 to $121,000.
S9Senior Manager, Restaurant and Bar Operations — Seattle job posting · Carnival careers · 2026. Senior manager base range of $100,000 to $135,000.
S10Performance Analytics Analyst — Miami job posting · Carnival careers · 2026. The Miami analyst anchor range of $72,200 to $97,500.
S11Senior Analyst, Finance — Miami job posting · Carnival careers · 2026. The Miami senior analyst range of $71,200 to $96,100.
S12Electrical Superintendent — Seattle job posting · Carnival careers · 2026. Marine technical management base range of $83,200 to $112,300.
S13Carnival Cruise Line director salaries, Miami · Glassdoor · 2026-08-26. Director base, bonus and total ranges across eight submissions.
S14Carnival Corporation vice president salaries · Glassdoor · 2026-08-26. Vice president base, bonus, stock and total ranges across eight submissions.
S15Carnival UK careers benefits page · Carnival UK · 2026-08-26. UK leave, pension, shares plan, health and cruise benefits.
S16Carnival, P&O Cruises and Cunard salaries, Southampton · Glassdoor · 2026-08-26. Seven UK role-level total-pay observations including the brand-by-brand analyst spread.
S17AIDA careers benefits and working conditions · AIDA Cruises · 2026-08-26. German leave, 13th-month salary, pension, hybrid working and the First Engineer monthly contract rate.
S18AIDA Cruises salary observations · Kununu and Glassdoor · 2026-08-26. Six Rostock observations spanning travel advisor, IT specialist, manager, nautical officer and captain.
S19Costa Crociere salaries, Genoa · Glassdoor and Indeed · 2026-08-26. Two Italian analyst and manager observations.
S20Carnival Australia careers and employee rewards · Carnival Australia · 2026-08-26. Australian rewards, development and external benchmarking statements.
S21Carnival Australia salaries, Sydney · Glassdoor · 2026-08-26. Three sparse Sydney observations.
S22Carnival Support Services India entity materials · CSSI / Carnival · Current materials with a 2023 workforce reference. The Mumbai crewing footprint and the more than 22,000 personnel deployment figure.
S23Carnival Support Services India salaries · Glassdoor · 2026-08-26. Four sparse Mumbai observations from coordinator to head of operations.
S24Carnival Philippines and CASI careers materials · Carnival careers · 2026-08-26. The Manila recruiting, training and payroll support footprint.
S25Carnival Corporation H-1B salary records, FY2025 · H1BData.info, DOL-derived · FY2025 snapshot. Salary distribution, titles and the seven city medians.
S26Carnival Corporation H-1B sponsor salaries · H1BGrader, DOL-derived · FY2026 snapshot. The $115,440 median and $138,258 75th percentile plus recent title examples.
S27Carnival Corporation visa sponsor profile · MyVisaJobs · 2026-08-18. Labour condition application, PERM and I-129 counts and outcomes.
S28Josh Weinstein Form 4, time-based RSU grant · SEC · Transaction 2026-05-08, filed 2026-05-12. 190,965 units and the three-year pro-rata vesting schedule.
S29Bettina Deynes Form 4, time-based RSU grant · SEC · Transaction 2026-05-08, filed 2026-05-12. 20,778 units and vesting terms.
S30Bettina Deynes Form 4, tax withholding · SEC · Transaction 2026-04-21. Two code F withholding lots on April 2024 and April 2025 awards.
S31Bettina Deynes Form 4, open-market sale · SEC · Transaction 2026-05-28, filed 2026-06-01. 43,058-share sale at a weighted-average price.
S32Josh Weinstein Form 4, 2023 to 2025 performance RSU vest · SEC filing mirror · Transaction 2026-02-10. 635,820 shares, the 170.4 percent certified outcome and the tax withholdings.
S33David Bernstein Form 4, performance RSU vest and sale · SEC · Transaction 2026-02-10. 333,805-share acquisition and 361,790-share disposal.
S34Royal Caribbean Group 2026 Proxy Statement · SEC · 2026 proxy covering FY2025 pay. Peer chief executive pay of $23,978,813 and a 1,260:1 ratio.
S35Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings 2026 Proxy Statement · SEC · 2026 proxy covering FY2025 pay. Peer chief executive pay of $13,752,560 and an approximate 530:1 ratio.
S36Super guarantee rates and thresholds · Australian Taxation Office · Current 2026. The 12 percent Super Guarantee from 1 July 2025.
S37National Employment Standards, leave · Fair Work Ombudsman · Current 2026. Australian annual, personal, parental and family and domestic violence leave floors.
S38Holiday entitlement rights · GOV.UK · Current 2026. The UK statutory 5.6-week paid holiday floor.
S39Workplace pensions, contributions · GOV.UK · Current 2026. The UK statutory 8 percent total and 3 percent employer minimum.
S40Employees' Provident Fund scheme · EPFO, Government of India · Current 2026. The Indian 12 percent employee and employer contribution floor.
S41Maternity Benefit Act guidance · Ministry of Labour and Employment, India · Current 2026. The 26-week Indian maternity leave floor.
S42Payment of Gratuity Act · Chief Labour Commissioner, India · Current 2026. The 15 days per completed year gratuity formula.
S43Book III, Conditions of Employment · Department of Labor and Employment, Philippines · Current 2026. The five-day service incentive leave floor.
S44CCL historical prices · The Wall Street Journal · 2026-08-25 close. The $26.14 illustrative share price used for share-quantity valuations.
S45Daily exchange rates · Reserve Bank of Australia with an XE cross-check · 2026-08-25. The locked foreign-exchange snapshot used for every conversion in this report.
S46Carnival second-quarter 2026 results · Carnival / PR Newswire · 2026-06-23. $6.7 billion revenue, $569 million adjusted net income and $9.0 billion customer deposits.
S47Carnival FY2025 results and the unification proposal · Carnival / PR Newswire · 2025-12-19. $26.6 billion revenue, $2.8 billion net income and $7.2 billion adjusted EBITDA.
S481993 Employee Stock Purchase Plan Form S-8 registration · SEC / Carnival · 2025-06. Evidence of continued ESPP share-purchase infrastructure.
S49P&O Australia integration and brand portfolio disclosure · Carnival FY2025 Form 10-K and company releases · 2025. The legacy break in Australian brand pay data.

