Few fixtures in English football carry the weight of the Manchester derby. Manchester United and Manchester City sit roughly three miles apart, but for most of the 20th century they occupied very different places in the game.
United built their reputation through the Busby Babes, the aftermath of Munich, and Sir Matt Busby’s 1968 European Cup triumph, before Sir Alex Ferguson turned the club into the dominant force in English football for more than two decades.
City spent long stretches of that period outside the top flight altogether, their history built more on cult moments and near misses than sustained silverware.
That balance has shifted dramatically since 2008, when a change of ownership gave Manchester City the financial platform to compete for major honours every season.
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Under Roberto Mancini, Manuel Pellegrini and then Pep Guardiola, City have won the Premier League, League Cup and FA Cup with a regularity that no club outside Ferguson’s United had previously managed, and they added a first Champions League in 2023.
United, meanwhile, have not won the Premier League since 2013 and have leaned on domestic cup success and a 2017 Europa League title to keep adding to their trophy count.
Comparing the two clubs by total trophies is a useful way to measure the scale of that shift, but it is also a source of confusion.
Different websites list different totals for both clubs, mostly because they disagree on which competitions to count, how to treat shared Community Shields, or whether to include totals that have not been updated since a club’s most recent trophy.
This article sets out a clear methodology, calculates both totals from scratch using verified competition-by-competition data through the end of the 2025/26 season, and explains exactly where the gap between the two clubs comes from.
What Counts as an Official Senior Trophy
This article measures official senior men’s team trophies only. The total for each club is built by adding up verified wins in the following competitions:
- English top-flight league title (First Division and Premier League)
- FA Cup
- League Cup (EFL Cup / Carabao Cup)
- FA Community Shield / Charity Shield
- UEFA Champions League / European Cup
- UEFA Europa League / UEFA Cup
- UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup
- UEFA Super Cup
- FIFA Club World Cup
- Intercontinental Cup (pre-2005 world club championship)
This article does not count friendly or pre-season tournaments, individual player awards, youth or academy honours, reserve-team competitions, or either club’s women’s team trophies.
Those are separate parts of each club’s history and mixing them into a men’s first-team trophy count is the single biggest reason totals vary so widely across the internet.
The FA Community Shield needs a specific note. Before 1993, a drawn Shield match was not settled by penalties. Instead, the two clubs shared the trophy for six months each.
Manchester United’s total includes four such shared titles (1965, 1967, 1977 and 1990), alongside 17 outright wins, for 21 in total.
Manchester City’s seven Community Shield wins, by contrast, are all outright victories with no shared titles in their record.
Both are counted as one trophy each in the totals below, consistent with how both clubs list them on their own official honours pages, but the distinction is flagged wherever it matters.
Finally, two clarifications the methodology depends on. Arsenal, not Manchester United or Manchester City, won the 2025/26 Premier League, their first title since 2004.
Manchester City won both the 2025/26 FA Cup and the 2025/26 League Cup, and both are included in City’s totals below.
The 2026 FA Community Shield, played between Arsenal and Manchester City on 16 August 2026 and won 3-0 by Arsenal, is not a trophy for either Manchester club and is not counted in either total.
Who Has Won More Trophies?
Manchester United have won 68 official senior trophies. Manchester City have won 38.
Manchester United hold a clear all-time lead built on more than a century of extra history, a dominant Premier League record and a stronger European trophy cabinet.
Manchester City have closed the gap significantly since 2011, overtaking United in League Cups and pulling level in several categories, and their 2023 Champions League win closed off the one major honour that had eluded the club.
But the historical head start United built up before 2011, particularly through the Ferguson era, still accounts for most of the 30-trophy gap between the two clubs. Every total in this article, in every table and every section, reconciles back to these two figures.
Manchester United vs Manchester City Trophies: Side-by-Side
| Competition | Manchester United | Manchester City | Leader |
| English top-flight league | 20 | 10 | Manchester United |
| FA Cup | 13 | 8 | Manchester United |
| League Cup | 6 | 9 | Manchester City |
| Community Shield | 21 | 7 | Manchester United |
| Champions League / European Cup | 3 | 1 | Manchester United |
| Europa League / UEFA Cup | 1 | 0 | Manchester United |
| European Cup Winners’ Cup | 1 | 1 | Tied |
| UEFA Super Cup | 1 | 1 | Tied |
| Intercontinental Cup | 1 | 0 | Manchester United |
| FIFA Club World Cup | 1 | 1 | Tied |
| Total official trophies | 68 | 38 | Manchester United |
Manchester United Trophies
English Top-Flight League Titles
Manchester United have won 20 English top-flight league titles: 7 in the old First Division (1907/08, 1910/11, 1951/52, 1955/56, 1956/57, 1964/65, 1966/67) and 13 in the Premier League era (1992/93, 1993/94, 1995/96, 1996/97, 1998/99, 1999/2000, 2000/01, 2002/03, 2006/07, 2007/08, 2008/09, 2010/11, 2012/13).
