NFL salary cap 2025: How high is it, teams with most space, more to know

Posted by author February 16, 2025 NFL

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Every NFL team will be looking to improve its roster during the 2025 offseason. Some will have more resources with which to do so than others.

Among the most notable of those resources will be cap space for 2025.

There exists a wide dichotomy of financial situations across the NFL. Some, like the New England Patriots, have plenty of financial resources to commit to their rebuild. Others, like the New Orleans Saints, will need to make some significant cuts simply to get their balance of available cap space back toward zero.

Could some of these cap-strapped teams be bailed out by a higher-than-projected league-wide salary cap for 2025? Here’s what to know about the NFL’s salary cap for 2025 and how it compares to previous seasons.

What is the NFL salary cap 2025?

The NFL hasn’t officially announced its salary cap for 2025 yet. However, NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero reported in December 2024 that NFL teams were budgeting for the cap to be in the $265-$275 million range for the 2025 season.

That would represent roughly a $10-$20 million increase over the $255.4 million figure the league set for the 2024 season. Either end of the estimate would be less than the record $30.6 million increase NFL teams saw from 2023 to 2024, which was buoyed by new TV deals and a return to normalcy in attendance with the league further removed from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The NFL officially announced its salary cap for 2024 on Feb. 23, 2024, so NFL fans won’t have to wait much longer for the hard number to be revealed.

NFL salary cap by year

The NFL’s salary cap has more than doubled since 2011, contributing to the explosion of lucrative contracts given to the league’s star players.

Only once has the NFL’s salary decreased from year to year during that period. That came in the 2021 NFL offseason, which saw a $15.7 million decrease in funds that stemmed mainly from limited attendance during the COVID-impacted 2020 season. The NFL quickly bounced back from that downturn, witnessing an increase of $25.7 million the following offseason.

Below is a year-by-year look at the NFL’s salary cap, according to data from NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero:

2011: $120.375 million
2012: $120.6 million
2013: $123 million
2014: $133 million
2015: $143.28 million
2016: $155.27 million
2017: $167 million
2018: $177.2 million
2019: $188.2 million
2020: $198.2 million
2021: $182.5 million
2022: $208.2 million
2023: $224.8 million
2024: $255.4 million
2025: $265-$275 million*

* Projection.

NFL salary cap space 2025

Below is a look at every team’s projected salary cap space for 2025. All salary cap figures are via OverTheCap.com, which projects a $272.5 million salary cap.