MLS clubs spent a record total of around $336 million on transfers in 2025, nearly doubling the previous record spend in a calendar year of $188 million in 2024, the league said on Thursday.
According to MLS, the $336 million tally makes it the eighth-highest spending league in the world compared to last year's figures and is around double the current mark of Mexico's Liga MX.
While MLS' secondary transfer window closed last week, the transfer windows in much of Europe don't close until Sept. 1, while in Liga MX it is open until Sept. 11.
Still, the increase in spending has been highlighted by the MLS incoming transfer record being been broken three times in 2025. FC Cincinnati spent $16.3 million to sign Kévin Denkey from Cercle Brugge, eclipsing the previous mark of $16 million that Atlanta United spent to acquire Thiago Almada in February of 2022.
Atlanta United then sent $22 million to English second-tier club Middlesbrough for Emmanuel Latte Lath before the record was broken again earlier this month when LAFC signed South Korean superstar Son Heung-Min from English Premier League side Tottenham Hotspur for a fee ESPN reported was $26 million.
Other clubs have also spent big, including the Colorado Rapids signing United States international Paxten Aaronson from Eintracht Frankfurt for a club-record $8 million last week.
Indeed, MLS noted that nearly half of its clubs have made a club-record signing in the last two years.
Increased MLS spending has also been driven by the league implementing an internal cash transfer market for the first time in 2025.
Previously, clubs could only move players to another MLS side if they received some form of non-cash asset. Among those assets are allocation money -- a dollar amount attached to a team's salary budget -- other players, draft picks and international roster spots. Now, in line with the international transfer market, teams can use an unlimited amount of cash to acquire a player.
That system has seen more than $40 million spent on 11 different players so far, the league said.
As far as international leagues, Brazil's top division has transferred more players to MLS than any other with 11. Argentina follows with 10, while eight players were signed from both England and Portugal.
Plenty of money has also been transferred outside the league with seven different players moving for at least $10 million as MLS looks to fulfill commissioner's Don Garber's long-held aim of being a major player in the global transfer market.