If and how individuals and societies respond to economic inequality presents a central concern for contemporary political economy. Research on citizens shows that normative views on what constitutes a fair distribution of economic outcomes affect how individuals perceive inequality and to what extent they support redistribution. It is legislators, however, who in the end decide on measures that reduce or increase inequality. Our study employs an experimental game to investigate legislators’ fairness preferences concerning inequality caused by merit or luck. Among legislators from five advanced democracies, politicians across the political spectrum show the same pattern as citizens; they redistribute more when inequality is due to luck than when it is due to merit. Politicians from the left and the right differ, however, in their average level of redistribution and the degree to which they differentiate between the two sources of inequality. In comparison to citizens, politicians display more stable fairness views. Moreover, politicians from the left and the right are more polarized in their fairness preferences than the respective citizens. Our findings suggest that politicians' and citizens' fundamental views on inequality do not always coincide which might be one reason why policies related to inequality are difficult to communicate and implement.