Football contracts expiring by year
4,983 players in the squads we track are out of contract between 2026 and 2030, earning £159,011,338 a week between them. 2027 is the busiest year with 1,411 deals running out.
A year gets its own page once we hold a wage for at least 250 players whose deals end in it — below that the club chart is twelve bars of one and the ranking is not a ranking. 82 players are tied down beyond 2030, spread too thinly across 5 years to rank, and 672 carry a date that has already passed, which is a deal the source never refreshed rather than one still running.
When the deals run out
Players out of contract each year, and what their clubs pay them a week
Every expiry year we cover
Tap a column heading to re-rank, or a year to see the players
| YEAR | PLAYERS | WEEKLY | YEARLY | MEDIAN | MOST AT ONE CLUB | MOST IN ONE LEAGUE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 1,399 | £27,049,129 | £1,406,554,708 | £7,600 | Leicester City 10 | League One 114 |
| 2027 | 1,411 | £41,308,672 | £2,148,050,944 | £14,000 | Hull City 13 | Championship 119 |
| 2028 | 1,086 | £38,743,899 | £2,014,682,748 | £19,000 | Fenerbahçe A.Ş. 13 | Championship 146 |
| 2029 | 702 | £30,630,100 | £1,592,765,200 | £28,000 | Juventus 11 | Premier League 110 |
| 2030 | 385 | £21,279,538 | £1,106,535,976 | £47,000 | Bayer 04 Leverkusen 12 | Premier League 108 |
The best paid player out of contract each year
Frequently asked questions
How many footballers are out of contract in the next few years?
4,983 of the players we hold a wage for have a deal ending between 2026 and 2030, worth £159,011,338 a week and £8,268,589,576 a year in total. A further 82 are tied down past 2030.
Which year has the most contracts expiring?
2027, with 1411 deals running out — £41,308,672 a week of wages.
Why do so many contracts end on 30 June?
Because that is the last day of the season across most of Europe, so a deal is written to it whatever month it was signed in. The December dates belong to the summer-calendar leagues — Major League Soccer, Scandinavia and Brazil — where the season ends in the autumn instead.
Which years are missing from this list?
Years with fewer than 250 deals we hold a wage for, which is every year before 2026 and every year after 2030. 82 players are tied down beyond 2030 across 5 years, too few in any one of them to rank; 672 carry a date that has already gone, which is a deal the source never refreshed rather than one still running.
What do these players earn?
It rises the further out the deal runs: the median is £7,600 a week among the 2026 expiries and £47,000 among the 2030 ones. Long contracts go to better paid players, so the later years hold fewer deals but more money. Both figures are taken over players aged 22 and up — squad lists here run down to academy age.
How current is this?
Contract dates are the deal we hold against each player in our 2026/27 squads. 64 players we hold a wage for carry no expiry date at all and are on none of these pages, and players with no current club are left out too — a contract expires against a club.
Where to next
The same wages, cut a different way
The Championship has more deals ending in 2027 than any other division — see what the Championship pays. Or browse every league we track, the wage tables by nationality, or this season's transfers.