The deadlines fall on the night of 1 February, and only La Liga's date is in doubt
In January 2027 the Premier League transfer window is open from 1 January until 23:00 UK time on 1 February. La Liga's window opens on 2 January, but the sources disagree on when it closes. LaLiga's official website gives 2 February, while the rules of the RFEF (the Spanish football federation) and the list on FIFA's website give 1 February. Free agents can still be registered after the window shuts, and in the Champions League, UEFA's regulations allow a club, as a rule, to register up to three new players by 4 February 2027. In Spain, the special rule for a key player's long-term absence raises the club's LCPD, La Liga's squad cost limit, and the replacements it can register once the window has closed are limited to free agents and certain other cases. The details behind the conflicting Spanish dates, the conditions for registering a player outside the window and how far the injury rule raises the limit are covered in turn below.
The Premier League published its dates on its official website in May 2026. The window opens on Friday 1 January, and the deadline of 23:00 on Monday 1 February is midnight on Tuesday 2 February in Spain. In January and February, clocks in Spain, Italy and France are one hour ahead of the UK.
The deadline time is not the same every year. Under the Premier League's rules, the winter window closes between 17:00 and 23:59 on a date no more than three days either side of 31 January, and the league's Board decides the exact date and time. The January 2026 window was reported to have closed at 19:00 on 2 February.
| League | Opens | Closes |
|---|---|---|
| Premier League | 1 January | 1 February, 23:00 (UK time) |
| La Liga (LaLiga website) | 2 January | Until 2 February (no time given) |
| La Liga (RFEF rules) | 2 January | 1 February, 23:59 (Spanish time) |
The Serie A window in Italy runs from 2 January until 20:00 on 1 February, and the Ligue 1 window in France from 1 January until 19:59 on 1 February (both local time), so the main leagues' deadlines cluster on the evening of 1 February.
The 1 February date for La Liga comes from the RFEF's competition rules for the first and second divisions and from FIFA's list. Only LaLiga's website says 2 February. FIFA treats the dates each national association enters into its system as the registration period, but as of the end of October 2026 the discrepancy had not been resolved. In 2023/24, LaLiga was reported to have extended its winter deadline by a day after it had already been set.
The RFEF's competition regulations say a registration period ends at 23:59 peninsular Spanish time on its last day. If that day is 1 February, La Liga closes one minute before the Premier League. If it is 2 February, La Liga closes almost a full day later. For a player moving between England and Spain on deadline day, that one day flips which market shuts first.
The deal sheet that comes up so often in Premier League deadline-day coverage is the form a club uses to tell the league that a transfer has been agreed, and it can be submitted from two hours before the deadline. If the league receives it fully completed before the deadline, the remaining paperwork can be submitted up to two hours after the deadline (in 2027, 01:00 on 2 February, or 02:00 in Spain). International transfers also have a separate deadline in FIFA's system.
After the window shuts, free agents can still be registered and Champions League squads can change
Players can only be registered during the two registration periods each national association sets every year. Free agents are the exception, and can be registered even after the window has closed. Under FIFA's rules, their contract must have expired or been ended by mutual agreement before the registration period in the signing club's country is over. A player whose contract is cancelled by mutual agreement after the window has closed does not qualify. Players who terminated their contract with just cause, and players whose contract was terminated without just cause, can also be registered outside the window.
In England, registering a player outside the window needs the approval of the league's Board, and to play in league matches he also has to be named in the 25-man squad list, unless, in 2026/27, he was born on or after 1 January 2005. The squad-list rules are covered in more detail in the column on Premier League squad registration. A loan signing outside the window is possible only for a goalkeeper, when the Board accepts that the circumstances are exceptional. The Champions League has a goalkeeper rule too, allowing a replacement to be registered at any point in the season if a goalkeeper is out for 30 days or more.
Recalls of loaned players also normally happen inside a window. FIFA's rules say an international loan must end within a registration period of the lending club's country, and the Premier League's rules set the minimum length of a domestic loan as the time from the summer window to the winter window. Ending one earlier needs the Board's permission. How many players a club can borrow is set out in the column on loan rules.
In Spain, the RFEF's competition regulations limit registrations outside the window to free agents and certain other cases, and they do not allow a player to be registered outside the window because his release clause has been paid. The club also needs room left under the LCPD, or room to register a player under one of the exceptions in LaLiga's budget rules. If the player takes up a non-EU slot, one of those has to be free as well.
Champions League registration has its own deadline, separate from the domestic ones. Article 32.01 of UEFA's Champions League regulations for 2026/27 lets a club register up to three new players between the end of the league phase and the start of the knockout phase, with a deadline of 23:59 CET on 4 February 2027. The player may already have appeared for another club that season in the qualifying rounds or league phase of the Champions League, Europa League or Conference League. If adding him takes List A over 25 players, someone has to come off. So the player has to be registered domestically by 1 or 2 February and then added to the UEFA list within the next two or three days. At Atlético de Madrid, for example, Rodrigo Mendoza, Ademola Lookman and Obed Vargas, who all joined on the last day of the January 2026 window, were reported to be in the travelling squad for the Champions League play-off in Bruges on 18 February.
Spain's long-term injury rule is not a route to register players outside the window
In Spain, when a player is expected to be out for four months or more through injury or serious illness, a club can go over its LCPD by the cost of a new player registered to replace him. The provision is Article 107 of LaLiga's budget rules (the version updated on 19 November 2025). LaLiga's medical committee has to confirm the expected length of the absence, and the amount over the limit can be no more than 80% of the injured player's cost (excluding amortisation of his transfer fee). If the new player's registration runs into the following season, there also has to be room under next season's limit. Article 107 governs how the limit is calculated. After the window has closed, the replacement still has to be a free agent or another player the RFEF's competition regulations allow.