AFLW Fantasy 2026 Game Guidelines

AFLW Fantasy is a season-long fantasy AFLW game where you build and manage a squad of AFLW players, score points from real match performances, make trades, compete in rankings and leagues, and manage your team across the AFLW season.

Here's what's new for 2026:

Dual Position Players (DPP) — Some players are now eligible across two positions (exclusively MID/FWD for now)
50% TOG Threshold — A player's score only counts if they spend at least 50% of game time on the ground. This also affects how emergencies are applied.
Advanced Trade Editing — You can now edit or reverse saved trades before lockout, so you can change your mind mid-week.
Added League and Team History — Added new sections for League and Team history dating back to the first season of AFLW Fantasy!
Foes — Privately track rival teams and compare your round-by-round and season-long performance against them.
Larger Team size — There are now 29 players required to be selected to complete your team.
Added Fantasy Coach information — Huge amounts of data including Player score, price and breakeven projections are all now available for Fantasy Coach subscribers on AFLW Fantasy. Also added advanced stats for player ownership such as popular trades, ownership based on user rank and Captain/Vice Captain selections.
Dedicated Trade Centre: Added a dedicated trade centre with many new statistics available.

Getting started

To play AFLW Fantasy, you need an AFL iD account. If you don't already have one, click Sign Up on the AFLW Fantasy website or app to create one — it only takes a minute.

Your AFL iD is shared across all AFL & AFLW games (Classic, Draft and Tipping), so if you've played any of those before, you can log in with the same account.

When you register for AFLW Fantasy for the first time, you'll be asked to:

Confirm or choose a team name
Upload an avatar (or use the default based on your favourite club)
Accept the Terms & Conditions
Optionally opt in to marketing communications

If you played on the previous platform, your team name, avatar and profile details are carried over automatically. You can edit them during registration if you'd like to start fresh.

Only one registration per person is allowed. Multiple accounts can affect your eligibility for prizes.

Trouble logging in? Try resetting your password via the AFLW iD login page, clearing your cookies, or switching to a different browser or device. If you're still stuck, contact Support with your account email and a description of what you're seeing.

Your squad

Every AFLW Fantasy team uses the same formation for a total of 29 players:

Position	On field	Bench
Defenders	6	2
Midfielders	8	2
Rucks	1	1
Forwards	6	2
Utility	—	1

The Utility position is a standalone bench position. No AFLW player is listed as a “Utility” by position; instead, any DEF, MID, RUC or FWD can be placed there if your overall team structure remains valid.

Player positions (SPP, DPP)

Players may have one or two eligible positions:

Type	Meaning	Example
SPP	Single Position Player	DEF
DPP	Dual Position Player	MID/FWD

Dual Position Players are supported in 2026 for MID/FWD players only. These will not be updated during the season

DPP players can help you complete legal substitutions and trades. If a DPP player can be added to more than one available position during team creation, you may be asked to choose where that player should be placed.

Utility and position swaps

The Utility slot can hold a player from any of the four main positions. You can switch a player into Utility through substitutions or DPP swaps, provided the player leaving Utility is eligible for the position they are moving into.

For example:

Scenario	Can they swap?	Why
MID player in Midfield and DEF player in Utility	No	The DEF player cannot move into a MID-only slot
MID player in Midfield and MID/FWD player in Utility	Yes	The Utility player is eligible as a MID

This matters when adjusting your team, fixing structure during trades, or moving flexible-position players to create a valid lineup.

Salary cap, team value and remaining salary

The salary cap is the starting budget used to build your team. For 2026, the salary cap is $18 million. You cannot add a player if doing so takes you above the salary cap during team building.

Team Value is the total value of all players in your squad. It updates after each round based on player price changes and may rise or fall below the original salary cap.

Remaining Salary is the money left over from your starting salary cap, adjusted by your selections and, during the season, by the salary movement involved in your trades. In pre-season, you cannot add players that take Remaining Salary below zero. During in-season trade planning, your team may temporarily enter a negative unsaved state while you are building a trade, but the final saved team must be valid.

Price changes

Player prices update weekly after Round 1. Price changes are based on recent Fantasy performance, with more recent matches weighted more heavily than earlier ones. Prior-season data may also influence early-season pricing.

Your Team Value adjusts automatically based on the current prices of the players in your squad. If your players increase in value, your Team Value rises — and vice versa. Monitoring price trends can help you plan trades and build long-term squad value.

Building your team in pre-season

Before the season, you can add and remove players freely, provided your team remains within the salary cap. This is not treated as “trading”; trades apply during the season, when one player must be removed for another to be added.