The First Division titles span the Ernest Mangnall and Sir Matt Busby eras, while the entire Premier League haul was won under Sir Alex Ferguson, who remains the only manager to have delivered a league title for the club since the competition was rebranded in 1992.
FA Cup
United have won the FA Cup 13 times: 1909, 1948, 1963, 1977, 1983, 1985, 1990, 1994, 1996, 1999, 2004, 2016 and 2024. That run spans more than a century, from the Edwardian era through to Erik ten Hag’s 2024 final win over Manchester City at Wembley.
League Cup
United’s six League Cup titles came in 1992, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2017 and 2023. It remains the domestic trophy United have won least often relative to their overall history.
Community Shield / Charity Shield
United have won the Community Shield (known as the Charity Shield until 2002) 21 times, the most of any club in the competition’s history. Seventeen of those were outright wins and four were shared titles from drawn matches before the introduction of penalty shoot-outs, in 1965, 1967, 1977 and 1990. United’s most recent Community Shield win came in 2016.
Champions League / European Cup
United have won European club football’s biggest prize three times: 1968, 1999 and 2008. The 1968 triumph, under Sir Matt Busby, made United the first English club to win the European Cup, the competition that was rebranded the UEFA Champions League in 1992. The 1999 and 2008 wins came under Sir Alex Ferguson.
UEFA Europa League / UEFA Cup
United’s only win in this competition came in 2017, under Jose Mourinho, beating Ajax in the final in Stockholm. It remains their sole triumph in the tournament in either its UEFA Cup or Europa League guise.
European Cup Winners’ Cup
United won the now-defunct Cup Winners’ Cup in 1991, beating Barcelona in Rotterdam.
UEFA Super Cup
United’s only UEFA Super Cup came in 1991, following their Cup Winners’ Cup win that same year.
Intercontinental Cup
United won the Intercontinental Cup in 1999, beating Palmeiras of Brazil, as part of the treble-winning side’s global sweep that year.
FIFA Club World Cup
United won the FIFA Club World Cup in 2008, beating Liga de Quito, shortly after their Champions League win that year.
Manchester United total (per this article’s methodology): 68 official senior trophies.
Manchester City Trophies
English Top-Flight League Titles
Manchester City have won 10 English top-flight league titles as of the end of the 2025/26 season: 2 in the old First Division (1936/37, 1967/68) and 8 in the Premier League era (2011/12, 2013/14, 2017/18, 2018/19, 2020/21, 2021/22, 2022/23, 2023/24).
City did not win the 2019/20 title, which went to Liverpool, and Arsenal won the 2025/26 title, so City’s Premier League count stands at 8.
FA Cup
City have won the FA Cup 8 times: 1904, 1934, 1956, 1969, 2011, 2019, 2023 and 2025/26. The most recent came on 16 May 2026, when City beat Chelsea 1-0 in the final to lift the trophy for the eighth time in the club’s history.
League Cup
City have won the League Cup 9 times: 1970, 1976, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2025/26. The most recent title came on 22 March 2026, when City beat Arsenal 2-0 in the final.
Community Shield / Charity Shield
City have won the Community Shield 7 times, in 1937, 1968, 1972, 2012, 2018, 2019 and 2024, all of them outright wins. City lost the 2026 edition 3-0 to Arsenal, so that match does not add to their total.
Champions League
City won their first and, to date, only Champions League in 2023, beating Inter Milan 1-0 in Istanbul under Pep Guardiola, as part of a historic treble.
European Cup Winners’ Cup
City’s only Cup Winners’ Cup victory came in 1970, beating Gornik Zabrze in the final, more than half a century before their Champions League breakthrough.
UEFA Super Cup
City won their first UEFA Super Cup in 2023, following on from their Champions League win that year.
FIFA Club World Cup
City won their first FIFA Club World Cup in 2023, completing a full sweep of major honours in a single calendar year. City have not won the Intercontinental Cup, the pre-2005 predecessor to the modern Club World Cup, as they never qualified for it during that competition’s existence.
Manchester City total (per this article’s methodology): 38 official senior trophies.
Related reading: Player With Most Trophies in Football History, Manager With Most Trophies in Football History, Longest Unbeaten Runs in Football History, Football Positions Explained.
Who Has More Trophies: Manchester United or Manchester City?
