The NWSL dropped its updated 2025 Competition Manual on Tuesday, with the most significant changes impacting the upcoming season’s finances.

Each 22- to 26-player team’s salary cap has increased 20% from $2.75 million in 2024 to $3.3 million for the 2025 season. This does not include the league’s new revenue sharing system, which offers additional benefits to ultimately bring each club's total maximum roster spend to $3.5 million.

USWNT star Crystal Dunn helps her son, Marcel, kick a ball on the pitch after an international friendly.
Both parental leave and national team call-ups allow NWSL teams to add players outside their salary cap. (Erin Chang/USSF/Getty Images)

Salary cap exceptions will aid NWSL club accounts

With the newly negotiated CBA eliminating the waiver wire and trade windows as well as allowing all out-of-contract players to negotiate as free agents, teams can further supplement their salary cap with any remaining allocation money.

Additionally, to address absences due to injuries, mental health, parental leave, or national team call-ups, clubs can sign athletes to short-term roster relief or salary cap exempt contracts. So long as those deals extend no further than the end of the calendar year, teams will not have to account for those roster additions in their salary cap.

Bonuses will count toward a club's cap, though some will be delayed to a subsequent season.

Individual player performance bonuses will count toward the following season’s cap, regardless of whether or not the team retains that player. On the other hand, one-time boosts like signing bonuses are applicable to a club's current season salary cap.

Official tournament prize money as well as postseason and award bonuses funded directly by the NWSL will not count toward a team's salary cap.

Per the aforementioned new CBA, league-wide caps will continue to grow year-over-year to at least $5.1 million by 2030, with minimum base salaries rising from $48,500 in 2025 to $82,500 over that same timeframe.

In a global economy where record transfer fees and other benefits are luring top contenders away from the NWSL, salary caps will continue to constrain certain elements of the way US clubs do business — but the positive long-term changes ushered in by the NWSL CBA are sure to make their mark far beyond this offseason.