Yesterday FIFA published its breakdown of the 2025 women’s soccer global transfer report. 2025 showed another year of record growth with $28.6 million spent on international transfers—an 86% increase over 2024 (and more growth than the 50+% that 2024 saw going after 2023). 2025 also saw a 6.3% increase in the total number of international transfers going from 2,284 in 2024 to 2,440 in 2025. This was a slowdown in growth compared to the 20% that 2024 saw compared to 2023. There was also an increase in the number of transfers with fees up to 11.8% compared to 2024’s 8.7%.


Image 1: Spending on transfer fees and number of clubs with fees, 2025 FIFA Global Transfer Report

 

The Summer transfer window—July to September—which overlaps with the traditional European schedule off-season and the NWSL’s midseason window again saw almost 60% of all transfers and spending with a peak in April as the NWSL’s primary window was coming to a close.


Image 2: Distribution of number of transfers and spending on transfer fees across the year in 2025, 2025 FIFA Global Transfer Report

 

The majority of transfers (81.4%, down from 84.6% in 2024)) were for players who were out of contract–free agents–and almost all of the international transfer money was spent on players making permanent transfers


Image 3: Distribution of number of transfers and value of transfer fees by transfer type, 2025 FIFA Global Transfer Report

 

The majority of the transfer fees came from fixed fees—$24.5 million or 85.7% of the overall sum—while only $3.5 million came from conditional fees and $600,000 in release/buy-out fees. 2025 also marked the first year where there was a buy-out clause actually activated in women’s soccer. 

Despite the number of transfers involving a sell-on fee rose in 2025, the percentage of transfers with a sell-on fee remained level with 2024 around 31% and well below the level observed in the men’s side (~50%). 

Although the FIFA report does report the top five transfer fees of the year across the globe, there is no transparency into official numbers past what leaks out to reporters. The NWSL was involved in four of the five highest transfer fees globally in 2025. 


Image 4: Top five transfers by size of transfer fee (2025), 2025 FIFA Global Transfer Report

The average length of international transfers was 16.3 months (an increase from 14.9 months in 2024). The general distribution across length stayed within a few percentage points for every segment. Only 5.5% of contracts were over three years—up from 2.3% in 2024. In a similar trend to the men’s professional landscape, younger players were the most likely to receive the longest contracts with players under 18 averaging contracts of 27.9 months, and then a solid dropoff in the 18-23 bracket with average contracts around 16.8 months.


Image 5: Distribution of contract duration in international transfers, 2025 FIFA Global Transfer Report

FIFA published that the median annual fixed salary agreed upon in international transfers was only $19,800. More than one fifth of players (21.7%) earned over $50,000/year, an increase from the 17.4% in 2024. For the first time ever, 2025 saw contracts in women’s professional football with annual fixed remuneration exceeding USD 1 million, although only 0.5% of all contracts concluded in 2025 were $500,000 or more. 


Image 6: Distribution of yearly total fixed remuneration in international transfers in 2025, 2025 FIFA Global Transfer Report

With 129 different nationalities involved, the United States had the most players transferred internationally (240 transfers), with the United Kingdom (108), Nigeria (94), Colombia (89), and Canada (87) rounding out the top five. Brazil dropped out of the top five list this year after finishing second with 121 in 2024.  


Image 7: Player nationality by number of international transfers in 2024, 2024 FIFA Global Transfer Report

Players from the United States also topped the charts in terms of spending on transfer fees, with $4.1 million — the United States hadn’t broken into the top 5 nations in this category in 2024. Of the 129 nationalities involved in transfers, 54 had at least one transfer that included a fee

Looking at all of the transfers in 2025, a roughly 60% were between clubs in the same confederation with 43% occurring between two clubs in UEFA (European Federation). Players moving from Concacaf (USA, Mexico, Canada, etc) to UEFA were the second-largest with 177 transfers. In 2024, the opposite direction, UEFA to Concacaf, was the second-largest, but it’s now dropped to third. 


Image 7: Number of transfers between and within confederations, 2025 FIFA Global Transfer Report

Once again, UEFA clubs led in spending on transfer fees, accounting for $8.4 million in 2024 (54.4% of all transfer fees) and all the way up to $19.3 million in 2025 (67.3%) Concacaf clubs spent the second highest amount, with $8.3 million spent, up from $6.9 million in 2024. Similarly to 2024, most of the transfer fees went to clubs in UEFA – 66%, equalling $18.9 million.

England completed the most incoming transfers with 135, while the United States moved down to third compared to 2024 with 111. The United States led the way in outgoing transfers with 227, up 120 from 2024 where they were third. 

As far as spending goes, clubs from England dethroned the United States at the top with $11 million spent in 2025. The United States increased from the $5.8 million spent in 2024 to $7.9 million in 2025. On the opposite side of that, clubs from the United States received the most transfer fees in 2025 with $5 million compared to 2024 where they didn’t even break into the top five. 

The largest transfer stream amount came from England transferring players from the United States (Alyssa Thompson, Naomi Girma) 


Image 8: Top three transfer streams in terms of spending on transfer fees (USD) in 2025, 2025 FIFA Global Transfer Report

Eight of the 14 NWSL clubs made it into the 2025 top spending clubs, the same number that were on the list in 2024. Bay FC went from first in 2024 to not on the list in 2025, Portland (10th), North Carolina (11th), and Seattle (13th) were in similar boats. Only Orlando, Utah, Houston, and Washington stayed on the list both years, while Angel City, San Diego, Chicago, and Gotham joined the top 20 ranking. 


Image 9: Top 20 clubs by spending on transfer fees in 2025, 2025 FIFA Global Transfer Report