Substitutions in football: how the five substitute rule and the three windows work

A team can make up to five substitutions, spread across three windows, and anything done at half time is free. That is the short answer. Law 3 of the Laws of the Game does not force any competition to allow five. It sets five as a ceiling and hands the decision to whoever runs the competition, whether that is FIFA, a confederation or a national football association. A competition is free to allow fewer. The three window limit applies where the rules do allow five.

The cap of three windows does not apply to every match. Law 3 restricts it to men's and women's competitions involving the first teams of top division clubs and senior 'A' international teams, and only where the competition rules permit a maximum of five substitutes. The 2026 World Cup is built exactly that way: article 36.2 of the tournament regulations says each team may use a maximum of five substitutes. Outside that bracket, the number depends on whoever writes the rules.

A window is an opportunity to substitute, not a player. Each team gets three of them per match. Send on two or three players at the same stoppage and you have spent one. If both teams make a change at the same moment, the window counts against each of them, as the 2026 World Cup regulations spell out. The reasoning has been on the record since day one: the IFAB wanted to avoid disruption to the game. Without the cap, five changes would mean five interruptions.

A temporary rule made permanent

Five substitutions began life as an emergency measure. On 8 May 2020, following a FIFA proposal, the IFAB allowed the option because of the covid-19 pandemic and the congested calendar, leaving each competition organiser to decide whether to use it. The three opportunities were written in from the start, so the extra changes would not chop the match into pieces. Substitutions at half time were allowed in that first statement too.

The temporary fix became law in the 2022/23 edition of the Laws of the Game. The decision came from the IFAB's 136th Annual General Meeting, announced on 13 June 2022, and took effect on 1 July 2022. The same decision confirmed the restriction of three substitution slots plus half time. FIFA's official site records the same date, the same meeting and the same start of validity. What began as a pandemic patch is now simply the text of Law 3.

Half time changes do not cost a window. This is the loophole modern coaching lives on: make two or three changes in the dressing room and you come out for the second half with all three windows untouched and fresh legs still on the bench. Those substitutions still count towards the total of five, but not towards the opportunities. That is why so much happens at the interval, even when nobody is injured.

Nothing is wasted in extra time. Substitutes and windows left over from normal time carry across. And where the competition rules provide for it, each team gets one more substitute and one more window, even a side that has already used everything. In practice that means up to six changes and up to four windows. The break before extra time and the break inside it do not count as opportunities either. Manage the bench well and you go into extra time with fresh legs and a window in hand.

The concussion substitution rule

The concussion substitution sits outside the whole system. It is additional and permanent: one per team per match, available even to a side that has already used all five normal changes. It does not eat a window, because it is counted separately from the limit on normal opportunities. Permanent is meant literally, as the player with concussion or suspected concussion takes no further part in the match. The call belongs to the team's medical staff, not to the referees. And the opposing team then receives an additional substitute and an additional window.

None of that is automatic. The concussion substitution is a competition option, approved at the IFAB's 138th Annual General Meeting in Scotland on 2 March 2024 and in force since 1 July 2024. Competition rules also set how many substitutes may be named, from three to a maximum of fifteen. At the 2026 World Cup the match list holds up to 26 players: 11 starters and up to 15 substitutes. And the moment matters, because a substitution is only complete when the substitute enters the field of play.

Since 1 July 2026 the walk off the pitch is part of the rule. A substituted player has ten seconds to leave the field, counted from the moment the fourth official shows the board, or from the referee's signal where there is no board. Take longer and the team plays short for a while: the substitute may only come on at the first stoppage after one minute of running time has passed since the restart. The IFAB presented the measure as a way to cut time wasting.

Outside the elite the picture changes. In other matches the two teams may agree on a larger number of substitutes before the game and tell the referee; without such an agreement the ceiling is six per team. In senior 'A' friendlies the number rose to eight from 1 July 2026, and can reach eleven if both teams agree. And only in youth, veterans, disability and grassroots football may a substituted player return to the pitch.