Fantasy Premier League rules, explained in one place
Fifteen players for a hundred million, one free transfer a week and minus four for the next. Every rule below is quoted from the official rules page, and each one is set against what DraftIcon PL does instead: a free weekly draft with no budget, no prices and no chips to time. The rules that catch people out are marked as such.
One gameweek, then everything resets.
Real footage from DraftIcon PL: packs open, you take eleven players, the gameweek decides it. No budget, no price rises, no chips to save.
Pick 15 players inside a £100m budget, at most three from any one club. Name eleven of them and a captain before the deadline, which falls 90 minutes before the first kick-off of the gameweek. You get one free transfer each week and can bank up to five; anything beyond that costs four points. Four chip types, two of each per season, one chip per gameweek.
Everything below expands one of those sentences. The point values themselves live on the official rules page, because that table belongs to the Premier League and changes when they change it.
players in the squad: two goalkeepers, five defenders, five midfielders, three forwards
the budget for that initial squad, and the only time the whole squad is priced at once
the most players you may take from any single Premier League club
points for every transfer beyond your free ones, taken off at the start of the next gameweek
| The rule | Fantasy Premier League | DraftIcon PL |
|---|---|---|
| Your squad | 15 you choose from a priced pool | 14 you are dealt, six cards per pack |
| Budget | £100m, and every player has a price | None. Players have no price at all |
| Players per club | At most three, all season | No limit, and nothing is exclusive |
| Formation | Any, with 1 keeper, 3+ defenders, 1+ forward | Fixed 1-4-3-3, plus three on the bench |
| Changing your team | One free transfer a week, −4 for the next, bank up to five | Trade during the gameweek until a player’s match starts |
| Chips | Eight a season, two windows, one per gameweek | None to save, none to time |
| The deadline | One, 90 minutes before the first kick-off | Each player locks at his own kick-off |
| How long it lasts | Nine months, and week one still counts in May | One gameweek, then everything resets |
Left column from the official Fantasy Premier League rules, read 11 September 2026. Right column is what this site runs.
What you are allowed to pick
The squad is fifteen players in a fixed shape: two goalkeepers, five defenders, five midfielders and three forwards. That shape never changes, whatever formation you play, because it is the pool you pick your eleven from rather than the team itself.
The budget for it is a hundred million pounds. The club limit is the rule people forget when a team goes on a run: at most three players from any one Premier League club, however well they are playing. It is the single most effective brake in the game, and it is the reason a title-winning side never simply gets bought wholesale.
Here: neither rule exists, because there is nothing to buy. In DraftIcon PL you are dealt packs of six players and keep whichever you take, so the brake is what the packs happen to offer rather than a budget. Fourteen picks, a real eleven in 1-4-3-3 and three on the bench.
Formation, captain and the bench
From the fifteen you name eleven by the deadline. Any formation is legal as long as it has exactly one goalkeeper, at least three defenders and at least one forward. Everything else is yours to arrange.
One of the eleven is captain and scores double. A vice-captain stands behind him, and takes over only if the captain plays no minutes at all. If neither plays, nobody doubles, and that is a worse outcome than most people expect: it is not a reduced bonus, it is none.
The bench is ordered, and the order is the instruction. A starter who plays no minutes is replaced automatically at the end of the gameweek by the highest-priority substitute who did play and who does not break the formation rules. Goalkeepers only replace goalkeepers. A yellow or red card counts as having played, which is why a sent-off player is never substituted for you.
Here: the shape is decided for you, always 1-4-3-3, so the only question left is which eleven. That sounds like a loss and plays like a relief: nobody wins a gameweek on formation, and the hour saved goes into the draft instead.
One a week, and what the second one costs
Until your first deadline, transfers are unlimited and free: the opening squad can be rebuilt as often as you like. After that you receive one free transfer per gameweek. An unused one rolls over, and they keep rolling, but you can never hold more than five at once.
Every transfer beyond your free ones costs four points, deducted at the start of the next gameweek rather than immediately. Outside a chip you are capped at twenty transfers in a single gameweek, which is a limit almost nobody meets on purpose.
Selling has its own rule that surprises people the first time. Prices move with how many managers are buying a player, and when you sell you keep only half of any rise since you bought him, rounded down to the nearest £0.1m. A player bought at £7.5m who has climbed to £7.8m sells for £7.6m, not £7.8m. Trades work differently in FPL Draft, where there is no money at all.
Here: there is no market to time, because there are no prices. You can still trade during the gameweek, but only until a player’s own match kicks off, and after that he is locked whatever happens. Nothing is deducted for changing your mind.
Four chips, two of each, one per gameweek
Chips are the one-off levers. Our own ruleset, which has none of them, is on how DraftIcon PL works. There are four types and you get two of each across the season, so eight in total, and you may only play one in any gameweek.
| Chip | What it does | Can it be cancelled? |
|---|---|---|
| Wildcard | Every transfer that gameweek is free, including ones already made | No, once confirmed |
| Free Hit | Unlimited free transfers for one gameweek, then the squad snaps back | No, once confirmed |
| Bench Boost | Your bench scores as well as your eleven | Yes, until the deadline |
| Triple Captain | The captain scores treble instead of double | Yes, until the deadline |
Effects and cancellation rules from the official Fantasy Premier League rules page, read 11 September 2026.
The season splits in two, and the split has a date
The first set of chips runs until the Gameweek 19 deadline, which this season is Friday 1 January at 19:30. The second set unlocks after it, timed for the January transfer window. A first-half chip you never played does not carry over, it simply expires.
Two of them cannot be played in Gameweek 1
The Wildcard and the Free Hit only become available after the first gameweek of your season. Since the opening squad already has unlimited free transfers, that is less of a loss than it sounds, but it does mean the plan you had for week one needs a different tool.
