A WNBA expansion draft lets incoming franchises build their initial rosters by selecting players from existing league teams. Before the draft takes place, every active team submits a list of players whose rights it holds and designates a set number of protected players (six in a single-team draft or five in a two-team draft), leaving everyone else on an unprotected list eligible to be picked. To keep any single roster from being stripped bare, the league caps how many players each existing team can lose and limits each expansion club to selecting at most one pending unrestricted free agent.
The league does not keep a single permanent set of expansion rules in its rulebook. Instead, the WNBA office issues specific procedures before each expansion draft based on how many clubs are entering the league and the terms of the active collective bargaining agreement. Since holding its first expansion draft in 1998, the league has used the process for expansion classes in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2006, 2008, 2024 and 2026, with additional drafts scheduled for Cleveland in 2028, Detroit in 2029 and Philadelphia in 2030, according to MM3 Sports’ 2026 rules breakdown.
How do WNBA expansion draft protected lists work?
Roughly one week before the draft, every existing WNBA franchise must give the league office a complete accounting of the players to whom it holds contractual or league rights at the end of the prior season. That master list is split into two categories: Protected Players and Unprotected Players.
Any player placed on a team’s Protected List is off-limits and stays with her current franchise. The size of that protected group depends on how many expansion teams are entering the league at once. In the 2024 expansion draft for a single incoming franchise, the 12 existing teams were allowed to protect up to six players each. When two franchises entered together in the 2026 expansion draft, the 13 existing teams could protect a maximum of five players each, under the Indiana Fever’s 2026 rules.
Every remaining player whose rights are held by an existing club goes onto the Unprotected List. Because WNBA team rights extend well beyond the active 12-player roster, the Unprotected List includes several categories of athletes:
- Players under an active standard contract for the upcoming season.
- Restricted free agents, for whom the original team holds the right to match outside contract offers.
- Reserved players, meaning athletes with three or fewer years of service whose contracts have expired and who can negotiate only with their current team.
- Players whose draft rights a team holds, such as recent college draftees or international prospects who have not yet signed a WNBA contract.
- Pending unrestricted free agents whose contracts have expired, though special selection limits apply to them.
One of the biggest misconceptions among fans is that teams publish these lists ahead of time. Neither the WNBA nor its member franchises release the Protected or Unprotected Lists to the public. They are shared confidentially with the league office and the incoming expansion front offices, and fans only learn who was left unprotected if a player is drafted or involved in an announced trade.
How many players can a team lose in the draft?
The league caps how many players any single existing team can lose so that an expansion draft spreads the talent loss evenly across the WNBA. Just like the protection limit, the loss cap scales with the number of expansion teams participating.
When a single franchise enters the league, the draft runs for one round and an existing team can lose at most one player. Once an expansion club selects a player from the Indiana Fever or the New York Liberty, for example, every remaining unprotected player on that roster is automatically removed from the draft pool. When the Golden State Valkyries joined the league on December 6, 2024 (the WNBA’s first expansion draft since 2008, per the Indiana Fever’s 2024 explainer), they selected 11 players from the 12 existing teams, passing on making a pick from one club.
When two expansion franchises enter in the same year, the draft runs for two alternating rounds, with up to 12 picks per round (up to six selections per expansion team in each round). In a two-team format, an existing franchise can lose a maximum of two players combined, and no more than one player in a single round. In the April 3, 2026 expansion draft, the Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo each selected 11 players—22 athletes in total—after the 13 existing teams protected five players apiece, according to the Toronto Tempo’s 2026 draft results.
To settle the picking order when two expansion clubs enter together, the WNBA holds a coin toss before the draft. The team that wins the toss gets to choose first in the Expansion Draft, while the second expansion team is awarded the higher pick between the two clubs in the subsequent collegiate WNBA Draft.
What are the rules for free agents and contracts?
When an expansion team selects a player who is already under contract, her existing contract and its corresponding salary cap hit transfer directly to the new franchise. If the selected athlete is a reserved player or a restricted free agent, the expansion team inherits the original club’s exclusive negotiating rights or right of first refusal once the WNBA free agency period opens.
Unrestricted free agents (UFAs), veterans who are free to sign with any team in the league, carry a major risk for an incoming club because they can walk away in free agency without playing a game for their new city. Because of that, the WNBA enforces a strict limit: each expansion team may select at most one potential unrestricted free agent during the entire expansion draft, as outlined in the Portland Fire’s 2026 FAQ.
Selecting that single pending UFA gives the expansion franchise the ability to apply the WNBA core player designation, which grants exclusive negotiating rights in exchange for a guaranteed one-year maximum salary offer. How that rule applies to veterans who have already been cored in the past has shifted between drafts:
- In the 2024 single-team expansion draft, pending UFAs who had already been designated as Core Players the maximum number of times in their careers were ineligible to be drafted because the expansion club could not core them again.
- In the 2026 two-team expansion draft, the league updated the rule so that an expansion franchise could select one pending UFA with five or more years of WNBA service regardless of whether she had been cored previously, granting the new team exclusive supermax negotiating rights with that player.
Can teams make trades before the expansion draft?
A contender with a deep roster often has more quality players than it can fit onto a five- or six-player Protected List. To give front offices a way to maneuver around those limits, the WNBA opens a pre-draft trade window as soon as the Protected and Unprotected Lists are distributed to the incoming teams.
During this window, existing teams can negotiate side agreements with the expansion front offices. These deals generally take one of three forms:
- An existing team trades a future collegiate draft pick or another player to an expansion franchise in exchange for a binding agreement not to select a specific exposed player from its Unprotected List.
- An existing team offers draft compensation to entice an expansion team to select a specific unprotected player—often used when a team wants to clear a veteran contract off its salary cap.
- An expansion team agrees to draft an unprotected player from one franchise and immediately trade her to a third WNBA team in exchange for draft picks or roster assets.
Once all pre-draft trades and selections are submitted to the league office, the picks are announced during the televised expansion draft broadcast. From there, the new franchises transition directly into the league’s standard offseason calendar, entering the free agency negotiation period and the collegiate WNBA Draft to fill out the rest of their training camp rosters.