How the Trade Deadline Works
How the trade deadline works in the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL: when each league stops trades, what is still allowed afterward and how salary caps shape deals.
A trade deadline is the fixed date and time in a league’s season after which teams can no longer trade players with one another. All four major North American leagues have one. The NFL’s falls on the Tuesday after Week 9 in early November. The NBA’s comes in February, MLB’s at the end of July or start of August, and the NHL’s in late February or early March. Teams keep running their rosters after the cutoff. They can still sign free agents, claim players off waivers and release players, but they can no longer swap players, draft choices or contracts.
Per ESPN via ABC13, NBA.com, Bleacher Report, Daily Faceoff, Sports Illustrated and NBC, through Nov. 11, 2026.
How it works
Each league sets its deadline by a formula, and the exact day moves from year to year. A trade has to be agreed and filed with the league office before the cutoff. In the NFL, deals must reach the league office by 4 p.m. ET, the same time the daily transaction wire closes, per Sports Illustrated. Paperwork has sunk deals before: a planned 2017 Bengals-Browns trade for quarterback A.J. McCarron fell apart at that year’s deadline because Cleveland did not file its documents with the league in time, per CBS Sports.
| League | Rule for timing | 2025-26 cycle | 2026-27 cycle |
|---|---|---|---|
| NFL | Tuesday after Week 9, 4 p.m. ET | Nov. 4, 2025 | Nov. 10, 2026 |
| NBA | A Thursday in February, 3 p.m. ET | Feb. 6, 2025 (2024-25) | Feb. 11, 2027 |
| MLB | Window of July 28 to Aug. 3 set by the CBA, 6 p.m. ET | July 31, 2025 | Aug. 3, 2026 |
| NHL | 40 days before the regular season ends, moved off weekends, 3 p.m. ET | Mar. 6, 2026 | Mar. 1, 2027 |
Per SI, theScore, NBA.com, Hoops Rumors via Yardbarker, Basketball-Reference, Wikipedia, NHL.com and Daily Faceoff, through Nov. 11, 2026.
The 2026 NFL deadline was Tuesday, Nov. 10, at 4 p.m. ET, according to both ESPN’s tracker via ABC13 and theScore. The NBA lists Feb. 11, 2027 as its 2026-27 deadline on its official key-dates page. MLB moved its 2026 deadline to Monday, Aug. 3, at 6 p.m. ET, a few days later than the July 31 cutoff of 2025, per Bleacher Report, which cited MLB.com. The NHL’s 2026 deadline was 3 p.m. ET on March 6, per NHL.com. Daily Faceoff reported the 2026-27 deadline as March 1, 2027. It explained that the league’s labor agreement places the deadline 40 days before the end of the regular season unless that day falls on a weekend.
What is still allowed after the deadline
The deadline stops trades, but other roster moves continue. When MLB went to a single deadline, the league’s 2019 rules stated that players “can be placed and claimed on outright waivers after July 31, but they cannot be traded after that date,” as reported by Sports Illustrated. In the NBA, teams can keep signing free agents and calling up G League players for the rest of the regular season, per Wikipedia’s summary of league rules. That is how the buyout market works. A player whose team waives him, usually after he and the team agree to reduce his salary, can join a contender as a free agent. To be eligible for the playoffs with his new team, though, he must be waived by the NBA’s March 1 deadline, which the league lists as the “Playoff Eligibility Waiver Deadline” on its 2026-27 calendar. In the NHL, players acquired after the deadline are not eligible for the playoffs, per Wikipedia. The NFL bans trades after its deadline, but free-agent signings and waiver claims continue through the season.
Salary-cap mechanics
The salary cap often decides which deadline deals can be made at all. In the NFL, a signing bonus is prorated against the cap across the life of the contract, for a maximum of five seasons. If a player with that kind of dead money in his contract is released or retires, the remaining charge “will accelerate onto the team’s salary cap for the current year,” per NFL Football Operations. The same page describes a June 1 designation that can divide that charge between two seasons. Wikipedia’s summary names the cap, along with the deadline’s early timing and the difficulty of learning a new system in midseason, as reasons NFL deadline activity has historically been light.
