How NFL Free Agency Works: Rules, Tenders and Timing

NFL free agency is the annual window when players whose contracts have expired can sign with any team. It runs on a fixed calendar built around the start of the new league year, and a player’s rights depend on how many seasons he has accrued: unrestricted, restricted, or exclusive-rights.

Free agency is where most of a roster’s year-over-year change actually happens. The draft gets the television coverage, but the March signing period is what decides whether a team walks into training camp with a starting-caliber offensive line or a patchwork one. Understanding the mechanics — who is actually available, what a tender is, and why a team sometimes lets a productive player walk on purpose — is the difference between reading a transaction wire and understanding it. This guide is part of our NFL Guides & Explainers hub, which breaks down the rules behind every roster move.

What Does “Free Agent” Actually Mean in the NFL?

A free agent is a player who is not under contract to any team and is therefore eligible to negotiate with all 32 clubs, subject to the restrictions tied to his years of service.

The key phrase is accrued season. A player earns one accrued season for each year he spends six or more regular-season games on a team’s active roster, injured reserve, or physically-unable-to-perform list. Accrued seasons — not games played, not draft position, not salary — are what determine a player’s freedom of movement when his deal expires. This is why two players who both finish their rookie contracts in the same offseason can have completely different levels of leverage.

There is also a distinction between a player whose contract expired and a player who was released. A released veteran becomes a free agent immediately and can sign at any point in the calendar year, which is why teams that miss out in March often circle back to cap casualties in April and May. Players whose contracts simply ran out have to wait for the new league year to open. For a running record of how these moves land on one roster, see our Jets Transactions tracker.

What Are the Three Types of NFL Free Agents?

There are three classes: unrestricted free agents (four or more accrued seasons), restricted free agents (exactly three), and exclusive-rights free agents (two or fewer).

Each class carries a different amount of player leverage, and the differences are large enough that they change how front offices plan an entire offseason.

Unrestricted Free Agents: The Real Market

Unrestricted free agents are what people mean when they say “free agency.” With four or more accrued seasons and an expired contract, a UFA can sign anywhere for any amount. His old team has exactly two tools to stop him: outbid the market, or apply the franchise tag, which converts him into a one-year employee at a formula-driven salary. Everything else is persuasion.

Restricted Free Agents: The Tender System

A restricted free agent has exactly three accrued seasons. His old team can apply a tender — a one-year contract offer at one of several set levels. If the team tenders him, he may still negotiate with other clubs during a defined signing period, but his original team holds a right of first refusal: it can match any offer sheet he signs and keep him. If it declines to match, it receives draft-pick compensation determined by which tender level it used.

In practice, restricted free agency is quiet. Rival teams rarely bother constructing an offer sheet they expect to be matched, and the compensation attached to a higher tender discourages poaching. Most RFAs simply play the season on the tender.

Exclusive-Rights Free Agents: Barely Free at All

An exclusive-rights free agent has two or fewer accrued seasons. If his team offers him a one-year deal at the league minimum for his experience level, he has no ability to negotiate elsewhere — his only alternatives are to sign or to sit out. ERFA status is how teams retain undrafted contributors and practice squad graduates cheaply for an extra year.

How Does the NFL Free Agency Calendar Work?

Free agency is sequenced around the start of the new league year in mid-March, with a two-day negotiating window immediately before it.

The order of operations is fixed even though the exact dates shift year to year:

1. Franchise and transition tag window closes. Teams must apply any tag before the deadline or lose the option for that player.
2. The legal tampering period opens. For roughly two days before the new league year, clubs may negotiate with the certified agents of pending unrestricted free agents from other teams — but may not sign them.
3. The new league year begins. Contracts become official, expiring deals formally lapse, and the salary cap resets. Every team must be cap-compliant at this moment.
4. The primary signing wave. The largest contracts are typically agreed to during tampering and executed in the first 48 hours of the league year.
5. The value market. Once the top tier clears, prices drop sharply. Teams fill depth and competition roles here, often on one-year deals.
6. The post-draft market. After the draft, teams reassess needs they failed to address and sign remaining veterans, frequently at minimum salaries.

Pro tip: the phrase “agreed to terms” during the tampering window is not a signed contract. Deals reported in that window occasionally fall apart at the physical, and nothing is binding until the new league year opens.

