The NFL's salary cap is going up again in 2026 and is now expected to crack $300 million per team.
As reported by NFL.com, team officials were informed by the league on Friday that the salary cap for the 2026 season is projected to fall in the range of $301.2 million to $305.7 million. That would be a jump of between $22 million and $26.5 million over the 2025 per-team cap, which was set at $279.2 million.
This will mark the third straight season that the NFL's salary cap has increased by at least $22 million per team. In 2021, that figure actually went down by almost $16 million following a 2020 season in which league revenue was impacted significantly by the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, however, it will have jumped by a total of at least $118.7 in five years.
Using a projected per-team cap figure of $303.45, Spotrac estimates that the Buccaneers will begin the new league year on March 11 with approximately $14.5 million of cap space, which would rank 17th in the NFL. Those per-team cap space estimates on Spotrac range from $99 million for the Tennessee Titans to -$57.6 million for the Kansas City Chiefs.
