MLS Waivers Explained: How the Process Works

“Is he on the waiver list?” is one of the most common questions MLS fans ask, and also one of the most misunderstood. There isn’t really a public “list” in the way people usually picture it, a static roster of available players anyone can just browse. Waivers is actually a structured, time-limited claiming process, with real rules about who can be placed on it, who gets first crack at claiming someone, and what happens if nobody wants him. Here’s how it actually works.

What Waivers Actually Is

Waivers is the mechanism MLS uses to make a player available to every other club in the league, in a specific order, before he can become a completely open signing for anyone. When a club no longer wants a player under contract, it doesn’t just release him outright, it has to formally place him on Waivers first.

Before that can happen, the club has to give the player an exit physical and submit a formal Waiver Request to the league. From there, the clock starts on a defined claiming window, not an open-ended posting.

Waivers is usually a last resort, not a first choice. In practice, a club typically only reaches for this mechanism after it’s already tried, and failed, to move a player through more favorable means: selling him outright for a transfer fee, or at least loaning him out somewhere to share or offset his salary. If neither of those routes works out, whether because there’s no market for him, the transfer window has closed, or no other club is willing to take on his contract, Waivers becomes the fallback option to actually get him off the roster. It’s rarely the ideal outcome financially, since the original club often ends up getting nothing in return and can still be stuck covering part of his salary, as we’ll see below, but it’s the mechanism that exists specifically for the players a club genuinely can’t move any other way.

Waivers is usually a last resort, not a first choice.

A Practical Example: Following One Player Through the Process

The easiest way to actually understand this is to walk through one player’s journey from start to finish, since the process really unfolds in two distinct phases.

Let’s say Club A places a player on Waivers who’s earning $800,000 on a Guaranteed Contract. The league notifies every other club, and the 48-hour Waiver Claiming Period begins.

Scenario 1: A club sitting at number one in the Waiver Order offers to absorb the full amount. If Club B happens to be ranked first in the Waiver Order and submits a claim offering to absorb the entire $800,000, that’s the end of the story. No other club can beat a full-price offer from the top-ranked club, since ranking only breaks ties between equal offers, and this offer is already the maximum possible. Club B gets the player, Club A gets full relief on its Salary Budget, and the whole process resolves cleanly within that 48-hour window. This is exactly why sitting at number one matters so much: it’s a real, usable guarantee, as long as a club is willing to pay full price.

Scenario 2: Clubs submit different amounts during that same 48 hours. Suppose instead nobody offers the full $800,000. Club C offers to absorb $500,000, and that turns out to be the highest offer submitted. Club C wins the claim, ranking doesn’t even come into it, since the offers weren’t tied. Club A gets Salary Budget relief for the $500,000 Club C is absorbing, but remains fully responsible for the remaining $300,000 on its own books for the rest of the season. The higher the winning bid, the better it is for Club A, since that directly shrinks how much of the original salary it’s still stuck covering.

Scenario 2b: If multiple clubs happen to offer the exact same amount, say two clubs both offer $500,000, then it’s only at that point that the Waiver Order tiebreaker kicks in, and whichever club sits higher in that ranking wins the claim.

Scenario 3: Nobody claims him at all within the 48 hours, and another club signs him weeks later. Say the player clears Waivers completely unclaimed. Two or three weeks pass, and a different club decides it wants him after all. At this stage, there’s no more ranking and no more competitive bidding, it’s simply First-Come-First-Served, and the signing club has to make him a real Genuine Offer, subject to league approval. But since there’s no competing interest left to drive the price up, that offer often lands close to the Senior Minimum Salary, roughly $113,400 in 2026. Club A only gets relief for that $113,400, and remains responsible for the remaining $686,600 for the rest of the season, even though the player is now on a completely different roster.

Same starting salary, three genuinely different financial outcomes for Club A, depending entirely on how the claiming process actually plays out. The rest of this piece breaks down each of these mechanics in more detail.

Guaranteed vs. Semi-Guaranteed: What’s Actually the Difference

Since the Waivers rules treat these two contract types so differently, and since this distinction genuinely doesn’t exist in most of the football world, it’s worth building it up from scratch, one piece at a time.

First, separate two things that sound related but aren’t: contract length, and contract category. When people talk about a player signing a “4+1” deal or a “five-year contract,” they’re describing its length, how many years are committed, and how many are option years the club can choose to extend or decline later. That’s a completely different question from what we’re covering here. Guaranteed and Semi-Guaranteed describe something else entirely: a player’s Category, which determines whether MLS can release him early within a given season without owing him the rest of that year’s money. A player can sign a five-year deal and still have his very first season classified as Semi-Guaranteed, the length of the contract and his Category are independent of each other.

Second, this distinction is about tenure, not salary. A minimum-salary rookie and a Designated Player earning millions can, in principle, both start out under the same Category. What actually determines it is how long a player has been in MLS, specifically, whether he’s completed one full MLS Service Year yet, not how much he’s being paid.

