Salary Cap

An NBA team that has spent all its cap space and doesn’t have any of its mid-level or bi-annual exception available still always has the ability to sign a player to a minimum-salary contract, unless that club is right up against its hard cap.

Teams with cap room or with access to the non-taxpayer mid-level exception will have a little more flexibility to sign players to longer-term minimum-salary contracts. However, teams without cap room and without any other exceptions on hand can still use the minimum salary exception to add as many players as roster limits and the hard cap allow, for contracts of up to two years.

[RELATED: Values of 2025/26 mid-level, bi-annual exceptions]

Undrafted free agents and second-round picks are often recipients of minimum-salary contracts, but there are plenty of veterans who end up settling for the minimum too. Because a player’s minimum salary is determined by how much NBA experience he has, many veterans will earn more than twice as much money as a rookie will in 2025/26 on a minimum-salary contract.

Listed below are 2025/26’s minimum salary figures, sorted by years of NBA experience. If a player spent any time on an NBA club’s active regular season roster in a given season, he earned one year of experience. So any player with zero years of experience has not yet made his NBA debut.

These figures represent approximately a 10% increase on last season’s minimum salaries, since that’s the amount of the NBA’s salary cap increase for 2025/26.

Here’s the full breakdown:

Because the NBA doesn’t want teams to avoid signing veteran players in favor of cheaper, younger players, the league reimburses clubs who sign veterans with three or more years of experience to one-year, minimum-salary contracts. Those deals will only count against the cap – and against a team’s bank balance – for $2,296,274, the minimum salary for a player with two years of experience.

For instance, Mason Plumlee, who has 12 seasons of NBA experience, will reportedly sign a one-year, minimum-salary contract with the Hornets, who will only be charged $2,296,274 for Plumlee’s contract. He’ll earn $3,634,153, but the NBA will make up the difference. This rule only applies to one-year contracts, not to multiyear deals.

If a player signs a minimum-salary contract after the regular season begins, he’ll earn a prorated portion of the amount listed above.

Those figures listed above also only apply to players who are signing new contracts in 2025/26. Players who are in the second, third, or fourth year of a minimum-salary deal will be earning a slightly different predetermined amount.

For example, Knicks big man Ariel Hukporti – who signed a minimum-salary contract last season and now has one year of NBA experience – will earn a $1,955,377 salary in the second year of his contract, less than than the $2,048,494 he would receive if he were signing a new minimum deal this fall. That’s because his second-year salary is based on a 5% raise over last season’s minimum salary for a player with one year of experience, whereas the cap rose by 10%.

Here’s what multiyear minimum-salary contracts signed in 2025/26 will look like:

Technically, a minimum-salary contract could cover five years for a player with full Bird rights, but in actuality, that never happens.

While some second-round picks and undrafted free agents will sign three- or four-year minimum-salary contracts, a minimum deal exceeding two years is rare for a player with more than a year or two of NBA experience under his belt.

Data from RealGM was used in the creation of this post.

The salary cap for the 2025/26 NBA league year has officially been set, with the league announcing that the cap will be $154,647,000, a 10% increase on last year’s number.

Under the league’s current Collective Bargaining Agreement, the values of the mid-level, room, and bi-annual exceptions are tied to the salary cap and the percentage that it shifts in a given year. Here’s how that math works:

• Non-taxpayer mid-level exception: Worth 9.12% of salary cap.
• Taxpayer mid-level exception: Increases at the same rate as the salary cap.
• Room exception: Worth 5.678% of the salary cap.
• Bi-annual exception: Worth 3.32% of the salary cap.

Listed below are the maximum annual and total values of each of these exceptions, along with a brief explanation of how they work and which teams will have access to them. For more information, check out glossary entries on the mid-level exception and the bi-annual exception.

