Karoline Leavitt Net Worth

What is Karoline Leavitt's Net Worth and Salary?

Karoline Leavitt is an American political aide, communications strategist, and government official who has a net worth of $3 million. Karoline Leavitt's White House salary is $195,200 per year. According to her earlier congressional financial disclosures, Leavitt did not report significant personal assets, investment accounts, real estate holdings, or liabilities during her 2022 House campaign. Her household financial picture changed after her marriage to real estate investor Nicholas Riccio, who has an estimated net worth of at least $10 million thanks largely to a portfolio of vacation rental properties, apartments, and motel assets in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire.

Leavitt became the White House press secretary under Donald Trump in January 2025. At 27, she became the youngest person ever to hold the position. Previously, she worked in Trump's first administration as a presidential writer and assistant press secretary, served as communications director for Representative Elise Stefanik, ran unsuccessfully for Congress in New Hampshire's 1st district, and later became national press secretary for Trump's 2024 presidential campaign.

Financial Disclosures

Karoline Leavitt's earlier congressional financial disclosures showed limited personal assets. In her 2021 House candidate filing, she reported no significant assets, such as investments, real estate, or bank accounts, and no unearned income. Her 2022 campaign disclosure similarly showed no major financial holdings at the time.

Leavitt also reported no personal liabilities, debts, loans, or financial obligations. While her campaign later carried debt, those obligations were tied to the campaign committee and were not personal liabilities. Based on those earlier filings, her disclosed personal net worth at the time was effectively near zero, aside from any cash savings from salary. Her earned income for 2021 was around $70,000, with a prior-year salary of $48,800, but no reported investments or property.

That earlier picture changed substantially after Leavitt entered the White House and filed a 2025 OGE Form 278e New Entrant public financial disclosure tied to her January 20, 2025 appointment as White House press secretary. In that filing, Leavitt reported ownership of KCL, LLC, a Hampton, New Hampshire-based company, and listed $165,000 in business income from the entity, along with $35,000 in salary from the Republican National Committee. She also disclosed compensation sources over $5,000 from Newsmax, the Howie Carr Radio Network, Ayotte for Governor, MAGA Inc., the Republican National Committee, Donald J. Trump for President, Lupoli Companies, Olympic Media, and KCL, LLC.

The 2025 disclosure also showed meaningful household liquidity. Leavitt listed six U.S. bank cash accounts with combined disclosed value ranges of roughly $1.2 million to $2.55 million. She also listed a brokerage account containing individual stock positions in companies including Tesla, Nvidia, Boeing, Exxon Mobil, AMD, Occidental Petroleum, Robinhood, RTX, Serve Robotics, Trump Media & Technology Group, and U.S. Steel. Based on the reported ranges, those stock holdings were worth roughly $60,000 to $250,000.

The disclosure also reflected the financial impact of her marriage to Nicholas Riccio. Under spouse-related employment assets and income, the filing listed Nautical Beach Resort, LLC, Riccio Enterprises, LLC, and Nautical Motel, LLC as business-income sources. The filing did not provide values or income amounts for those spouse-related businesses, so it cannot be used to calculate Riccio's exact real estate equity. However, it does confirm that the family's financial picture is heavily tied to his Hampton Beach real estate and lodging businesses.

The filing also listed three investment/rental-property mortgages: one with Kennebunk Savings, one with Enterprise Bank, and one with Newburyport Bank. Each mortgage was disclosed as being over $1 million, meaning the household reported at least $3 million in investment-property debt. Those liabilities appear connected to the real estate portfolio, not ordinary consumer debt.

Nicholas Riccio Real Estate

Karoline Leavitt's husband, Nicholas Riccio, built his fortune through Hampton Beach, New Hampshire real estate. His business interests are connected to Riccio Enterprises, Nautical Beach Properties, Nautical Beach Resort, and the Nautical Motel. The known portfolio includes vacation rental homes at 12 M Street, 16 M Street, and 17 M Street, the Nautical Motel at 147 Ashworth Avenue, and a cluster of beach apartments and rental units around M Street, including 1 M Street, 14 M Street, 16-B, 16-D, 16-E, and 21-1 M Street.

Riccio began buying distressed Hampton Beach properties in the early 1990s, when some buildings in the area were available at very low prices. Several of those properties have appreciated dramatically. For example, 16 M Street was reportedly purchased for $80,000 in 1996 and later carried a 2024 assessment of roughly $850,000, while 17 M Street was assessed at just over $1 million. The three primary M Street houses alone appear to be worth roughly $2.7 million to $3 million. The Nautical Motel is likely worth at least $1.5 million as an income-producing commercial property, and the remaining beach apartments and rental units likely add several million more.

