FPL chips · 2026/27 · Updated 13 August 2026
FPL Free Hit chip: how it works and when to play it
The Free Hit chip gives you unlimited free transfers for a single gameweek, then reverts your squad to exactly what it was before. It costs no points, and you can restructure your whole team for one week to survive a blank gameweek, attack a double, or dodge a fixture pile-up — without keeping any of the players afterwards.
Pre-season note: the 2026/27 FPL game has not launched yet, so no 2026/27 blank or double gameweeks are confirmed. Every rule and figure below is verified against the completed 2025/26 season via the Official FPL API and re-checked the day the 2026/27 game goes live. Pure fantasy-points analytics — no betting angle.
What the Free Hit chip does
Play Free Hit and, for that gameweek only, you can make as many transfers as you like with no points deductions and no budget carried forward as debt — you simply have to build a squad that fits your team value and the usual formation rules. Score points as normal that week. Then, at the next deadline, your team snaps back to the one you had before you played the chip. It is a one-week rental of an entirely different team.
- Unlimited free transfers for one gameweek — zero points hit.
- Your squad reverts to its previous state at the following deadline.
- You keep any price rises/falls and points scored that week, but not the players.
- It cannot be used in the same gameweek as another chip (one chip per gameweek), and it overrides your saved free transfer for that week.
Free Hit rules at a glance (2025/26)
| How many per season | 2 — one usable in GW2–19, one in GW20–38 |
| Earliest gameweek | GW2 (not available in GW1) |
| Points cost | None |
| Lasts | One gameweek, then squad reverts |
| Reset | Unused first-half chip expires after GW19 |
Chip counts and reset windows changed in 2025/26 (two of each chip, one per half-season). The figures above are the confirmed 2025/26 structure — await confirmation at the 2026/27 game launch before treating them as this season's rules. Source: Official FPL API.
Free Hit vs Wildcard — the 30-second version
Both let you make unlimited free transfers. The difference is what happens next:
- Free Hit — the changes last one week, then your old team returns. Use it for a specific bad week (a blank or a double).
- Wildcard — the changes are permanent. Use it to rebuild your long-term squad.
- Rule of thumb: Free Hit solves a one-week problem; the Wildcard solves a several-week one.
Full side-by-side comparison table lives on the Wildcard guide.
When to play your Free Hit
There are three situations where the chip earns its keep, in rough order of how cleanly it pays off:
- A blank gameweek. When several clubs have no fixture, you may only be able to field seven or eight starters. Free Hit lets you build a full XI of players who do have a game that week — then revert to your real squad. This is the textbook use.
- A double gameweek (if you are not saving your Bench Boost for it). Load a one-week team full of players with two fixtures. In practice most managers Bench Boost a double and Free Hit a blank — the data below shows exactly that split.
- A short-term crisis: a run of injuries, suspensions or a brutal one-week fixture set where transferring your way out would cost too many points. Free Hit patches it for a week without wrecking your squad structure.
When managers actually played Free Hit in 2025/26
Across 2025/26, managers activated Free Hit 8,721,205 times. The gameweeks they chose reveal the strategy better than any rule of thumb — Free Hit clustered hard on the season's blank and double weeks:
| GW | Free Hits played | Bench Boosts played | Avg mgr score | What it was |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GW31 | 1,344,160 | 18,824 | 38 | Blank gameweek |
| GW34 | 1,091,511 | 22,830 | 36 | Blank gameweek |
| GW33 | 644,259 | 823,047 | 66 | Double gameweek |
| GW19 | 559,609 | 631,090 | 40 | Half-season chip deadline |
| GW13 | 516,595 | 127,302 | 35 | Ordinary week |
| GW18 | 498,912 | 592,927 | 44 | Winter fixture week |
The pattern is unmistakable. The two biggest Free Hit weeks — GW31 (1.34m) and GW34 (1.09m) — were blank gameweeks, with average manager scores of just 38 and 36 and Bench Boost usage collapsing to under 23,000. Nobody Bench Boosts a blank. Flip to the marquee double, GW33: Free Hit was still popular (644k), but Bench Boost peaked at 823k and the average score jumped to 66 — that week produced the season's single highest manager score of 177. The lesson the data teaches: Free Hit is the blank-week chip; Bench Boost is the double-week chip.
Data: Official FPL API, completed 2025/26 season (per-gameweek chip plays and average scores). GW33 was the season's marquee double gameweek; GW31 and GW34 were blanks.
How Bawler picks the best Free Hit windows
Once the 2026/27 fixtures and cup dates land, blank and double gameweeks become visible in the schedule. Our double & blank gameweek tracker flags them automatically from the fixtures feed the day they move, and our fixture-difficulty model scores every one-week team you could build. Rather than a rule of thumb, the Free Hit window picker ranks candidate gameweeks by the model's expected points for the best legal XI you could field that week — highest for a blank you cannot otherwise cover, highest for a double you are not Bench Boosting.
Pre-season, this section shows the method and the 2025/26 examples above; the live window picker activates as soon as the 2026/27 fixture and blank/double structure is confirmed. Model output is a projection, not a guarantee — see our methodology and track record.
Common Free Hit mistakes
- Burning it early to cover a couple of injuries. A one-week patch you could have made with a −4 wastes a chip that is worth far more on a blank. In 2025/26 the value weeks were GW31 and GW34, not September.
- Free Hitting a double you should Bench Boost. If your real 15 is strong, Bench Boost keeps your squad and scores all 15; Free Hit throws your team away for one week. The GW33 split (823k Bench Boosts vs 644k Free Hits) reflects that most strong squads kept their team.
- Forgetting the half-season expiry. An unused first-half Free Hit is lost after GW19 — plan the blank/double calendar so it does not die on the bench.
- Chasing last week's captain. A Free Hit team is a one-week side built on fixtures and minutes, not on last week's haul. Build it on who plays and who is projected to score this week.
Bottom line
Free Hit is a scalpel, not a rebuild. Save it for the week your normal team physically cannot field a full XI — almost always a blank gameweek — or for a double you are not Bench Boosting. Everything on this page is measured from the completed 2025/26 season and will be re-verified against the official 2026/27 rules the day the game launches. Statistical analysis for entertainment, not betting advice.
Related: all FPL chips explained · Wildcard guide · double & blank gameweeks · fixture difficulty · FPL hub