Recent News & Workforce Trend

Carnival's 2026 has been dominated by a corporate restructuring and a long-term incentive certification rather than by any workforce pay action. No companywide salary-hike percentage, freeze or cut was announced in any reviewed source over the two-year window.

101,000
2025 shipboard employees
Average active onboard employees, excluding those on leave between contracts.
13,000
2025 shoreside full-time employees
The population the shoreside ladder in this report is built to describe.
3,000
2025 shoreside part-time employees
Part-time and seasonal shoreside employees, concentrated in contact-centre and port roles.
160,000+
2025 company narrative employees
A broader team-member figure Carnival uses in narrative disclosure; it counts a different universe and should not be combined with the averages above.

Carnival publishes 2025 workforce averages rather than a multi-year headcount series, and it publishes no city-level headcount for any office. No quarterly net hiring figure and no attrition rate by country or quarter was verified in any reviewed source, so this panel shows the composition of the workforce rather than a trend. The three averages describe different populations and cannot be added to the narrative figure.

25 Aug 2026
CCL closes at $26.14

Used only to value disclosed share quantities for illustration. It is not a grant-date fair-value input, and it sits well above the $17.76 weighted-average grant-date fair value of the FY2025 awards.

WSJ historical prices
23 Jun 2026
Record second-quarter revenue with no accompanying pay announcement

Carnival reported $6.7 billion of revenue, $569 million of adjusted net income, $1.6 billion of adjusted EBITDA and $9.0 billion of customer deposits. No broad salary-hike or bonus announcement accompanied the release.

Carnival Q2 FY2026 results
28 May 2026
Chief Human Resources Officer sells 43,058 shares

An open-market sale at a weighted-average price around $28.10, three weeks after receiving a 20,778-unit time-based grant.

SEC Form 4
8 May 2026
2026 time-based RSU grants disclosed

Josh Weinstein received 190,965 units and Bettina Deynes 20,778 units, each vesting one third in April 2027, 2028 and 2029 and accumulating dividend equivalents. The May date breaks the historical April grant pattern and coincides with the unification.

SEC Forms 4
7 May 2026
Carnival completes the DLC unification and Bermuda redomiciliation

The group became Carnival Corporation Ltd. with one NYSE-listed equity, keeping the Miami headquarters and the Southampton operation. Legacy Carnival plc interests converted one for one. Carnival stated that roles, leadership and operations were unchanged.

Shareholder FAQ and company disclosure
21 Apr 2026
Withholding on 2024 and 2025 time-based awards

Two code F lots totalling 6,222 shares were surrendered for tax on the Chief Human Resources Officer's earlier grants, illustrating the April vesting anniversary for time-based awards.

SEC Form 4
10 Feb 2026
2023 to 2025 performance RSUs certify at 170.4 percent of target

635,820 units settled for the chief executive and 333,805 for the chief financial officer against a 0 to 200 percent opportunity. This is the clearest recent long-term incentive payout evidence and is not the annual employee bonus.

SEC Forms 4
19 Dec 2025
Record FY2025 results and the unification proposal

$26.6 billion of revenue, $2.8 billion of net income and $7.2 billion of adjusted EBITDA, alongside a proposal to simplify the dual-listed structure and a reinstated dividend.

Carnival FY2025 results
30 Nov 2025
FY2025 stock plan position disclosed

22.7 million shares remained available for future grant, 12,564,103 awards were outstanding, 6,025,742 were granted during the year at a $17.76 weighted-average fair value, and $157 million of cost remained unrecognised over 1.6 years.

FY2025 Form 10-K
1 Jun 2025
Additional ESPP shares registered

A Form S-8 registered further shares under the 1993 Employee Stock Purchase Plan, confirming continued share-purchase infrastructure without disclosing the discount, lookback or contribution level.

SEC Form S-8
1 Jan 2025
P&O Cruises Australia integrated into Carnival Cruise Line

The brand transition breaks the comparability of historical Australian titles and benefits. No harmonisation pay matrix was published, and legacy P&O Australia observations should not be read as describing the current organisation.

FY2025 Form 10-K and company releases
Last updated 2026-08-27