Manchester United’s all-time trophy total remains well ahead of Manchester City’s, 68 to 38, a gap of 30 trophies.
Most of that gap comes from three areas: United’s much longer competitive history, which gave them a 20-to-10 lead in league titles and a 13-to-8 lead in the FA Cup; United’s stronger overall Community Shield record; and United’s three European Cup/Champions League wins against City’s one.
City have actually overtaken United in the League Cup, winning it nine times to United’s six, and the two clubs are level in the Cup Winners’ Cup, UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup. The picture, in short, is not one of City closing the gap everywhere.
It is a picture of United’s historical lead holding firm in the biggest competitions, while City have caught up or gone ahead in a smaller number of specific ones, mostly since 2011.
Manchester United vs Manchester City: League Titles
| Competition | Manchester United | Manchester City | Leader |
| First Division | 7 | 2 | Manchester United |
| Premier League | 13 | 8 | Manchester United |
| Combined top-flight titles | 20 | 10 | Manchester United |
Manchester United’s 20 top-flight titles are built on two distinct spells of dominance: the Busby-era First Division wins of the 1950s and 1960s, and the near-uninterrupted Ferguson-era Premier League run from 1993 to 2013.
Manchester City’s 10 top-flight titles are split between two isolated First Division wins in 1937 and 1968, and a modern cluster of 8 Premier League titles won between 2012 and 2024 under Mancini, Pellegrini and Guardiola.
Arsenal ended City’s run by winning the 2025/26 Premier League, so neither Manchester club added to its league total this season.
Manchester United vs Manchester City: FA Cup
Manchester United lead 13 to 8. United’s advantage is built on more than a century of history, including five wins between 1990 and 2004 alone.
City’s FA Cup record has accelerated sharply since 2011, with five of their eight wins coming since then, including the closely watched 2023 all-Manchester final, which City won 2-1 to complete the domestic phase of their treble.
City added an eighth title with a 1-0 win over Chelsea in the 2025/26 final, played at Wembley on 16 May 2026.
Manchester United vs Manchester City: League Cup
This is the one major domestic competition where Manchester City lead outright, 9 titles to United’s 6.
City’s dominance in this competition is a modern phenomenon, with seven of their nine wins coming since 2014 under Manuel Pellegrini and Pep Guardiola, including four wins in a five-year stretch between 2018 and 2021.
United’s six wins are more evenly spread across the Ferguson and post-Ferguson eras. City’s most recent success came in the 2025/26 final, a 2-0 win over Arsenal on 22 March 2026.
Manchester United vs Manchester City: Community Shield
Manchester United’s 21 Community Shield wins are the most of any club in the competition’s history, comfortably ahead of Manchester City’s 7.
The methodology behind that total matters here more than in any other competition. Before the introduction of penalty shoot-outs in 1993, a drawn Community (or Charity) Shield match resulted in the two competing clubs sharing the trophy for six months each, rather than a replay or a joint champion being recorded in the way some other competitions handle ties.
United’s total includes four such shared titles, from 1965, 1967, 1977 and 1990, alongside 17 outright wins. Manchester City’s seven wins, by contrast, are all outright victories, with no shared titles in their record.
Both totals are counted as one trophy per year in this article, matching how each club records them on its own official honours page, but the outright-versus-shared distinction is worth keeping in mind when comparing the two records directly.
Manchester United vs Manchester City: Champions League
Manchester United lead 3 to 1. United’s three European Cup/Champions League titles came in 1968, 1999 and 2008, spanning the Busby and Ferguson eras and the competition’s rebrand from the European Cup to the Champions League in 1992.
Manchester City’s single Champions League title came in 2023, a 1-0 win over Inter Milan in Istanbul that completed a historic treble under Pep Guardiola and closed off the one major trophy that had previously eluded the club.
Manchester United vs Manchester City: Europa League
Manchester United lead 1 to 0. United won the competition in 2017 under Jose Mourinho, beating Ajax in Stockholm.
Manchester City have never won the UEFA Cup or Europa League, in part because their Champions League-focused European strategy under Guardiola has generally kept them out of the secondary competition.
Manchester United vs Manchester City: European Trophies
| Competition | Manchester United | Manchester City | Leader |
| Champions League / European Cup | 3 | 1 | Manchester United |
| Europa League / UEFA Cup | 1 | 0 | Manchester United |
| European Cup Winners’ Cup | 1 | 1 | Tied |
| UEFA Super Cup | 1 | 1 | Tied |
United’s overall European record remains stronger, largely down to their three Champions League/European Cup titles against City’s one, and their solitary Europa League win.
