IPL 2026 Auction Rules Breakdown: What’s New This Season?

The stage is set for the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 auction. The bidding event will be taking place in Abu Dhabi on December 16 with all ten franchises aiming to strengthen their squad for the forthcoming tournament.

As many as 1350 players registered for the IPL 2026 auction, however, only 350 were shortlisted and they are all set to go under the hammer now. Out of the selected 350 players, 240 are Indians and 110 are overseas players.

There will be a majority of uncapped players in the IPL 2026 auction as 224 uncapped Indians and 14 uncapped overseas ones. All these players will be fighting for the vacant 77 spots, out of which 31 are reserved for overseas players. The IPL is the richest cricket league in the world and its auction will be closely followed.

IPL 2026 Auction Rules Explained

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) will enter the auction with the highest purse at INR 64.3 crore and 13 slots to fill including six overseas players. They are followed by Chennai Super Kings (CSK) with INR 43.4 crore in the purse. Both these teams are among the best teams in IPL and will he busy in this auction. On the other hand, the rest of the teams have retained the majority of their players. Here, we will discuss the IPL Auction 2026 rules.

Maximum Purse Cap

Heading into the auction, each team comes with a purse of INR 125 crore to build the team. However, after all the retentions and released players, the purses of the team may vary. While KKR and CSK have the largest purse heading into the mini-auction, the Mumbai Indians will have the lowest purse of Rs 2.2 crore.

Overseas Players

The maximum squad capacity for each team in the IPL 2026 auction is 25 players. Out of these a team can have a maximum of eight overseas players. This is one of the IPL auction rules that has been in effect since the inception of the league in 2008.

Salary Cap on Overseas Players

In the last few years, the bidding in the IPL auctions has gone to the next level. Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant all have received over 20 crores. However, from this year, it will be different as franchises have complained that overseas players enter the mini auction to increase their rates.

Now, the overseas players cannot get more than INR 18 crore. According to the IPL salary cap rules, the rest of the money that the player will get in the auction will go to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for its player development programme.

Ban on Overseas Players

The IPL General Council came up with a harsh rule for players last season. As per the rules “an overseas player will have to mandatorily register for the mega auction (2025) if he is fully fit and available. However, if he didn’t do so then he would be banned for one year. Also, if a player pulls out after getting signed, he will be banned for two mini-auctions.

No RTM Card in IPL Auction 2026

The IPL 2026 auction will see no Right to Match cards being used. This is because the RTM cards are only available in mega auctions. Hence, the only way to buy back the players is to purchase them in an auction.