Unclear situation in Italy
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In Germany, the transfer window this winter ends on February 3rd. Normally January 31st or February 1st is often the deadline, but since these dates fall on a Friday and Saturday this year, Deadline Day 2025 has been set on a Monday. But this is by no means the case in all countries. Transfermarkt provides an overview of the opening times in the 2025 winter transfer window.
There is uniformity, at least to some extent, when it comes to Deadline Day for the professional clubs from Germany, England, Spain, Italy (with reservations; see last paragraph) and France. They are all allowed to sign players up to and including February 3rd, but not all at the same time. As in the summer, the Bundesliga and 2nd Bundesliga end at 8 p.m. – before the start of the season, the DFL had pushed back the deadline that had previously been set at 6 p.m. For the Serie A teams, the transfer window is once again open two hours longer, in Ligue 1 work on new additions continues until 11 p.m. and in Spain and England there is time until midnight.
However, this deadline only applies to new arrivals, as clubs such as FC Bayern, Hamburger SV or Manchester City and FC Barcelona are still allowed to give away players after that. Both in Europe and worldwide, some relevant leagues have a longer transfer deadline. Clubs from the Netherlands and Portugal are allowed to sign players until February 4th and those from Austria until February 6th. The teams from Turkey and Switzerland have it even better: they have until February 11th and 17th, respectively.
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In these countries, however, the transfer window also opens later, in Turkey only on January 11th and in Switzerland on January 15th. Leagues in which the season is played according to calendar years start the transfer period even later. Teams from Sweden (January 29th to March 25th), Norway (January 30th to March 27th) or Finland (February 5th to April 1st) will soon have the equivalent of the summer transfer phase in the top European leagues.
In contrast to the summer, short-term offers worth millions after the European transfer deadline from Saudi Arabia are not possible. The clubs from the financially extremely powerful Saudi Pro League only have until January 30th to sign players.
Transfer deadline on January 30th: Saudi Arabia
Transfer deadline on January 31st: including Greece, Albania, Qatar
Transfer deadline on February 3rd: Germany (8 p.m. 1st and 2nd league, 11:59 p.m. 3rd league), Italy (8 p.m.), France (11 p.m.), England, Spain (11:59 p.m. each) as well as Belgium, Scotland, Denmark
Transfer deadline on February 4th: Netherlands, Portugal
Transfer deadline on February 6th: Austria
Transfer deadline on February 11th: Türkiye
Transfer deadline on February 12th: Australia
Transfer deadline on February 14th: Hungary, Serbia
Transfer deadline on February 16th: Argentina
Transfer deadline on February 17th: Croatia, Switzerland
Transfer deadline on March 7th & 8th: Brazil, South Korea
Transfer deadline at the end of March/beginning of April: Finland, Japan, Norway, Sweden, USA, among others
The fact that there is no uniform global regulation on transfer phases means that individual associations or FIFA itself repeatedly provide incorrect information. The Spanish LaLiga, for example, stated January 31st as the transfer deadline on its website last year until January 30th , although the change to February 1st had already been announced by the world football association in May 2023. When asked by Transfermarkt, the Spanish association confirmed this again and changed the date.
This year there seems to be a more complicated case in Italy. While the FIFA homepage states February 4th as the last date for transfers from Italian clubs, the Italian association insists on February 3rd. Although FIFA represents the official information, a transfer deadline on a different date than in the other top leagues is considered unlikely.