What was the estimated budget for the first season of Narcos?

The estimated budget for Narcos’ first season was $25 million.

That figure refers to the entire ten-episode season, not to a single episode. The estimate works out to roughly $2.5 million per episode, a substantial investment for a new streaming drama at the time.

Narcos premiered its first season on August 28, 2015, with all ten episodes released at once on Netflix. The production’s scale reflected its international setting, period recreation, large ensemble cast, action sequences, and filming connected to its Colombian storyline. The season follows Pablo Escobar’s rise and the early efforts to dismantle his Medellín Cartel.

The number is often misremembered because television budgets are reported in different ways. A season total, an average episode cost, and a production estimate are not interchangeable. Here, $25 million is explicitly an estimate for season 1, while the $2.5 million figure is the approximate per-episode average. The sources do not establish $40 million or $60 million as the first-season total.