Tour de France jerseys explained: Yellow, green, polka dot and white

The stages are set, and the day is almost upon us: On Saturday, July 5, the best cyclists in the world will take on the most grueling course in the world in hopes of winning the 2025 Tour de France. This year's edition has a little bit of everything, from another one-on-one duel between Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar (who have combined to win the last five Tours) to a cavalcade of young stars and one of the deepest fields of sprinters we've ever seen.

But all of the drama of the next three weeks won't mean much if you don't know how to make sense of it. Grand Tour cycling can feel like a foreign language if you're not familiar with it; just what is a peloton? And why is that one guy wearing polka dots? Luckily, we're here to help with a breakdown of all the different colored jerseys at the Tour de France and what they mean.

What does the yellow jersey mean at the Tour de France?

The yellow jersey is the most important in the Tour, worn since 1919 by the leader of the overall race — technically known as the general classification. How this tradition actually began is the subject of much debate: The Tour's official history claims that the jersey was first worn by Frenchman Eugène Christophe, either as an homage to the yellow newsprint of the newspaper that organized the event or because yellow, as an unpopular color, was the only one that a manufacturer could whip up on short notice.

No matter how it started, the maillot jaune has become synonymous with the Tour de France; getting to wear it for even a day is a landmark achievement for most riders. While the winner of the previous year's Tour used to wear it during Stage 1 of the next year's race, that tradition has gone out of style recently, and it's likely that no one will wear it when the 2025 edition begins in Lille on July 5. The winner of that sprint stage will be the first one to don the yellow this year for Stage 2.

Among active riders, Chris Froome holds the record for most days spent in the yellow at 59, with 2024 champion Tadej Pogačar at 40, rival Jonas Vingegaard at 27, Julian Alaphilippe at 18 and Geraint Thomas at 15. Pogačar and Vingegaard figure to do battle for the yellow jersey again in 2025; they've exchanged wins in each of the last five Tours, and at ages 26 and 28, they show no sign of slowing down.

What does the green jersey mean at the Tour de France?

The green jersey is worn by the leader of what's known as the points classification, although it's often unofficially known as the sprinters' jersey. The reason for that is simple: Riders are rewarded a certain number of points for top-15 finishes in each stage, with the winner earning the most and the 15th-place rider earning the least. High finishes in flat stages — sprinters' specialties — bestow more points than those in hilly or mountain stages. Add in points awarded for intermediate sprints in the middle of stages, and it's no wonder that the maillot vert always goes to a sprinting specialist. (Last year it was won by Eritrean Biniam Girmay, widely regarded as the current best sprinter in the world.)

Slovakian Peter Sagan, arguably the greatest sprinter of all time, is the king of the green jersey, winning it a record seven times. He's also spent 130 days in the maillot vert; the next closest rider, Erik Zabel, is at 88. Girmay is the narrow favorite to capture it in 2025, but this is one of the deepest groups of sprinters in recent memory, and any of Jonathan Milan, Tim Merlier, Jasper Philipsen and others could challenge.

What does the polka-dot jersey mean at the Tour de France?

Happy anniversary to the King of the Mountains: Since 1975, the winner of the mountains classification has donned the polka dot jersey, white with red spots in an effort by sponsor Chocolat Poulain to make it stand out from the rest of the peloton as much as possible.

Each Tour course contains at least a handful of mountain stages; there will be six in the 2025 edition, including one in the Massif Central, two in the Pyrenees and three in the Alps. Arguably the most grueling test in cycling, taking home the polka dot jersey is a tremendous honor determined by a relatively simple scoring system. Each mountain stage is rated by difficulty on scale from 4 (least difficult) to 1 (most difficult), with HC (hors categories, literally "uncategorized") representing the hardest climbs of all. The more difficult the climb, the more points are up for grabs, with riders earning more points the higher they finish.

Frenchman Richard Virenque holds the record for most total days in the polka dots at 96. The Tour used to be a bit more specialized, with certain climbers focusing solely on the mountain classification without bothering to worry about the overall race. But that's begun to change lately; Vingegaard and Pogacar excel in the mountains, and both have accomplished the feat of winning both the mountain and overall classification in the same year (Vingegaard in 2022, Pogacar in 2020 and 2021). They'll be among the favorites to do so again this year, with French riders Lenny Martinez and Kevin Vauqueli also looming as possibilities.

What does the white jersey mean at the Tour de France?

The white jersey is worn by the leader of the young rider classification, limited exclusively to riders who will remain younger than 26 years of age in the year that the race is held. There isn't a unique scoring system here: Whichever eligible cyclist has the best time in the overall race (i.e., the general classification) gets the honor.

If you'd like to get a sense of just how freakishly good Pogacar has been, he won the white jersey four years in a row from 2020-2023. He finally aged out in 2024, allowing Belgian Remco Evenepoel to take home the honors while finishing third in the GC. Evenepoel just turned 25 in January, meaning he's still eligible and should be considered the favorite to repeat this year. If he slips up, though, there's a ton of young talent (particularly Florian Lipowitz) chomping at the bit.