Mid-Level Exception (Non-Taxpayer):

The non-taxpayer mid-level exception is the primary tool available for over-the-cap teams to add free agents. As long as a team hasn’t dipped below the cap to use cap space and doesn’t go over the first tax apron ($195,945,000) at all, it can use this MLE, which runs for up to four years with 5% annual raises.

This exception can also be used to acquire players via trade or waiver claim.

Mid-Level Exception (Taxpayer):

This lesser form of the mid-level exception is capped at two years and can only be used to sign free agents, not to acquire players via trade or waiver claim. It includes a maximum raise of 5% for the second season.

This exception is essentially available to teams who expect their total salaries to fall between the first tax apron and the second apron ($207,824,000). It’s not available to teams above the second tax apron, so a team that does use it becomes hard-capped at that second apron. A team that uses more than $5,685,000 of its mid-level exception will be hard-capped at the first apron.

Room Exception:

Although this is also a mid-level exception of sorts, it’s colloquially known as the “room” exception, since it’s only available to teams that go below the cap and use their cap room.

If a club goes under the cap, it loses its full mid-level exception, but gets this smaller room exception, which allows the team to go over the cap to sign a player once the team has used up all its cap space.

The room exception can be used to sign players for up to three years, with 5% annual raises. It can also be used to acquire players via trade or waiver claim.

Bi-Annual Exception:

The bi-annual exception, as its name suggests, is only available to teams once every two years. Of the NBA’s 30 clubs, only two – the Rockets and Clippers – used it in 2024/25, so they won’t have access to it in ’25/26. The league’s other 28 teams could all theoretically use it this season.

Still, even if a team didn’t use its BAE in ’24/25, that club doesn’t necessarily have access to it for the coming year. As is the case with the non-taxpayer MLE, this exception disappears once a team goes under the cap to use room. It’s also not available to teams over the first tax apron — using the BAE creates a hard cap at that apron.

The BAE can be used to sign players for up to two years, with a 5% raise after year one. It can also be used to acquire players via trade or waiver claim.

Now that the NBA has set its salary cap for the 2025/26 league year at $154,647,000, we have a clear idea of what maximum-salary contracts will look like for the coming season.

Listed below are the maximum-salary contracts for players signing contracts that start in 2025/26.

The first chart shows the maximum salaries for a player re-signing with his own team — a player’s previous team can offer five years instead of four, and 8% annual raises instead of 5% raises. The second chart shows the maximum salaries for a player signing with a new team.

These figures will apply to a number of players who signed maximum-salary contract extensions that will go into effect in 2025/26: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Damian Lillard, Jimmy Butler, Anthony Davis, Jayson Tatum, Jamal Murray, Donovan Mitchell, Cade Cunningham, Evan Mobley, Scottie Barnes, and Franz Wagner.

They’ll also apply to anyone who signs a maximum-salary contract with his own team as a free agent in ’25/26.

A player’s maximum salary is generally determined by his years of NBA experience, so there’s a wide gap between potential earnings for younger and older players.

In the charts below, the “6 years or less” column details the maximum contract for a player like Barnes or Wagner, as well as what a free agent like Josh Giddey is eligible for.

The “7-9 years” column applies to players like Murray and Mitchell, as well as Cunningham and Mobley, who both qualified for a Rose Rule rookie scale extension.

The “10+ years” column applies to the league’s most experienced vets, including Antetokounmpo, Lillard, Butler, and Davis, along with those who qualified for the super-max, like Tatum.

Here are the maximum salary figures for 2025/26:

A player re-signing with his own team (8% annual raises, up to five years):

A player signing with a new team (5% annual raises, up to four years):

It’s worth noting that none of the maximum-salary figures listed above will apply to extension-eligible players whose new contracts will start in 2026/27.

This group includes maximum-salary rookie scale extension candidates like Paolo Banchero and Jalen Williams. It also includes players who signed max extensions in previous years that will begin in ’26/27, such as Joel Embiid and Bam Adebayo

The exact value of those players’ contracts will depend on where the cap lands for 2026/27, which won’t be officially announced until next June.