Loan
A loan moves a professional to another club for a predetermined period under a written agreement, suspending the obligations between the player and their original club for its duration.
The regulations require three documents to line up: a loan agreement between the clubs setting out duration and financial terms, a contract between the player and the new club acknowledging the loan, and the player's existing contract, whose obligations are suspended for the period unless the parties agree otherwise in writing. The player may also be a party to the loan agreement.
Duration is bounded at both ends. The minimum is the time between two registration periods, and the maximum is one year. The end date must fall inside one of the registration periods of the former club's association, and any clause purporting to run longer is simply not recognised. A loan may be extended within those same limits, but only with the player's written consent.
The new club may not sub-loan the player to a third club, nor transfer them permanently to one.
Note that a loan is not outside the solidarity mechanism. A qualifying loan between clubs of different associations triggers it just as a permanent transfer does, which is regularly missed.
Worked example
A player is loaned in January until the end of the season.
The end date has to land inside a registration period of the association the player came from, so a loan that simply runs to a fixture date will not do.
If the two clubs are in different associations, the training clubs are owed their share of the solidarity contribution on whatever fee the loan carries.
Source: FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players, January 2026 edition, art. 10
Related terms
- Registration periodA registration period, known everywhere as the transfer window, is one of the two annual periods fixed by each association during which players may be registered with a new club.
- Solidarity mechanismThe solidarity mechanism reserves 5% of any compensation paid when a professional transfers before their contract expires, distributed among every club that trained them between the calendar years of their 12th and 23rd birthdays.