The biggest transfer of every year since 1990

From Roberto Baggio’s move to Juventus to Neymar’s €222m. How the most expensive transfer of each year has grown, and the 15 biggest fees ever paid.

The highest transfer fee in football has risen about seventeen-fold since 1990. Roberto Baggio’s move from Fiorentina to Juventus that year cost what our records list as €12.9m. In 2017 Paris Saint-Germain paid €222m for Neymar, a figure that still stands as the record. This article lists the biggest transfer of each year, and then the biggest fees of all time.

All fees are Transfermarkt’s figures in euros, at the value recorded at the time of the transfer and not adjusted for inflation. Reported fees often differ between sources, especially when add-ons are involved, so treat each one as the best available estimate rather than an exact sum.

The biggest transfer of each year

A few years are left out to keep the table short. None of them set a new record. The pattern is clear even so. The record jumped in 2000 and 2001, when Real Madrid bought Figo and then Zidane, again in 2009 and 2013, when they bought Ronaldo and then Bale, and then dramatically in 2017.

The Neymar jump

Before August 2017 the world record was Paul Pogba’s move to Manchester United, at €105m. Neymar’s move to PSG more than doubled it. The fee was the amount of the release clause in his Barcelona contract, which PSG paid in full. Barcelona then spent much of the money within weeks. Ousmane Dembélé joined from Dortmund for €148m and Philippe Coutinho from Liverpool for €135m in January 2018. A single transfer reset the market.

Nine years later the record still stands. Kylian Mbappé’s move to PSG, agreed in 2017 and completed in 2018, is second at €180m.

The 15 biggest fees ever paid

The Premier League’s share

From 1990 to 2015, an English club made the year’s biggest signing in 10 of those 26 years, and it was never a world record except Shearer’s in 1996. From 2016 to 2026 it happened in 6 of 11 years. The summer of 2026 was the busiest yet. Five of the fifteen biggest fees ever paid came in that one window, four of them by English clubs.

Enzo Fernández is the only player to appear twice in the all-time top fifteen. Chelsea paid Benfica €121m for him in January 2023, and Manchester City paid Chelsea €145m in 2026.

The biggest spenders and sellers

Adding up every permanent transfer with a recorded fee in our data gives a different view of the market. Chelsea are the biggest buyers, with about €4.6bn spent on incoming fees, ahead of Manchester City (€3.9bn), Manchester United (€3.2bn), Juventus (€3.2bn) and Real Madrid (€3.1bn). Chelsea are also the biggest sellers, with about €2.6bn received. Benfica (€2.0bn), Juventus, Monaco, Barcelona and Porto are next.

Benfica, Monaco and Porto stand out on that list. None of them spends like the clubs above, but all three have made a business of buying young players cheaply, developing them, and selling them on to the richest leagues. João Félix and Enzo Fernández (Benfica) and Kylian Mbappé (Monaco) are three of the biggest examples in the tables above.

These totals only include transfers of players in our football database, and only fees that Transfermarkt records. Most significant fees are included, but this is not a complete account of every club’s spending.

Fees in the games

Transfer fees are one of the stats in Football Higher or Lower, and they are where intuition goes wrong most often. Fees from before 2010 feel small next to modern prices, but a €46m player in 2002 was the most expensive defender in history. Our Career Path game uses the same transfer records to show each player’s clubs in order.

Real Madrid’s record-breaking habit

One club appears more often than any other in the yearly table: Real Madrid, the buyer in 2000, 2001, 2003, 2009, 2013 and 2023. Four of those signings were outright world records: Figo, Zidane, Ronaldo and Bale. From Figo in 2000 to Bale in 2013, every world-record transfer was a Real Madrid signing. That includes Kaká in 2009, who held the record for a few weeks before Madrid broke it again for Ronaldo.

Since 2017 the pattern has changed. Madrid have still bought big, but the top of the market is now set by Paris Saint-Germain, which holds the two highest fees in history, and by Premier League clubs, which made seven of the fifteen biggest signings.

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Sources and method

Fees are from Transfermarkt’s transfer histories as collected on 24 October 2026, in euros at the time of the deal. Only permanent transfers with a recorded fee are included, so loan fees and undisclosed fees do not appear. Where a move was agreed in one year and completed the next, it is listed by the date Transfermarkt gives for the transfer.