With a tweak to the originally proposed dates, the NCAA's new one-time transfer portal notification window will take effect this January.
College football players will now have from Jan. 2 through Jan. 16 to notify their teams of their intent to enter the transfer portal after the change was approved by the NCAA D-I Administrative Committee, per a release by the NCAA. The NCAA's 30-day transfer window for athletes going through head coaching changes has also been shrunk to 15 days by the committee, and will now open after a new coach is hired rather than when a coach is fired.
Notification of transfer window dates for DI football are approved by the DI Administrative Committee.
— NCAA News (@NCAA_PR) October 7, 2025
The committees action is not final until its meeting concludes Wednesday. Moving forward, DI football notification of transfer windows will be Jan 2-16, as recommended by the
The original recommendation from the NCAA Football Oversight Committee was for a window from Jan. 2-11, but the deadline was extended by five days following feedback from student-athletes, per the release.
The new, singular portal window replaces the two-window calendar that had been in effect for college football the past several years, with one window in December and one in April. No system is perfect and reducing the transfer portal cycle to one window should help reduce some of the chaos of the portal era, but there are some flaws with the dates selected by the NCAA.
Namely, teams still in the College Football Playoff will be at a disadvantage recruiting players from the portal, as the CFP semifinals are played on Jan. 8 and 9 this year with the CFP national championship game on Jan. 19, after the window has closed. It's a concern Ohio State head coach Ryan Day discussed publicly after the original Jan. 2-11 proposal was released.
“I don't think it's a good idea at all,” Day said on Sep. 9. “In the conversations that we had with the Big Ten coaches, I think the majority of them agree. I just don't quite understand how teams that are playing in the playoffs are expected to make the decisions and sign their upcoming players while they're still getting ready to play for games. It doesn't make any sense to me.
“I know the calendar is funky, but I know that the Big Ten and (commissioner) Tony Petitti's been working hard because he doesn't believe in it either and neither do the coaches in the Big Ten. We had a lot of long discussions about that and tried to work through the different windows, but I don't agree with it being in January.”
Student-athletes playing in games on or after Jan. 12 (which would only be those playing in the CFP national championship game) will receive an additional five days after the end of their season to decide whether they would like to enter the transfer portal. Once notification has been given to an athlete's previous school, there is no deadline for players to decide on their next destination.
The new transfer portal notification window dates will be implemented immediately, with Jan. 2, 2026 through Jan. 16, 2026 the first time they'll be in action.
