As the 2025 NWSL season winds down, top players are on the move as teams across the league look to stock their rosters in order to either boost their postseason odds or hit the ground running in 2026.
Incoming expansion side Boston Legacy FC is stocking up their 2026 debut roster, adding 18-year-old phenom Chloe Ricketts to their midfield and Brazilian international Amanda Gutierres — a 2025 Ballon d'Or nominee and two-time Golden Boot winner in Brazil's top-flight league — to their front line last week.
Along with that offensive firepower, Boston is on track to gain one of the NWSL's top veteran goalkeepers, with ESPN reporting last week that NC Courage net-minder Casey Murphy — a longtime USWNT backup to legend Alyssa Naeher — inked a deal to join the Legacy as soon as she becomes an unrestricted free agent at the end of the 2025 season.
The NWSL newcomer isn't the only club making moves, however.
Angel City and Portland have also been busy, with the Thorns sending midfielder Hina Sugita to the LA club in exchange for defender MA Vignola and $600,000 in intra-league transfer funds last week.
While there's no deadline for finalizing 2026 free agent transactions, the 2025 NWSL trade window officially closes this Thursday, leaving playoff-hopeful teams scrambling to pad their rosters while other clubs shift to focus on the future.
The NWSL salary cap has become a hot topic in recent weeks, with big-name — and big-money — transfers like Angel City forward Alyssa Thompson's overseas move to Chelsea and North Carolina Courage striker Jaedyn Shaw's reportedly imminent trade to Gotham raising concerns about the league's financial edge.
While Shaw's reported league-record $1.25 million trade proves that US teams are willing to pay a premium for top talent, the disparity between flashy transfer fees and salary limitations could be holding the NWSL back.
"I know that in the NWSL there are ambitious clubs that want to be able to compete with the likes of a Chelsea, with the likes of a Barcelona," retired USWNT star Tobin Heath said on last week's episode of The RE—CAP Show. "These teams are capped out, they can't compete. They're going to lose their best players."
The league's most recent collective bargaining agreement sets each NWSL club's current salary cap at $3.3 million, which will titrate up to $5.1 million by 2030 while also adding potential revenue sharing options.
In 2024, the average league salary was $117,000. However, with 22- to 26-player rosters, teams often low-ball some athletes in order to afford to pay out for superstars.
Soft salary cap overseas lures soccer's top players
In comparison, the UK's WSL and second-tier WSL2 operate with soft caps, recently shifting to a framework that allows teams to spend up to 80% of their revenue plus a capped contribution from club owners on player salaries.
"We have no intent to kind of 'cap' any players' earnings," WSL Football COO Holly Murdoch told The Guardian earlier this month. "We're at the investment stage of women's football, so we don't want to deter investment. We don't want to put in rules that don't make us an attractive investment."
With NWSL top earners Sophia Wilson and Trinity Rodman becoming free agents in 2026, the US league might need to rethink its model to stay competitive in an increasingly aggressive global market.
Big-name NWSL stars could be on the move next season, with the league releasing its list of 2026 free agents on Tuesday.
Two of the USWNT's 2024 Olympic gold medal-winning Triple Espresso frontline — the Washington Spirit's Trinity Rodman and the Portland Thorns' Sophia Wilson — headline the 2026 slate.
Other NWSL standouts like Gotham FC forward Midge Purce, Kansas City Current midfielder Lo'eau LaBonta, and North Carolina Courage goalkeeper Casey Murphy are also eligible to negotiate new contracts — and potentially suit up for other clubs next year.
As per the players' most recent CBA with the league, all athletes whose contracts expire at the end of this season are now 2026 free agents, regardless of the number of years they've competed in the NWSL.
The 2026 free agency period officially began on Tuesday, opening the door for both teams and eligible players to initiate contract discussions and term negotiations for next season.
Even more, 2025 clubs face additional competition in the race to sign their most-wished for players, as new NWSL expansion teams Denver and Boston Legacy FC enter the free agency fray ahead of their 2026 season debuts.
Notably, landing on the free agent list doesn't prohibit a player from simply re-signing with their original club, but it does indicate that any previous deal negotiations have extended beyond the NWSL's July 1st contract extension deadline.