> guide · data study · updated 17 Jul 2026

FPL bonus point magnets: who the BPS system really rewarded in 2025/26

In 2025/26, Erling Haaland won the most FPL bonus points (43) ahead of Bruno Fernandes (41), with Arsenal's Gabriel the top defender on 30 — third overall. Bonus is scarce: only about six points exist per match, midfielders took 45.5% of them, and goalkeepers just 6.7%. Every figure below is final 2025/26 data from the Official FPL API.

Four findings that should change how you value bonus

All figures computed from the Official FPL API, final 2025/26 season. 2,415 total bonus points were distributed across 380 matches (~6.4 per match, ties included).

Top 20 bonus earners, 2025/26

Total bonus alongside total points and bonus per 90 minutes, so you can separate volume (who played and produced most) from rate (who banks bonus fastest when on the pitch).

Where players are level on bonus, order follows the raw total; several ties sit in the 18–22 band.

Bonus per 90: the most efficient magnets

Even the league's best bonus magnet, Haaland, averaged just 1.31 bonus per 90 — a reminder of how little bonus there is to win. Minimum 1,800 minutes, so this measures repeatable rate, not one hot week.

Bonus is a midfielder's game — and a goalkeeper's desert

The clearest positional story in the data. Midfielders and forwards run hotter on BPS per 90 (~18) because goals and assists are the biggest BPS actions. Goalkeepers earn BPS at a defender-like rate but almost never top a match, so their bonus share collapses.

The best keeper for bonus all season, Roefs (Sunderland), managed 12 — a total Haaland had already reached within his first five appearances.

Defender bonus goldmines — and why volume isn't enough

Defenders took 28% of all bonus, but it pooled around a specific profile: centre-backs and full-backs who attack. Gabriel is the outlier — a defender in the elite bonus tier. Compare him to Senesi and Tarkowski, who made far more clearances, blocks and interceptions (CBI) but stayed in single-digit-to-low bonus because they rarely added goals or assists to the mix.

CBI = clearances, blocks and interceptions; CS = clean sheets. Prices are final 2025/26 values.

The robbed: big totals, tiny bonus

These players scored heavily — or piled up season BPS — yet the bonus formula barely paid them, because bonus rewards being one of the three best performers in a single match, not consistency across 38. Virgil van Dijk finished 13th for total points but 74th for bonus. Keepers and ball-playing defenders dominate this list for the same reason keepers dominate the desert above.

The single biggest one-gameweek BPS score of 2025/26 belonged to Thiago (Brentford): 94 BPS in Gameweek 20 — and even that returned the standard 3 bonus.

How the BPS system actually works

The Bonus Points System (BPS) scores every player's in-game actions — goals, assists, saves, clearances, blocks, interceptions, tackles, recoveries, passing and more — into a single number for each match. After a match, the three highest BPS scores earn bonus points: 3 to the top, 2 to the second, 1 to the third. Ties split the pool, so a match can award, for example, 3-3-1 or 3-2-2-1.

Two consequences drive everything on this page. First, bonus is a per-match top-three contest, so season BPS totals — however large — only convert if a player is regularly the best on the pitch. Second, goals and assists carry the heaviest BPS weight, which is why attacking output, not defensive volume, is the surest route to bonus even for defenders.

Await confirmation at 2026/27 launch: the BPS action weights above are the standard 2025/26 rules. FPL occasionally adjusts scoring between seasons; the exact 2026/27 weights are confirmed only when the official game opens. This page is not updated with speculative rule changes — check the Official FPL API / rules page for the live season.

What profiles as a bonus magnet for 2026/27

The 2026/27 game has not launched, so there are no 2026/27 prices, minutes or projections to report yet — and we do not invent them. What the 2025/26 data does establish is the profile that earns bonus:

• Nailed forwards and attacking midfielders on penalties or set pieces — goals and assists are the heaviest BPS actions.
• Ball-playing defenders on strong clean-sheet sides who also chip in goals and assists — the Gabriel archetype, not the pure-volume clearer.
• Players who start and finish matches: bonus needs 60-plus minutes of action to accumulate, so rotation risk is a hidden tax on bonus.

Once the 2026/27 season kicks off, Bawler's model layers projected bonus onto these profiles from per-fixture goal, assist and clean-sheet probabilities — disclosed as model estimates, not guarantees. That live projection appears on the Bawler FPL tools; see how the model works and its public track record for the honest version of what a projection is worth.

Where to go next

• The FPL hub — deadlines, prices and fixture difficulty, rebuilt daily.
• Fixture difficulty — because bonus follows good fixtures: clean sheets and goals against weak opponents.
• Price changes — the bonus magnets on this list are the players whose ownership, and price, move fastest.