When adding players from the Player Pool, the interface helps you find eligible players. On mobile, selecting an empty position from My Team takes you to the Player Pool filtered to that position. On desktop, removing or adding players can update the Player Pool to show players for the relevant position.

If a DPP player can fit multiple open positions, the game may ask you to choose which position to add them to. If only one eligible position is available, the player is placed there automatically.

Team states: pre-season, in-season and post-season

A team is considered to be in pre-season state if the first round of the season has not been completed. Your team stays in pre-season state until the first round is completed and you've saved a valid team. If you haven't saved a team by the end of Round 1, you'll remain in pre-season state with unlimited trades until you do.

In pre-season state:

You have unlimited trades.
You can only view the current round for your team.
Your team is private before players lock out.
Other coaches cannot fully view your team until players begin to lock.

During the first round for a team still in pre-season state, overall and round ranks begin showing from the first game, players lock as normal, and unlimited trades remain available until lockout lifts.

After the first round is complete, teams move into in-season state. Trading is then generally limited to three trades per week, and completed teams are no longer private.

After lockout lifts on the final round, the game enters post-season state, where all players remain locked.

Saving your team

Saving behaviour depends on whether your team has ever been completed and saved as a valid 29-player squad.

Your team is considered incomplete until you've selected and saved a full 29-player squad. Once you've done that, your team is now valid and will be able to score points for the round. You can then save a team with less than 29 selected after this point however until you have 29/29 saved, your team will not score points for the round (though players will still lockout as per their fixture start time).

If your team is incomplete and you try to leave the page with unsaved changes, you may see a warning telling you that unsaved changes will be lost.

On the app, if you leave My Team without saving, you'll see a red "!" on the Team tab and an unsaved changes banner until you go back and save.

Auto Pick

Auto Pick is available from the Team Info Bar when your team is incomplete in pre-season mode. It fills your team automatically without overwriting players, positions, Captains, Vice-Captains or Emergencies you have already selected.

Auto Pick attempts to use as much salary cap as possible. It selects a mixture of higher-priced players and cheaper players, aims to include popular lower-priced selections around the rookie price range, and randomises some higher-priced selections so that Auto Pick does not generate the same team for every coach.

Auto Pick avoids players marked as Injured, Not Playing, Emergency or Substitute. Players marked Uncertain or Playing are treated with the same influence so that early team announcements do not overly skew selections.

If no Captain or Vice-Captain has been selected, Auto Pick assigns them to the highest-priced unlocked player and second-highest-priced unlocked player respectively, using average points as a tie-breaker. If no Emergencies have been selected, Auto Pick assigns one emergency per DEF, MID, RUC and FWD, ignoring the Utility slot for automatic emergency assignment.

Clearing your team

The Clear button is available while your team is in pre-season mode. It clears all non-locked players from your team. Locked players remain. You will be asked to confirm before clearing.

Clearing your team does not immediately save an empty team. Your team is only saved again when you press save again with at least 1 player selected. If you clear your team and navigate away before saving, you may see an unsaved changes warning.

My Team views

The My Team page lets you build and manage your team in two formats: list view and field view.

In list view, your lineup is displayed in position sections. Each player row shows their headshot, status, name, position, club, price, next opponent, selected statistics and score. On desktop, up to 10 stat columns can be shown. On mobile and app, two stat columns are shown.

In field view, your team is displayed visually on an AFLW field. Player cards show their headshot, club logo, name, next opponent, status, position, price, price movement and selected statistics.

In both views, Captains are marked with an orange "C", Vice-Captains with a blue "VC", and Emergencies with purple indicators. Utility Emergencies also display the position they are covering (D, M, R or F).

Use the Stats Centre to compare players by averages, projected scores, form, opponent difficulty and venue history. Fantasy Coach subscribers also get access to additional advanced stats.

Player profiles

Tapping on any player opens their profile, which includes three tabs:

Overview — position, club, price, ownership percentage and status
Fantasy stats — season averages, round-by-round scores, price history and form
Matches — upcoming fixture and past match breakdowns

Fantasy Coach subscribers see additional stats on player profiles, including break evens, projected scores and price forecasts.

Match Centre

The Match Centre shows the AFLW fixture for each round, along with your Fantasy league matchups if you're in a head-to-head league.

During live games, you can view real-time Fantasy scoring for every match. This is useful for tracking how your players are performing, checking TOG percentages as games progress, and watching how your round total compares to your league opponents.

Substitutions

A substitution is when you move a player from one place in your lineup to another. You can substitute a player with another eligible player, perform DPP substitutions where players are eligible for each other’s positions, and reorder players within the same section when the relevant sort setting allows it.

