The women’s football transfer market is entering 2026 in a noticeably different place than even a few seasons ago. Player mobility has increased, more clubs than ever are participating in international transfers, and transfer fee records at the top end of the market are being broken with increasing frequency. These developments reflect the broader professionalisation of the women’s game, as competition structures expand and commercial and operational frameworks continue to evolve.
However, this growth is not yet uniform. While activity and spending at the top end are accelerating, the market is still taking shape, with significant differences across countries in transfer activity, data availability, and regulatory development. This makes it essential to look beyond headline figures when assessing how structurally embedded this growth truly is.
For industry stakeholders, the key question is therefore not whether the market is growing but what kind of market is emerging. Is women’s football developing a transfer ecosystem that can support long-term professionalisation, competitive balance, and reinvestment? Or is growth still concentrated at the very top, with limited redistribution beneath the surface?
To assess how the women’s transfer market is evolving and where it may be heading, this article looks at changes in the volume of international transfers, the concentration of transfer spending, and the evolution of record-level fees.
Transfer activity is scaling quickly but the market is still maturing
International (cross-border) transfer activity in women’s football has expanded rapidly in recent seasons. The number of international transfers concluded during the summer window has roughly doubled since 2021, reaching more than 1,100 moves in the most recent summer window, according to FIFA data.
This increase in activity has been matched by an acceleration in financial terms. FIFA data covering full calendar years show that total transfer spending has expanded sharply since 2018, increasing 26 times by 2024, with even a 150% rise between 2023 and 2024 alone.
Despite these developments, the structure of the market remains relatively immature. The majority of women’s transfers are still driven by contract expiry rather than negotiated fees. In 2025, only 13% of transfers were permanent, fee-paying deals, compared with around 20% in the men’s game. However, the trajectory in this regard is still positive, with the share of fee-paying transfers increasing from approximately 5% in 2022.
Spending remains concentrated, despite broadening participation
Despite rising transfer volume, fee-paying activity continues to be driven by a small group of leagues. When analysing the 20 transfers with the highest fee across each of the last five seasons (100 transfers in total), it demonstrates that the top end of the women’s market remains geographically concentrated. On the one side, 96 out of 100 buyers came from only five markets, with the strongest representation coming from the United States’ NWSL and England’s WSL. In total fee terms, US and English clubs accounted for over three-quarters of spending within this sample.
The selling side is a bit more distributed. While 83% of sellers come from six leagues, a further seven leagues have also recorded player sales at meaningful fee levels, indicating the potential of several markets beyond the major leagues. A business model based on player trading could be potentially viable further down the pyramid.
The number of clubs involved in fee-paying international transfers has increased sharply. FIFA data shows that in 2018, only 18 clubs paid transfer fees and 16 clubs received fees. By 2024, this had grown to 124 buying clubs and 109 selling clubs, meaning that around seven times more clubs are now active participants in the global women’s transfer market.
Record fees signal a step-change at the elite level
After remaining unchanged for almost two decades following an early outlier in 2002, the women’s transfer record has been rapidly reset over the past few seasons, edging upwards in the early 2020s through landmark deals such as Pernille Harder’s move in 2020 and Keira Walsh’s transfer in 2022.
The pace of change intensified sharply from 2024 onwards. That year saw the record move beyond the €500,000 mark, before being reset repeatedly in 2025. Last year, the record was broken four times, with seven-figure transfers involving Naomi Girma, Olivia Smith, and Lizbeth Ovalle, before reaching a new high of €1.65m with Grace Geyoro’s move from Paris Saint-Germain FC to London City Lionesses.
While absolute transfer fees provide useful context, clearer insight into market characteristics comes from assessing fees relative to club revenues. Looking at the five highest-fee transfers (excluding Grace Geyoro’s move to London City Lionesses due to the absence of publicly available club revenue data), they were executed within measured financial parameters. Based on the latest available financial information (2023/24), three of the five buying clubs spent less than 10% of their operating revenues on a single transaction, with the remaining two below the 20% threshold.
For comparison, the transfer-fee-to-operating revenue ratios associated with the largest men’s transfers in recent seasons sit at a comparable, and in some cases, slightly higher level. Florian Wirtz’s move to Liverpool in 2024/25 represented around 17% of the club’s 2023/24 revenues, while Julián Álvarez’s transfer to Atlético de Madrid in the previous season was also 17%. Declan Rice’s move to Arsenal in 2023 stood at a higher level (approximately 22%).
A market growing fast but still defining its structure
The evidence points to a women’s transfer market that is scaling quickly but is still in the early stages of structural maturity. Transfer volume is rising rapidly, and more clubs are participating across borders, yet fee-paying transactions remain a minority of overall activity. Transfers involving fees are central to value creation and redistribution, allowing selling clubs to reinvest in player development, professional environments, staffing, and infrastructure. A continued shift towards a higher share of fee-paying deals will therefore be a key determinant of how sustainably the market develops over the coming years.
At the same time, spending remains highly concentrated at the top end. A small number of leagues, most notably the US and England, continue to dominate buying activity, limiting the depth and redistribution effects of the market. While the growing number of buying and selling clubs globally is a positive signal, a fully functioning redistribution ecosystem has yet to emerge. Expanding the flow of transfer fees across a broader range of countries and clubs will be critical if growth is to translate into wider professionalisation rather than reinforcing existing structural gaps.
The direction of travel is clear. With increasing investment, rising revenues, and improving structures, the women’s transfer market is likely to continue expanding. This expansion also creates significant opportunities for talent development. Many clubs already face constraints linked to a limited talent pool, and as participation and professionalisation increase, there is a clear pathway towards a broader and deeper talent base. Clubs that invest early in academies, youth development, and long-term player pathways are likely to be well-positioned to generate both sporting and financial returns, potentially reshaping existing business models and attracting new entrants to the ecosystem.
One thing is certain: the coming years will be defined by continued growth. The key question will be which clubs are able to adapt most effectively by aligning recruitment, talent development, and financial strategy, and how the transfer market evolves as a shared ecosystem that supports not only top-end growth but the long-term development of the women’s game.
Football Benchmark supports stakeholders across the women’s game by providing data-driven insight and strategic analysis to help them better understand the key drivers shaping market growth, investment, and long-term development.