Overall, Riccio's visible Hampton Beach real estate portfolio appears to have a gross value in the $9 million to $12 million range. Karoline's 2025 White House financial disclosure also listed spouse-related business income sources tied to Nautical Beach Resort, Riccio Enterprises, and Nautical Motel, along with three investment/rental-property mortgages of more than $1 million each. That means the exact equity value is not public, but the portfolio supports an estimated household net worth of around $10 million.

Salary

As White House press secretary, Leavitt earns a reported salary of $195,200 per year. That represented a major increase from her earlier reported earnings as a young political aide, congressional candidate, media contributor, and campaign spokesperson. Her 2025 financial disclosure also listed $165,000 in business income from KCL, LLC and $35,000 in salary from the Republican National Committee before her White House appointment.

(Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Early Life and Education

Karoline Leavitt was born on August 24, 1997 in Atkinson, New Hampshire. Her family owned an ice cream shop and a used truck dealership in nearby Plaistow. As a teenager, Leavitt attended Central Catholic High School in Lawrence, Massachusetts. After graduating in 2015, she went to Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire on an NCAA Division II softball scholarship.

In college, Leavitt became an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump. She wrote opinion pieces in the college newspaper defending his 2017 travel ban and criticizing the mainstream news media. She also founded Saint Anselm College's first broadcasting club, worked at Hearst Television's WMUR-TV, and interned at Fox News. Leavitt graduated in 2019 with a bachelor's degree in communications and politics.

Early Political Career

After college, Leavitt entered the first Trump White House. She worked in the Office of Presidential Correspondence and later became an assistant press secretary under Kayleigh McEnany. After Trump left office in January 2021, Leavitt became communications director for Republican US Representative Elise Stefanik of New York.

The Stefanik role helped raise Leavitt's profile inside conservative politics. She became part of a younger generation of Trump-aligned Republican communicators who built careers around cable news appearances, rapid-response messaging, and social media-driven political branding.

2022 Congressional Campaign

In 2022, Leavitt ran for the US House of Representatives in New Hampshire's 1st district. Her campaign leaned heavily into her Trump White House background and a combative media style. She attracted support from prominent conservatives, including Ted Cruz, Lauren Boebert, Jim Jordan, and Elise Stefanik.

Leavitt won the Republican primary in an upset, defeating Matt Mowers, who had been the party's nominee in the district two years earlier. In the general election, she lost to Democratic incumbent Chris Pappas.

Campaign Finance Issues

After Leavitt's 2022 congressional campaign, her campaign committee faced scrutiny over excessive contributions and unpaid debts. In 2022, the group End Citizens United filed a Federal Election Commission complaint alleging that her campaign had accepted contributions over the legal limit and failed to properly refund donors.

In 2025, Leavitt's campaign amended a series of filings and disclosed more than $326,000 in unpaid campaign debt. A significant portion of that debt involved donations that exceeded federal contribution limits and were supposed to be refunded. The campaign debt was owed by the campaign committee, not by Leavitt personally. As of 2026, the issue had not resulted in a final FEC ruling, and the matter remained tied up amid the commission's broader inability to act on enforcement cases.

Trump 2024 Campaign

After her congressional loss, Leavitt remained active in conservative politics and media. She worked as a spokesperson and communications figure for Trump-aligned political efforts before joining Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign as national press secretary.

In that role, Leavitt became one of the campaign's most visible defenders on television and in public statements. Her job placed her at the center of Trump's media strategy during the 2024 election and helped position her for a senior communications role in the next administration.

White House Press Secretary

In November 2024, President-elect Donald Trump named Leavitt as his White House press secretary. She formally became the 36th White House press secretary on January 20, 2025. At 27, she became the youngest person ever appointed to the position.

Leavitt held her first White House briefing on January 28, 2025. From the start, her tenure reflected Trump's adversarial relationship with much of the mainstream press and his administration's effort to elevate conservative outlets, online media, bloggers, podcasters, and influencers. She announced that nontraditional media would have greater access to the White House briefing room and said the administration would restore press access for hundreds of journalists whose credentials had lapsed or been revoked under the previous administration.

Her time as press secretary quickly became one of the most closely watched parts of the second Trump administration's communications operation. Leavitt became the public face of daily administration messaging, defending Trump, his senior aides, and his policies from the briefing room podium and in frequent television appearances.

Her tenure also drew controversy. In 2025, the White House became involved in a high-profile dispute with the Associated Press over the administration's preferred name for the Gulf of Mexico. The AP sued after its reporters were restricted from certain White House events, and Leavitt was named as one of the defendants in her official capacity. A federal judge later ruled that the administration's treatment of the AP violated the First Amendment, and the administration appealed the decision.

Personal Life

In December 2023, Leavitt became engaged to real estate developer Nicholas Riccio, who is 32 years older than she is. The couple married in January 2025 at Wentworth By the Sea Country Club in Rye, New Hampshire, just days before Trump's second inauguration.

Leavitt and Riccio have two children. Their son, Nicholas Robert Riccio, nicknamed Ni

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