Women's transfer record history: List of the most expensive players in women's football

It was just a few weeks prior to Barbra Banda's own big-money move to the Orlando Pride that Racheal Kundananji, her Zambia team-mate, became the most expensive women's footballer in the world when she joined another NWSL club, Bay FC. The expansion side made a statement when they paid $862,000 (£685,000) to bring her to California from Madrid CFF, with whom she scored 33 goals in 43 league games.

Kundananji hasn't quite hit those heights in the U.S. yet, but Bay FC in general are still to make a real mark on the NWSL since coming into the league back in 2024.

Walsh returned to England in January 2025, when Chelsea completed a sensational deadline day swoop for the midfielder. While the initial fee was reported at around £460,000 ($572,000), add-ons and bonuses meant to was likely to rise. By the end of the 2024-25 season, Spanish media reported that it had done exactly that, with the Blues ultimately paying €850,000 (£714,000/$884,000) for one of the best holding midfielders on the planet.

Claudia Martinez was one of the breakout stars of 2025, thanks to an incredible Copa America in which she scored six goals in just five games for a Paraguay side that didn't even make the semi-finals, earning her a share of the Golden Boot at just 17 years old. 

Washington Spirit were certainly impressed by what they saw from the young forward, too, signing her a few months later in January 2026. ESPN reported that the NWSL club paid a whopping $950,000 to sign her from Club Olimpia, just a few days after Martinez celebrated her 18th birthday.

After just one season in the NWSL, Tarciane became the second most expensive player of all-time when she was signed by Lyon in February 2025. L'Equipe reported that the fee for the 21-year-old was around $960,000 (£762,000), a record for the French women's top-flight and a number that would have made her the world record holder had it been a deal that went through just a few weeks earlier.

Two more players joined the $1m club on the same day in a wild few minutes in the NWSL on February 11, starting with Croix Bethune. The 24-year-old, who was named both NWSL Rookie and Midfielder of the Year in 2024, requested a trade from the Washington Spirit, who made her the No.3 overall draft pick two years prior, and landed with the Kansas City Current for $1m (£732,000).

Bethune received second team honours in the voting for the NWSL Best XI in 2025, as she helped the Spirit reach the NWSL Championship game, and was part of the United States women's national team that won Olympic gold at Paris 2024.

Just a few minutes before Bethune's move to the Current was announced, the club revealed that Claire Hutton, a finalist for the 2025 NWSL Rookie of the Year award, had left to join Bay FC for a deal worth $1.1m (£805,000). The 20-year-old had been a key player for Kansas City ever since breaking into the first team as a teenager, helping the team win the NWSL Shield in 2025, and will now take those talents to California ahead of Emma Coates' first season in charge of Bay FC.

Different fees were reported for Melvine Malard's move from Man Utd to Chelsea, which came in July 2026. Most reports, though, put the fee up at around £850,000 ($1.14m), marking a club-record sale for the Red Devils and making it the third deal in the Blues' history to surpass $1m.

Naomi Girma was signed by Chelsea in January 2025 for £883,000, a fee that converts to $1,100,000 and thus made her the first million dollar player in the women's game. 

Despite being just 24 years old, Girma is already widely considered one of the best centre-backs in the entire world, if not the best. It's a reputation she carved out in her first three seasons in the NWSL with the San Diego Wave and certainly cemented with her performances for the U.S. at the 2024 Olympic Games, at which she and her team won gold.

The most lucrative transfer ever between two NWSL clubs came midway through 2025, when Gotham paid $1,250,000 (£909,000) for Jaedyn Shaw. After coming into the league midway through the 2022 campaign, aged just 17, Shaw immediately grabbed the attention, becoming the youngest player to score on their competition debut when she netted for the San Diego Wave against Chicago. Her star would continue to shine brightly, too, particularly in the 2023 season as the Wave won the NWSL Shield.

She wouldn't stay on the west coast, though. In January 2025, Shaw moved to the North Carolina Courage in one of the NWSL's most valuable trades to date, but that was blown out of the water later that same year when Gotham paid a league-record fee to bring her in. A few months after, Shaw was celebrating the first NWSL Championship triumph of her career, starring in the final game of the season in victory over the Washington Spirit.

Girma held the word-record for a women's football transfer fee six months, until Arsenal made Olivia Smith the first million pound player in July 2025. The Gunners fell victim to the 20-year-old's magic in the FA Cup quarter-finals earlier in the year, as she inspired Liverpool to an unlikely victory, so they were under no illusions when it came to her talent, so much so that they were willing to pay a fee never seen before in the women's game to secure her services.

Smith's move to Arsenal held the world-record for a women's transfer for little over a month, before the Orlando Pride paid an even greater fee to secure the services of Mexico sensation Ovalle in August 2025. The 25-year-old had previously been linked with every top club in Europe - with all of Barcelona, Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Real Madrid and Wolfsburg interested after her outstanding exploits with Tigres. However, the next chapter of her career will instead take place in the U.S, after she signed for the reigning NWSL champions for a world-record fee of $1.5m (£1.1m).

There was a lot of different reporting about the fee Chelsea paid for Alyssa Thompson on WSL deadline day in the summer of 2025. Initially, the Athletic said it fell just short of the £1 million mark, before both the Telegraph and the Guardian suggested otherwise. The latter pair understood the deal to be a club-record for Chelsea, surpassing the fee paid for Girma, and said it could rise to become a world-record, though it appeared to be short of what the Orlando Pride paid for Lizbeth Ovalle to start.

However, when FIFA released its global transfer report for 2025, in January 2026, it ranked Thompson's transfer fee above that of Ovalle, with ESPN noting at the time of the initial deal that it could rise to be worth $2m (£1.5m).

In terms of the initial fee, Kerolin's €1.2m ($£1.02m/$1.38m) move to Barcelona from Manchester City sits as the third-biggest deal in women's football history. The Brazil international only moved to England in January 2025, from the North Carolina Courage in the NWSL, but was on her way to Catalunya just 18 months later, as Barca splashed the cash on a versatile forward following the exits of Alexia Putellas and Salma Paralluelo.

Various reports cited different fees for the deal but Man City confirmed it as a deal with €1.2m in a club statement.

When Felicia Schroder completed her move from Hacken to Real Madrid in the summer of 2026, it was widely touted as a world-record move. However, the bar to clear was consistently cited as Ovalle's move to the Orlando Pride, whereas multiple journalists, and a transfer report by FIFA itself, stated that Grace Geyoro's move to London City Lionesses was bigger than the one which took the Mexico international to the NWSL.

A Hacken spokesperson told Reuters: "It's based on this price tag being higher than the previous record sum of $1.5m, a record sum that was confirmed at the time by the Orlando Pride. However, what exactly this price tag is is not something we are making public."

While in some cases the fee was rounded up to €1.5m (£1.3m/$1.7m), Swedish media reported it to be in the region of 15 million Swedish kronor, which would sit at around €1.35m (£1.16m/$1.56m).

A new women's transfer record was set on WSL deadline day in the summer of 2025 as London City Lionesses paid €1.65m (£1.43m/$1.93m) to bring Paris Saint-Germain captain Grace Geyoro to the club ahead of their top-flight debut. London City are backed by the billions of Michele Kang, who also owns PSG's bitter rivals Lyon, and the club threw that money around plenty in preparation for their WSL bow.

London City denied claims that a world-record fee was paid for Geyoro. However, the opposite was reported by multiple journalists and FIFA's official global transfer report, released a few months later, listed Geyoro as the biggest international transfer in women's professional football in 2025, above the deals for Thompson, Ovalle and Girma.