Two Free Hits, but never in consecutive weeks
If the first Free Hit goes in Gameweek 19, the second cannot be active until Gameweek 21. It is the only chip with a cooling-off period.
A Wildcard or Free Hit does not burn your banked transfers
Saved free transfers survive the chip. If you had two banked before, you still have two the gameweek after.
The longer version of each, including what to actually do with them, is on all four chips explained and on the Wildcard in particular.
Here: there are none, and that is the deliberate part. A chip is a way of buying back flexibility in a game that took it away for nine months. A gameweek that resets on Monday never took it in the first place.
When the team locks
Everything you want to change, the eleven, the transfers, the captain, the bench order, has to be done by the gameweek deadline. The deadline is 90 minutes before the kick-off of the first match in that gameweek, which is why it moves around the calendar instead of sitting on a fixed day.
Two smaller rules matter more than they look. Deadlines can be changed, but never within 24 hours of the scheduled time, so what you see the day before is what you get. And the whole team locks at once: unlike a lineup that locks player by player, one deadline covers everybody, including players whose match is on Monday.
Whether that makes the game weekly is a fair question with an annoying answer, and it has a page of its own. Deadline times in your own timezone are the reason the game feels different depending on where you live, which is the subject of the Nigeria page and the Kenya one.
Here: there is no single deadline. Each player locks when his own match starts, so a Monday-night player stays yours to trade all weekend. Miss the Friday game and you have lost one player, not the week.
How the score is built
Points come from what the player actually did: minutes on the pitch, goals and assists, clean sheets for defenders and goalkeepers, saves, and since this season a defensive contribution figure built from tackles, recoveries, clearances, blocks and interceptions. Cards, own goals, missed penalties and goals conceded take points away.
On top of that sit bonus points, and they work differently from everything else. A separate Bonus Points System scores every player in a match from a long list of actions, and the three best totals in that match receive three, two and one bonus point. Ties are resolved by sharing upwards, so two players level at the top both get three.
The exact value of every action is a table on the official rules page, and it belongs there: the Premier League adjusts it between seasons, and a copy here would quietly go stale. What is worth knowing without the table is the shape of it. Goals are worth more to a defender than to a forward, minutes matter before anything else, and bonus points decide more close mini-league weeks than transfers do.
What the rules say about who you play against
Your score exists whether or not you join anything. Leagues are the layer on top, and the official limits are more generous than most people need: you can be in up to 30 private leagues and 5 public ones at a time. Public classic leagues hold twenty managers, private head-to-head leagues up to sixteen, with at most three knockout rounds.
Which of those is worth your time is a separate question from what the rules permit. The formats are compared on mini league ideas, head to head leagues and leagues to join. Getting out again has its own rules and its own page, leaving an FPL league. And the draft variant, where players are owned by one manager only, is set out on how FPL Draft works and compared on Draft against Classic.
If you are arriving mid-season, the rules do not stop you: joining FPL late covers what you keep and what you have already lost. The official short-format game with its own rules each week is the Fantasy Challenge, and the knockout that runs alongside the season is the FPL Cup.
Most of these rules exist because the season is long
Read the list again and notice what most of it is for. The budget, the club limit, the selling fee, the chip windows, the banked transfers: all of it exists to stop one squad being optimal for nine months. They are good rules. They are answering a hard problem.
A weekly draft does not have that problem, so it does not need the answers. In DraftIcon PL there is no budget and no player price, because you are dealt cards rather than buying them. There is nothing to bank and no chip to time, because the squad expires on Monday. The rules that remain are the ones about football.
What is left to learn takes about a minute, and the practice draft asks for no account.
Quick answers
How many players are in an FPL squad?
Fifteen: two goalkeepers, five defenders, five midfielders and three forwards. Eleven of them score in any gameweek and the other four sit on an ordered bench.
What is the FPL budget?
A hundred million pounds for the initial fifteen. After that the budget only matters at the moment of a transfer, because you are swapping one price for another rather than repricing the squad.
How many players can I have from one club?
Three, and the rule holds all season. It is the reason a dominant team cannot simply be copied into your squad.
How many free transfers do I get?
One per gameweek after your first deadline. Unused ones roll over and keep rolling, but you can never hold more than five at once. Everything beyond your free transfers costs four points each.
When are the four points actually deducted?
At the start of the next gameweek, not the moment you confirm. That is why a hit taken on a Friday shows up against the following week's score rather than the current one.
What formations are allowed in FPL?
Any formation with exactly one goalkeeper, at least three defenders and at least one forward. Everything in between is legal, so 3-4-3, 3-5-2, 4-4-2, 5-3-2 and 4-3-3 all work.
What happens if my captain does not play?
The vice-captain is doubled instead, but only if the captain played no minutes at all. If neither of them plays, no player is doubled that week.
When is the FPL deadline?
Ninety minutes before the kick-off of the first match of the gameweek, so it moves with the fixture list. It can change, but never within 24 hours of the scheduled time.
How many chips do I get in a season?
Eight: two each of Wildcard, Free Hit, Bench Boost and Triple Captain. Only one can be played in any gameweek, the first set expires at the Gameweek 19 deadline, and the two Free Hits cannot be played in consecutive gameweeks.
Why do I lose money when I sell a player?
Because you keep only half of any price rise since you bought him, rounded down to the nearest £0.1m. Bought at £7.5m and now worth £7.8m, he sells for £7.6m. Falls, by contrast, are passed on in full.
Is there a version of this with fewer rules?
Yes, and it is the reason this page exists. A weekly draft has no budget, no prices, no chips and no banked transfers, because nothing carries past Monday. DraftIcon PL is free, runs in a browser, and the practice draft needs no account.
Fifteen rules there. One here.
Draft eleven, watch the gameweek, start again. That is the whole thing.