A Guaranteed Contract means MLS owes the player his money no matter what, and can’t cut him simply for his on-field performance or an injury. Once a player completes one MLS Service Year, his Category automatically becomes Guaranteed from that point forward, for the rest of whatever contract he’s on, option years included. This is why the large majority of the league, essentially anyone who’s been around more than a single season, is Guaranteed.

A Semi-Guaranteed Contract functions like a probationary period, mostly relevant to a player’s very first MLS season, before he’s banked that one Service Year. Picture two rookies drafted in the same SuperDraft class, both on Semi-Guaranteed deals at the Senior Minimum Salary. During that first season, up until the year’s Contract Guarantee Date (typically around midseason), MLS can release either of them at its own discretion, if it decides he isn’t showing enough skill or competitive ability to earn a roster spot, regardless of what the rest of his contract promised. If Player A struggles, the club can cut him during this window, owing him just six weeks of termination pay. If Player B earns his spot and isn’t cut by the Contract Guarantee Date, his deal locks in for the rest of that season, and once he completes his first MLS Service Year, every contract after that automatically becomes Guaranteed.

Third, and this is the part that surprises people most: Semi-Guaranteed status isn’t mandatory for every new player, it’s a default, not a requirement. The rule says a player with no MLS Service Years may have a Semi-Guaranteed Contract, not that he must. A club is free to offer a Guaranteed Contract right from day one instead, and in practice, this becomes a real negotiating lever. A club competing hard to land an established international star will often agree to a Guaranteed Contract immediately, since his agent has the leverage to insist on it, removing the risk of an early release entirely. A typical SuperDraft pick or an unproven Discovery signing usually doesn’t have that same leverage, so those are the players who realistically end up on the standard Semi-Guaranteed treatment. There’s exactly one hard exception either way: Homegrown Players who are 19 or younger must be given a Guaranteed Contract for their first year, no negotiation involved, that one’s mandatory.

Even within a Semi-Guaranteed deal, one protection never goes away: MLS still can’t cut a player simply for being injured. That rule applies no matter which Category he’s on.

When a Club Can Actually Waive a Player

This isn’t something a club can do at any moment it likes. The rules differ depending on the type of contract involved.

A player on a Semi-Guaranteed Contract can be placed on Waivers at basically any point during the Regular Season, but only up until three business days before that year’s Contract Guarantee Date. A Guaranteed Contract player can technically be waived at any time, but only with the league’s approval, and the same approval requirement applies to a Semi-Guaranteed player being waived after the Contract Guarantee Date has already passed. And there’s a hard blackout window too: no club can place anyone on Waivers between the Roster Freeze Date and MLS Cup, no exceptions.

Sometimes It’s Mandatory, Not Optional

Here’s a detail a lot of fans miss: Waivers isn’t always a choice a club makes voluntarily. For a Semi-Guaranteed Contract player, MLS actually has to run him through the Waivers process before it’s allowed to unilaterally terminate his deal at all, it’s a required step, not an optional one. The same protection generally extends to Homegrown Players before their contracts can be unilaterally ended, unless the player himself agrees to skip that process, with the league’s approval.

The Waiver Claiming Period and Waiver Order

Once a player is properly placed on Waivers, the league notifies every other club, and a short, defined window opens for other teams to make a claim.

That window, called the Waiver Claiming Period, runs from the first business day after the league’s notice through 5:00 PM ET on the second business day after that notice, roughly two business days in practice.

If only one club submits a claim, that club simply gets the player. If multiple clubs want him, priority is decided by the Waiver Order.

Where that order actually starts each year is worth explaining on its own, since it works exactly like the SuperDraft. At the beginning of a season, before enough games have been played to generate current-season standings, the Waiver Order follows the reverse order of the previous season’s final standings, the club that finished last gets the top waiver priority, the club that won it all sits at the bottom. It’s the same underlying logic as draft order: finish worse, get first crack at whatever becomes available. Once every interested club has actually played at least three games in the new season, the league stops using last year’s table entirely and switches to current-season points-per-game instead, so the club with the worst record right now, not last year, holds the top spot from that point forward.

For a player with a Guaranteed Contract specifically, this ranking works alongside a separate rule covered in detail below: a club offering to absorb genuinely more of his salary than another club simply wins outright, and the Waiver Order only steps in to break a tie between clubs offering the exact same amount.

There’s a built-in fairness mechanic here too: once a club successfully claims a player, it drops to the bottom of the Waiver Order for the rest of that season, so no single team can just keep hoovering up every available player in a row.

This is why sitting at number one in the Waiver Order is genuinely powerful. A club holding the top spot knows exactly what it takes to guarantee getting a player: simply offer to absorb his full Salary Budget Charge. Since no other club can out-rank a number-one claim at the same full-price offer, that top spot effectively functions as a real, usable guarantee, not just a theoretical advantage, as long as the club is willing to pay the whole amount.

This is why sitting at number one in the Waiver Order is genuinely powerful.

How Claiming a Guaranteed Player Actually Works

This is the part that generates the most confusion, and getting the actual sequence right matters.

