Alan Shearer's Premier League scoring record has stood for two decades, and it's still not seriously under threat. Mohamed Salah is the closest active player, but even he sits nearly 70 goals behind. Here's the full all-time list, and why 200 goals alone is enough to put a player among the greatest strikers the competition has ever seen.

The all-time top 8

Rank	Player	Goals	Clubs
1	Alan Shearer	260	Blackburn Rovers, Newcastle United
2	Harry Kane	213	Tottenham Hotspur
3	Wayne Rooney	208	Everton, Manchester United
4	Mohamed Salah	191	Chelsea, Liverpool
5	Andrew Cole	187	Newcastle, Manchester United, and others
6	Sergio Agüero	184	Manchester City
7	Frank Lampard	177	West Ham, Chelsea
8	Thierry Henry	175	Arsenal

Salah's total is still growing, so his exact position and gap to Rooney will keep shifting through the current season.

Alan Shearer's untouchable record

Shearer scored his 260 goals across spells at Blackburn Rovers, where he won the Premier League title in 1995, and Newcastle United, where he became the club's all-time top scorer and a local hero who turned down a move to Manchester United to stay close to home. He retired in 2006, and no player has come within 40 goals of his total since. His record has now stood for close to 20 years, longer than the Premier League itself had existed when he set it, which says something about how genuinely rare a career like his is.

Harry Kane's total, now frozen

Kane spent his entire Premier League career at Tottenham before leaving for Bayern Munich in the summer of 2023, and his 213 goals are effectively locked in place unless he returns to English football later in his career. He won the Golden Boot three times (2015/16, 2016/17 and 2020/21), matching Shearer's tally of three but still one behind Thierry Henry's record of four. What makes Kane's total remarkable is that it came almost entirely from a single club across roughly a decade, in an era when top strikers move far more often than Shearer or Henry's generation did.

Wayne Rooney's total across two clubs

Rooney's 208 goals were split between Everton, where he broke through as a 16 year old wonderkid, and Manchester United, where he spent the bulk of his career and became the club's all-time record scorer across all competitions. His longevity, from a teenage prodigy in 2002 to a veteran leading the line more than a decade later, is a big part of why his total held up as the Premier League's second-highest for years before Kane eventually passed it.

Mohamed Salah, still climbing

Salah is the only player in the current top eight still adding to his total. Through the 2025/26 season, he sits on 191 goals across spells at Chelsea and Liverpool, the vast majority coming since his move to Anfield in 2017. He's won a record four Premier League Golden Boots, tied with Thierry Henry for the most in the competition's history, and he's still a regular starter for Liverpool, so climbing past Rooney and eventually threatening Kane's total is a realistic outcome if he keeps playing at his current level for another couple of seasons. Catching Shearer's 260 would require several more prolific years on top of that, but it's no longer the impossible stretch it once looked. What makes Salah's case unusual is his age: he's been one of the most consistent finishers in the league well into his thirties, at a point in a career where most forwards have already started to slow down, which is exactly why his total has kept climbing faster than anyone expected even a few seasons ago.

The rest of the top eight

Andrew Cole's 187 goals came in spells at six different clubs, most productively at Newcastle United and Manchester United, where he formed one of the Premier League's most feared strike partnerships alongside Dwight Yorke during United's treble-winning 1998/99 season. Sergio Agüero's 184 came almost entirely at Manchester City, where he scored the single most famous goal in Premier League history, the stoppage-time winner against QPR on the final day of the 2011/12 season that won City their first title in 44 years. Frank Lampard's 177, remarkable for a midfielder rather than an out-and-out striker, came mostly from Chelsea, where he combined goal-scoring with box-to-box running for over a decade. And Thierry Henry's 175 for Arsenal included some of the most stylish, technically gifted finishing the league has ever seen, and helped fire the club's unbeaten "Invincibles" title-winning season in 2003/04.

How the Premier League list compares to Europe's other top leagues

Every major European league has its own version of this list, and the Premier League's isn't the highest. Serie A's record, set by Silvio Piola in the 1930s and 40s, sits at 274, higher than Shearer's total, while Ligue 1's record holder, Delio Onnis, reached 299. Part of the reason is timing: Shearer's record only covers Premier League-era matches since 1992, a much shorter window than leagues whose all-time lists stretch back to before the Second World War. It's a reminder that "biggest number" and "most competitive era" aren't always the same thing when comparing scoring records across different leagues and different centuries of football.

Why 200 goals is such a rare milestone

Only four players in Premier League history have reached 200 goals, and that scarcity isn't really about talent, it's about circumstance. A player needs a long, mostly injury-free career at a club (or two) that keeps him as a first-choice striker for the better part of a decade, in a league that's become steadily more competitive and tactically demanding since the 1990s. Squad rotation, the rise of pressing systems that ask forwards to do more defensive work, and a transfer market that pulls top scorers toward whichever club pays best all make it harder for one player to stay at the sharp end of one league for long enough to build a 200-goal career than it was a generation ago. Even prolific modern strikers who might otherwise threaten this list, like Erling Haaland at Manchester City, tend to arrive in the Premier League several seasons into their careers rather than starting there as teenagers, which shrinks the window they have to challenge Shearer's mark.

A different record: the all-time English top-flight list

It's worth separating the Premier League record, which only covers matches since the league's 1992 launch, from the all-time record for England's top division as a whole, which stretches back to 1888. That older, bigger record belongs to Jimmy Greaves, who scored 357 goals in just 516 top-flight appearances mostly across the 1950s and 60s, well before the Premier League existed. Everton's Dixie Dean, third on that all-time list with 310, also holds a separate record that has nothing to do with career totals: 60 goals in the 1927/28 season alone, still the most any player has scored in a single English top-flight campaign, nearly a century later.

See how the club game's other major scoring charts compare in our Champions League all-time top scorers guide, and get ready for this season in our Premier League 2026/27 preview.

For the Premier League's own official all-time records, see PremierLeague.com.

FAQ

Who is the Premier League's all-time top scorer?

Alan Shearer, with 260 goals for Blackburn Rovers and Newcastle United between 1992 and 2006.

Is Harry Kane still adding to his Premier League goal total?

No. Kane left Tottenham for Bayern Munich in 2023 and his tally of 213 is effectively frozen unless he returns to the Premier League later in his career.

How many goals does Mohamed Salah have in the Premier League?

191 through the 2025/26 season, and still rising. He's the only player in the current all-time top eight still active in the league.

How many players have scored 200 Premier League goals?

Four: Alan Shearer, Harry Kane, Wayne Rooney and Mohamed Salah.

Who has won the most Premier League Golden Boots?

Thierry Henry and Mohamed Salah are tied with four each, the most in Premier League history.

Is Alan Shearer's Premier League record the same as the all-time English scoring record?

No. Shearer's 260 is the Premier League record since 1992. The all-time English top-flight record, going back to 1888, belongs to Jimmy Greaves with 357 goals.

Could Mohamed Salah catch Alan Shearer's record?

It's a long way off, roughly 70 goals as of the 2025/26 season, but not unrealistic if he continues playing at a high level for several more seasons.

Who scored the Premier League's most famous goal?

Many would point to Sergio Agüero's stoppage-time winner against QPR on the final day of the 2011/12 season, which won Manchester City their first title in 44 years and is still replayed constantly as one of the sport's great moments.

Does the Premier League all-time top scorers list include goals scored for other clubs before 1992?

No. The list only counts goals scored in Premier League matches, which began in the 1992/93 season. Goals a player scored in the old First Division don't count toward this total.