The NBA’s 2023 labor deal added two “aprons” above the luxury tax. Their restrictions were phased in over two seasons beginning in 2023-24, per Hoops Rumors, and the second apron took effect in the 2024 offseason, per NBC. NBC’s explainer cites ESPN projections of a $154.6 million salary cap and a $187.9 million luxury tax for 2025-26. It lists the first apron at $195.9 million and the second apron at $207.8 million. A team above the first apron can take back only 110% of the salary it sends out in a trade, compared with 125% for teams below it. It also cannot sign a player waived during the season whose salary is above the $12.2 million mid-level exception. A team above the second apron also loses the ability to send cash in trades, to use trade exceptions from earlier years, or to trade a first-round draft choice seven years out.
Where it came from
The first trade deadlines came from baseball. The National League set the first trade deadline in 1917, and the American League followed with a similar rule in 1920, per SABR. Both leagues agreed on an Aug. 1 deadline in 1921, and after the 1922 season the deadline was changed to June 15, “where it remained for decades,” per the same SABR history. The July 31 deadline has been in effect since the 1986 Basic Agreement, per Wikipedia. For decades, MLB also allowed a second window: through August, players could still be traded once they had cleared revocable waivers. MLB and the players’ union ended that window on March 14, 2019, leaving a single deadline. The union had sought the change, and the stated goals were to remove the confusing August waiver system, make teams set their rosters sooner and give players more certainty, per Sports Illustrated.
The NFL changed its deadline in 2024. The league expanded to a 17-game schedule in 2021 without moving the deadline, so the 2023 cutoff fell on Oct. 31, after Week 8. Owners then approved a Pittsburgh Steelers amendment to move it to the Tuesday after Week 9, starting with Nov. 5, 2024, per NFL.com.
Why it matters
Deadlines split teams into buyers and sellers. Contenders trade prospects and draft choices for help that can make a difference right away. Teams out of the race turn veterans, especially those on expiring contracts, into future assets.
Baseball’s clearest example came on Aug. 2, 2022, hours before that season’s deadline. The San Diego Padres acquired Juan Soto and Josh Bell from the Washington Nationals for C.J. Abrams, MacKenzie Gore, Robert Hassell III, James Wood, Jarlin Susana and Luke Voit, per Sports Illustrated. Soto had reportedly turned down a 15-year, $440 million extension offer from Washington in July 2022.
The NBA’s most stunning deadline-season deal came four days before the 2025 cutoff. On Feb. 2, 2025, a three-team trade sent Luka Dončić, Maxi Kleber and Markieff Morris from Dallas to the Los Angeles Lakers. Dallas received Anthony Davis, Max Christie and a 2029 first-round draft choice, per Basketball-Reference’s transaction log and NBA.com. On Feb. 6, 2025, the final day of trading that season, a five-team deal sent Jimmy Butler from Miami to Golden State.
At the 2026 NFL deadline, a buyer gave up first-round draft choices during the season. On Oct. 29, 2026, the Chicago Bears acquired defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons and a 2028 fifth-round draft choice from the Tennessee Titans. Tennessee received first-round selections in 2027 and 2028 and a 2027 fourth-round selection, per ESPN via ABC13 and theScore.
The arguments
The timing of the NFL deadline has been debated openly. Ahead of the 2024 change, several clubs proposed pushing the deadline past Week 10. That proposal failed, and owners chose Pittsburgh’s more conservative post-Week 9 option, per NFL.com.
Baseball’s single deadline drew its own debate. The union-proposed change aimed to “encourage teams to set their rosters sooner in the season,” per Sports Illustrated’s account of the change. In the NBA, the aprons have been credited with breaking up expensive rosters and criticized for limiting how contenders can improve at the deadline. Hockey critics have blamed no-trade clauses for fewer deadline trades, per Wikipedia’s summary. Individual deals draw their own disputes. Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison defended the Dončić trade on defensive grounds. He said “defense wins championships,” called Davis “one of the best two-way players in the league” and said Dallas was “built to win now as well as in the future,” per NBA.com.
Per NFL.com, Sports Illustrated, SABR, Wikipedia and NBA.com, through Nov. 11, 2026.
The bottom line
The trade deadline works the same way in every league: after a set date, teams can no longer trade, so each team must decide in advance whether to buy or sell. The dates differ by league. The NFL’s falls after Week 9 in November, the NBA’s in February, MLB’s at the turn of July into August and the NHL’s around March 1. Moves after the deadline are limited to free agents, waiver claims and, in the NBA, buyouts completed before March 1. The salary cap determines which deals can be made in the NFL and NBA. The 2019 and 2024 rule changes show that the leagues revise these dates when the deadline stops landing where they want it.