When a player with a Guaranteed Contract is placed on Waivers, every interested club has to notify the league, during that same Waiver Claiming Period, roughly 48 hours, of exactly how much of his Salary Budget Charge it’s willing to absorb onto its own Club Salary Budget. That claim has to be for at least the Senior Minimum Salary Budget Charge, or the Reserve Minimum Salary Budget Charge if the player is young enough to qualify for that lower tier.

Here’s how the actual decision gets made, in order:

If the clubs’ offers differ, the highest offer simply wins. If one club is willing to absorb his full remaining contract and another is only willing to take on a partial amount, the club offering more gets him, regardless of where either club sits in the standings. Waiver Order doesn’t override a genuinely higher offer.

Waiver Order only decides ties. If multiple clubs happen to submit the exact same claim amount, most commonly, several clubs all offering to absorb his full Salary Budget Charge, that’s when the Waiver Order actually determines the winner: priority goes to whichever club sits higher in that ranking (calculated from the lowest points-per-game once every claiming club has played at least three games that season, or the prior season’s reverse standings early on). So the ranking matters, but specifically as the tiebreaker among equal offers, not as a factor that outweighs a genuinely higher claim.

Here’s the part that surprises people most: whatever portion of the player’s original Salary Budget Charge the winning club does not absorb stays on the books of the club that placed him on Waivers, for the rest of that season.

Here’s the part that surprises people most: whatever portion of the player’s original Salary Budget Charge the winning club does not absorb stays on the books of the club that placed him on Waivers, for the rest of that season.

A concrete example: say a player is earning $500,000 with his original club. Club X claims him and offers to absorb his full $500,000. Club Y also claims him but only offers to absorb $300,000. Club X wins outright, since its offer is genuinely higher, no ranking involved. Now imagine instead that both Club X and Club Y each offer to absorb the full $500,000, an identical claim. In that scenario, whichever club sits higher in the Waiver Order gets him. Either way, whatever the winning club doesn’t absorb stays with the original club for the rest of the season, letting a player go through Waivers doesn’t automatically wipe a club’s financial obligation to him.

What Happens If Nobody Claims a Guaranteed Player

If nobody claims him at all, the outcome is even more straightforward, and less favorable for the original club: it gets no relief whatsoever. The player’s full Salary Budget Charge simply stays on that club’s books for the rest of the season, even though the club clearly no longer wants him on the roster.

First-Come, First-Served

If a player clears Waivers entirely, meaning nobody claims him during that window, he doesn’t just vanish from the system. He becomes available to any club on a straightforward first-come, first-served basis, no priority order involved at that point, whichever club moves first and gets the paperwork in can sign him.

It’s worth being precise about what happens to his money at this stage, since it’s not automatic. A club picking him up here has to make him a Genuine Offer, a real, negotiated offer the league still has to review and approve, not an automatic assignment to minimum salary by rule. In practice, though, since nobody claimed him during the competitive window, there’s often very little market left for him, so a club can frequently sign him for something close to the minimum salary simply because there’s no competing interest left to drive the number up.

That has real financial consequences for the original club, and they’re significant. The same relief rule applies here as during the formal claiming window: the original club only gets Salary Budget relief equal to whatever the new club actually agrees to absorb. So if a player was on an $800,000 Guaranteed Contract and a club later signs him first-come, first-served for something close to the Senior Minimum Salary, roughly $113,400 in 2026, the original club remains fully responsible for the entire remaining difference, in this case, over $680,000, for the rest of that season. Simply letting a player clear Waivers unclaimed doesn’t limit that exposure at all; the original club can end up paying almost the whole original salary anyway, even with the player now playing for someone else entirely.

Waiver Position Can Be Traded Too

This is a genuinely underexplained mechanic: a club’s actual position in the Waiver Order for a specific claiming period is itself a tradable asset, the same way GAM, draft picks, or International Roster Slots are. It can be included as part of a larger trade package, alongside cash or other consideration, rather than only being used the moment a player is actually placed on Waivers.

A simple example: Club A is buying a player from Club B and pays cash as part of the deal. As an additional piece of that same trade, Club A also sends Club B its own favorable Waiver position for an upcoming claiming period, giving Club B a better shot at claiming a different player who might become available later. It’s a small, often overlooked detail, but it’s a real piece of trade currency that experienced front offices use to sweeten or balance a deal.

End-of-Year Waivers: A Separate Offseason Version

There’s also a distinct process called End-of-Year Waivers, running after the season concludes, for any player out of contract at year’s end who isn’t subject to a club’s Right of First Refusal and doesn’t qualify for Free Agency or the Re-Entry Draft. It follows broadly similar mechanics to in-season Waivers, just shifted to the offseason, and anyone not selected here also becomes available first-come, first-served afterward. Since this process really only makes sense once you understand Free Agency and the Re-Entry Draft too, we’ll cover the fuller picture in a future piece dedicated to those mechanisms.

The Bottom Line

Waivers is a specific, time-boxed claiming process with real rules about timing, priority, and what happens if nobody wants a player, and in some cases, it’s a step MLS is legally required to take before it can even let someone go. Understanding those mechanics, especially the difference between the competitive 48-hour window and the quieter first-come, first-served stage that follows it, clears up a genuinely large amount of confusion around MLS roster moves.