The two clubs are level in the Cup Winners’ Cup and UEFA Super Cup, both trophies won decades apart: United’s Cup Winners’ Cup and Super Cup both came in 1991, while City’s Cup Winners’ Cup dates back to 1970 and their Super Cup arrived in 2023.
Manchester United vs Manchester City: Club World Titles
Manchester United hold an Intercontinental Cup (1999) and a FIFA Club World Cup (2008). Manchester City hold a FIFA Club World Cup (2023) but no Intercontinental Cup.
The Intercontinental Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup are separate competitions run in different eras, the former contested primarily between the European Cup and Copa Libertadores champions until 2004, the latter a FIFA-organised global tournament since 2005, though both represent world club championship honours for the purposes of this comparison.
Manchester United vs Manchester City: Last 10 Years
Measuring the most recently completed 10-year period, the 2016/17 season through 2025/26, City’s dominance is stark.
City have won 17 major trophies in that window: 6 Premier League titles (2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024), 3 FA Cups (2019, 2023, 2026), 5 League Cups (2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2026), 1 Champions League (2023), 1 UEFA Super Cup (2023) and 1 FIFA Club World Cup (2023).
Manchester United have won 3 in the same period: the 2017 League Cup, the 2017 Europa League, and the 2024 FA Cup.
This recent-decade split is the clearest evidence that the historical total and the current sporting picture are two different measures.
United’s all-time lead reflects more than a century of accumulated history; City’s recent record reflects the club’s current level.
Manchester United vs Manchester City: Who Has More Major Trophies?
For this section, “major trophies” is defined as top-flight league titles, the FA Cup, the League Cup, and all major UEFA and FIFA honours (Champions League/European Cup, Europa League/UEFA Cup, Cup Winners’ Cup, UEFA Super Cup, FIFA Club World Cup and Intercontinental Cup), excluding the Community Shield.
This is an analytical classification used for comparison purposes in this article, not an official category recognised by UEFA, FIFA or the FA.
On this basis, Manchester United have won 47 major trophies and Manchester City have won 31, a gap of 16. That gap is narrower than the 30-trophy gap in the full official total, because the Community Shield, where United’s lead is largest in absolute terms, is excluded here.
Either way the total is calculated, United remain ahead, but the margin shrinks depending on which trophies are counted, which is exactly why this article states its methodology upfront rather than presenting a single total without explanation.
Manchester United vs Manchester City: Trophies Under Sir Alex Ferguson and Pep Guardiola
Sir Alex Ferguson
Ferguson managed Manchester United for more than 26 years, from November 1986 to May 2013. In that time he won 13 Premier League titles, 5 FA Cups, 4 League Cups, 10 Community Shields, 2 Champions League titles, 1 Cup Winners’ Cup, 1 UEFA Super Cup, 1 Intercontinental Cup and 1 FIFA Club World Cup.
His 1998/99 side won the treble of Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League, a feat no other English club had achieved before and only Manchester City have matched since.
Pep Guardiola
Guardiola took charge of Manchester City in July 2016. Since then he has won 6 Premier League titles, including a record four in a row between 2021 and 2024, 2 FA Cups, 4 League Cups, 1 Champions League, 1 UEFA Super Cup and 1 FIFA Club World Cup.
His 2022/23 side won the treble of Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League, matching Ferguson’s 1998/99 achievement.
Guardiola’s trophy rate at City, judged per season rather than by raw total, is the highest of any manager in the club’s history and compares closely with Ferguson’s peak years, though Ferguson’s reign lasted roughly three times as long, which explains why his career totals at United are still larger overall.
Conclusion
Manchester United remain ahead of Manchester City in the all-time trophy count, 68 to 38, a gap built primarily on a much longer competitive history, a stronger league title record, and three Champions League/European Cup wins to City’s one.
That advantage is real and, on current trends, unlikely to disappear soon. But it tells only part of the story.
Manchester City have overtaken United in the League Cup, matched them in the Cup Winners’ Cup, UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup, and delivered a Champions League breakthrough and a full treble of their own in 2023.
Judged purely on the last 10 completed seasons, City have been the more successful club by a wide margin, winning 17 major trophies to United’s 3.
The honest conclusion is that these two measures, all-time total and recent form, describe different things. United’s total reflects more than a century of accumulated success, including two distinct eras of dominance under Busby and Ferguson.
City’s recent record reflects where the club stands today, following more than a decade of investment, stability and, since 2016, Pep Guardiola’s management. Neither number makes one club simply “better” than the other.
Trophies measure silverware won, not a club’s entire history, identity or current quality. What the numbers do show clearly is a rivalry that, in pure sporting terms over the past 10 to 15 years, is far closer than the century-spanning trophy table on its own would suggest.
