FPL glossary

Gameweek deadline

The gameweek deadline is the cut-off point, 90 minutes before the first kick-off of that gameweek, after which your team, transfers, captain and chip choice are locked for the round. Anything you change after it counts for the next gameweek instead.

What has to be done before it

Transfers, the starting eleven, bench order, the captain and vice-captain, and any chip activation all have to be in place before the deadline passes. There is no grace period and no partial credit: a team sheet saved a minute late is the previous week's team sheet.

The deadline moves week to week because it follows the first fixture. A Friday night opener pulls it forward by two days compared with a normal Saturday, and a midweek round can land on a Tuesday afternoon.

The rhythm around it

Press conferences on the Thursday and Friday before a weekend round are where injury news lands, which is why many managers hold their transfers until then. Player prices, on the other hand, change overnight regardless of the deadline, so waiting for team news can also mean paying more.

Example

The gameweek opens with a Friday match at 20:00, so the deadline is 18:30 that evening. A transfer confirmed at 18:31 is a valid transfer, but it belongs to the next gameweek and your original player scores for you tonight.

From the archive

The median FPL manager made 35 transfers over the 38 deadlines of the 2025/26 season. Figures as of 24 May 2026.

Updated: Season: 2025/26

Related terms

All FPL terms

Source: the gameweek histories of over 2.2 million managers in FPL Butler's 2025/26 season archive. The sample leans towards active managers, so the rates sit slightly above the global average.

Method

Behaviour is computed from each manager's official FPL gameweek history (transfers, points hits, bench points, chips and team value). Picks data is never used. Figures cover managers whose gameweek history runs from the opening gameweek to the final gameweek of the season, so managers who joined after the season started, and managers who stopped early, are excluded. Transfer counts include moves made on wildcard and free hit gameweeks, which cost no points. A hit means a gameweek with a positive transfer cost. Team value is the squad value including bank at gameweek 38, in millions. Percentiles use the nearest-rank method and medians the classic midpoint method. Managers with missing or corrupt data are excluded. The sample skews toward managers in active mini-leagues.

Managers who played the whole 2025/26 season in FPL Butler's season archive, meaning their gameweek history runs from the opening gameweek to the final one, so managers who joined late or stopped early are excluded. Managers enter the archive because they play in crawled mini-leagues or national country leagues. The crawler prioritises leagues that look active, so this sample is more engaged than the full global player base and behaviour rates should be read with that skew in mind.

Derived from publicly available Fantasy Premier League data. FPL Butler is not affiliated with the Premier League or Fantasy Premier League. The figures may be reused with attribution to FPL Butler.

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