On desktop, drag and drop can also be used as another method of substitution. The same eligibility rules apply: eligible spots are highlighted, ineligible spots are not available, and once a valid substitution is made, the two players swap positions.

Captain and Vice-Captain

You can select a Captain and Vice-Captain from your lineup. Click C to make a player Captain and VC to make a player Vice-Captain. A Captain receives an orange C badge, and a Vice-Captain receives a blue VC badge.

If you select a new Captain while one is already selected, the new player becomes Captain and the previous Captain loses that role. The same applies to Vice-Captains. If you move a Captain or Vice-Captain through substitution, the role stays with the original player rather than the lineup slot.

If your Captain has locked out, the Captain button is hidden from other players. The same applies to Vice-Captain if the current Vice-Captain is locked.

If you save a full 29/29 team without selecting a Captain or Vice-Captain, they are automatically assigned using the Auto Pick captaincy rules. If you save without 29/29 players selected, Captain and Vice-Captain are not auto-allocated.

Captain and Vice-Captain scoring

Your Captain’s Fantasy score is doubled. Your Vice-Captain acts as a backup. If your Captain doesn't play (DNP), your Vice-Captain's score is doubled immediately — you don't have to wait until the end of the round. If your Captain plays but falls below the TOG threshold, the higher of the two scores (Captain or Vice-Captain) is used.

Emergencies

Emergencies are selected from your interchange or bench. To make a player an Emergency, click the E action on that player. You can select up to four Emergencies, and you may select fewer than four if you choose. An Emergency cannot also be Captain or Vice-Captain.

You may select more than one Emergency from the same position. If only one on-field player from that position requires emergency cover, the lowest-scoring eligible emergency from that position is used. If multiple on-field players require cover, multiple emergencies from that position can be used.

A Utility player can also be selected as an Emergency. If the Utility player is DPP, you choose which position they are covering. For example, a MID/FWD player in Utility can be selected as a Midfielder or Forward Emergency, and the emergency badge will show the selected position.

Emergency score logic

Emergencies are matched by position. If one of your on-field players doesn't score (because they didn't play or fell below the TOG threshold), the game looks for an eligible emergency on your bench in the same position. If your emergency also didn't play, they can't be used.

Emergencies do not apply until an on-field player is DNP or, for TOG cases, until the affected player’s match is completed. This prevents an emergency from being applied too early when a player may still increase their TOG during a live match.

Time on ground threshold

For 2026, AFLW Fantasy uses a 50% time on ground threshold. If a player records 50% game time or more, their score will always be included among the 21 on-field players.

TOG percentages are rounded by the stats provider before they reach AFLW Fantasy. This means a player sitting right on the edge (e.g. 49.75% actual game time) may be rounded up to 50% and have their score counted. The threshold is based on the rounded figure, not the raw number.

A player who enters the field and scores 0 or negative Fantasy points still counts if their TOG is above 0.00. A player with 0% TOG after the match is post-game or complete is treated as DNP.

Trading

During the season, trading means removing one player from your team and adding another player from the Player Pool. Trades are different from pre-season team building, where you can add and remove players freely subject to salary cap and validity rules.

The basic trade rules are:

Rule	Behaviour
Standard weekly trades	3 trades per week
Locked players	Cannot be traded
Validity	Trades cannot be completed if any player is in an ineligible position

Trades can be made at any time as long as the players involved are not locked. Once a player is locked, they can never be traded for that round.

Advanced trade editing

Advanced trade editing gives you more flexibility to review and correct saved trades before lockout, without having to start from scratch.

You can:

Edit all saved trades at once — even if they contain multiple linked moves
Make new DPP swaps while editing, based on your current team structure
Manually reverse a trade by re-adding a player you previously traded out. This restores a trade to your available total. A player cannot be traded out and back in during the same round.
Use Rollback Team to restore your full team — positions, Captain, Vice-Captain, emergencies and trades — to exactly how it was at the end of the previous round. Rollback Team is only available before any player has locked for the current round.

All standard rules still apply during editing: your team must remain under the salary cap, every player must be in an eligible position, and the Confirm button only becomes available once everything is valid.

Lockout

Players lock according to normal lockout rules once their match begins. In pre-season state during the first round, you still have unlimited trades until lockout lifts, but players lock as normal.

If a player locks while in a saved team, they remain locked in that team. If a player was not saved before they locked, they may be removed and cannot be selected once locked.

Locked players cannot be traded. If you remove a player and that player locks before you save the change, your team can't be saved and you'll need to revert or fix it before saving.

Scoring

AFLW Fantasy uses a fixed scoring system for all coaches and leagues.

Statistic	Points
Kick	3
Handball	2
Mark	3
Tackle	4
Free Kick For	1
Free Kick Against	-3
Goal	6
Behind	1
Hitout	1

Scores update live during matches based on official AFLW statistics.