How Does the Salary Cap Limit Free Agency?

A team can only sign what it can fit under the salary cap, and cap space is shaped as much by existing contracts and dead money as by new spending.

Cap space is not a bank balance. It is the gap between a team’s cap number and the league limit, and it moves constantly: releasing a player may leave behind dead money from a previously paid signing bonus, while restructuring a veteran deal can manufacture room by converting salary into bonus and spreading it across future years. Teams that borrow aggressively from future caps to win a given free agency period tend to pay for it two or three years later. Our breakdown of how the NFL salary cap works covers the accounting in detail.

Cap mechanics also explain the timing of releases. A veteran cut before the new league year opens comes off the books differently than one released after, which is why a wave of “cap casualties” reliably appears in the days before free agency and immediately expands the pool of available players.

Why Would a Team Let a Good Player Leave?

Because departing free agents can generate compensatory draft picks, and because paying market rate for a declining player is often worse than replacing him.

The compensatory pick formula rewards teams that lose more qualifying unrestricted free agents than they sign. A team that habitually re-signs its own players and shops carefully in March can collect extra picks every year, effectively converting departures into draft capital. That calculus is explained in full on our compensatory pick guide, and those picks feed straight back into draft planning.

The second reason is simpler: free agency is a market for past performance, and buyers systematically overpay. A player reaching unrestricted free agency is usually at least 26, often older, and the team that developed him has better information about his durability than the team bidding. Disciplined front offices treat the top of the market as a place to visit occasionally, not to live.

How Do Free Agent Signings Change the Roster?

Every signing forces a corresponding subtraction, since the offseason roster limit is fixed and each new contract displaces someone already on it.

The visible consequence is competition. A veteran signed to start immediately reshuffles the ordering on the depth chart, pushing an incumbent into a rotational or special-teams role. The invisible consequence is attrition: players at the bottom of the roster get released to make room, and those releases move through the waiver system before anyone else can claim them. Follow the downstream effects on our Jets Roster Hub.

Key point: free agency, the draft, waivers, and the practice squad are one continuous system, not four separate events. A March signing determines who gets drafted in April, who survives cuts in August, and who is available on the wire in September.

Frequently Asked Questions About NFL Free Agency

When does NFL free agency start?

NFL free agency officially begins when the new league year opens in mid-March. A legal tampering period opens roughly two days earlier, during which teams may negotiate with the agents of other clubs’ pending unrestricted free agents but cannot sign them. Contracts can only be executed once the new league year starts.

What is the difference between a restricted and an unrestricted free agent?

An unrestricted free agent has four or more accrued seasons and can sign with any team without his old club having any recourse. A restricted free agent has exactly three accrued seasons; his old team can tender him, match any offer he receives, or accept draft-pick compensation instead. Unrestricted status means real freedom; restricted status usually means staying put.

What is an accrued season in the NFL?

A player earns an accrued season by spending six or more regular-season games on a team’s active roster, injured reserve, or PUP list. Accrued seasons determine free agency class, so a player can appear in several seasons without accruing them all if he spent most of that time on a practice squad.

What is a tender in NFL free agency?

A tender is a one-year contract offer a team extends to a restricted or exclusive-rights free agent to retain his rights. For restricted free agents the tender level sets both the salary and the draft-pick compensation the old team would receive if it declines to match an outside offer. Declining to tender a player makes him a free agent.

Can a released player sign with a new team immediately?

Yes. A player released from his contract becomes a free agent right away and may sign at any point, including outside the March signing window. Players released during the season, however, may first have to pass through the waiver system, where other teams can claim them in reverse order of the standings.

Does the franchise tag stop a player from becoming a free agent?

It does for that year. Applying the franchise tag converts a pending unrestricted free agent into a one-year player at a salary set by formula, removing him from the market. He can negotiate a long-term deal with his team, and if none is reached he can reach free agency the following offseason unless tagged again.

Why do teams sign so many players to one-year deals?

One-year deals limit downside. They let a team evaluate a player without committing future cap space, keep dead money at zero, and preserve flexibility. For the player, a strong season on a one-year contract can mean re-entering free agency with substantially more leverage.

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