Foes

Foes lets you privately track rival coaches and compare your performance against theirs throughout the season.

To add a Foe, use the "Mark as Foe" button on any coach's team page, or search for them using "Add a Foe". To remove a Foe, click Remove Foe on their row in the Foes table. You can track up to 50 Foes.

Adding a Foe is one-way — only you can see it unless they add you back.

The Foes table shows each rival's team name, coach name, round points, round rank, total points and overall rank. Use the Round Selector to filter results by any completed round or view all rounds at once. Live rounds are not shown in the selector until they are complete.

Leagues

You can create or join leagues to compete against other coaches. Access all your leagues from the My Leagues page, where each league appears as a card showing its settings, participants and type.

There are two league types:

Type	How it works
Open	All coaches are ranked by cumulative Fantasy points across the season
Head-to-Head	Coaches are paired against a different opponent each round. The coach with the higher round score wins the matchup

Head-to-Head scoring:

Result	Points
Win	4
Draw	2
Loss	0

League settings — including privacy, size, start round and finals — are managed by the League Commissioner and can be viewed by all participants. To join a private league, enter the league's PIN on the Join a League page. You can also create your own league from the same page.

A H2H league must be full by the first lockout of its scheduled start round.

If a league is not full, the commissioner may choose to:

Reduce the league size to match the current number of coaches.
Add a celebrity team to make the league size even, if required.

These actions are not automatic and can only be performed by the league commissioner.

If the league is still not full when the first game of the scheduled start round locks out, the league's start round will automatically be postponed to the following round.

H2H leagues can include a finals series at the end of the season. The commissioner chooses the finals format and grand final round when setting up the league. Ties on the ladder are resolved by percentage (Points For ÷ Points Against) unless the commissioner selects a Points For tiebreaker.

Rankings

Once you've saved a complete team, you appear on the overall leaderboard. You can also view your ranking within specific competitions, such as your AFLW club's leaderboard.

Rankings update after each round. If two coaches are tied on total points, the coach who registered their team first is ranked higher. Verified leagues are ranked separately against other verified leagues.

Social sharing

You can share your team with friends using the Share feature on My Team. This generates a shareable image of your lineup that you can post to social media or send directly.

In pre-season, the shared image uses your current team. During the season, it uses your team from the last completed round.

Fantasy Coach

Fantasy Coach is a paid subscription that unlocks advanced tools across the game:

Break evens — the projected score a player needs to increase or maintain their price
Projected scores — estimated scores for upcoming rounds
Price forecasts — predicted price movements based on recent form
Player Comparison — compare up to four players side by side (standard access allows two)
Advanced stats in the Stats Centre and on player profiles

Fantasy Coach is available on both web and app. If you subscribed on the previous platform, your subscription carries over automatically.

Prizes

AFLW Fantasy awards prizes throughout the season. Weekly prizes are awarded to the highest-scoring coach each round, and overall prizes are awarded at the end of the season based on final rankings.

Full prize details, eligibility requirements and terms are outlined in the Terms & Conditions, accessible from the game's Help section.

Common questions

Why can’t I add a player?

You may not have enough Remaining Salary, the player may not fit an available eligible position, or your team structure may not allow that player to be added. In pre-season, you cannot add a player if it takes your Remaining Salary negative.

Why can’t I save my team?

Your team may be invalid, incomplete, over the salary cap, or contain a player in a position they are not eligible for.

Why is my team invalid?

A team can be marked Invalid if it remains incomplete, cannot fit within the salary cap, and cannot be auto-filled by the time the final game of the round begins. Invalid teams score 0 and are excluded from rankings after lockout lifts.

Why did my emergency not count?

Emergencies are applied by position and only when an on-field player is DNP or falls below the TOG threshold after their game is completed. If the on-field player counts, or if the emergency is not eligible for that position, the emergency may not be used.

Why did my Captain or Vice-Captain change?

If you manually select a new Captain or Vice-Captain, the old role is removed or swapped according to the captaincy rules. If you substitute players between on-field positions, the role stays with the original player rather than the lineup slot.

Why can’t I trade a player?

Locked players cannot be traded. Trades also cannot be completed if they leave your team over the salary cap or place any player in an ineligible position.

Why did my team value drop?

Player prices update weekly based on recent Fantasy performance. If players in your squad scored below their price threshold, their price — and your team value — will decrease.

Need more help?

Most issues can be solved by checking that your team is complete, valid, under the salary cap, and not affected by lockout. When contacting Support, include your account email, team name, round, device or platform, screenshots where possible, and a clear description of the action you were trying to complete.