College football’s transfer portal window will open for 15 days beginning on Jan. 2, a move approved by the NCAA Administrative Committee on Tuesday.

The change comes less than a month after the NCAA eliminated the spring transfer portal window for football players, leaving the sport with just one window for players to enter the portal. The move to a 15-day January period will be considered final when the committee’s meeting concludes on Wednesday.

The 15-day portal window, which will close Jan. 16, will be inclusive of undergraduates and graduate transfers. Previously, graduate transfers had exceptions to enter the portal outside the designated windows.

Notification of transfer window dates for DI football are approved by the DI Administrative Committee.

The committee’s action is not final until its meeting concludes Wednesday. Moving forward, DI football notification of transfer windows will be Jan 2-16, as recommended by the…

— NCAA News (@NCAA_PR) October 7, 2025

The only exceptions to the January window that will remain are for head-coaching changes and players who play in the College Football Playoff national championship game. Players on teams who change head coaches get a 15-day window to enter, beginning five days after the coaching change. The committee also approved that change on Tuesday, which is half the length of the previous head-coaching exception window (30 days) and used to begin the day after the coaching change.

Those who play in the national championship game will get a five-day window, which begins the day after the game.

DI Administrative Committee approves proposal for transfer window exception for football head coach changes. Effective immediately, in cases of a head coach change, student-athletes will have a 15-day consecutive window beginning five days after a new coach is hired or announced.…

— NCAA News (@NCAA_PR) October 7, 2025

The portal window change came after heavy lobbying from college football coaches and the American Football Coaches Association. The efforts were directed at going from two portal windows to one and making the winter portal window as late as possible, as to not interfere with teams in postseason games. Since the institution of transfer portal windows in 2022, the winter window has typically opened in early December, following the regular season but after bowl games.

Multiple Big Ten coaches, including Ohio State’s Ryan Day, objected to the new portal window opening in January because teams will still be in the Playoff.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea at all,” Day said Sept. 9. “I just don’t quite understand how for teams that are playing in the Playoff are expected to make the decisions and sign their upcoming players while they’re still getting ready to play for games.”

But several SEC coaches chalked it up to champagne problems. LSU coach Brian Kelly said last month, “I’m sorry, there’s no crying on the yacht.”

The portal will open following the CFP quarterfinal games, which wrap up on Jan. 1.

“If you’re one of the four teams that’s dealing with the portal as you’re in the (semifinals), I guess that’s a pretty good problem to have,” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said last month. “That means you probably have a pretty good team, and you’re having a good season, and you’ll figure it out.

“We’ve all got big enough staffs now, everybody’s got their personnel departments, and general managers, and player personnel directors, and all the things. We’ve got plenty of manpower that we can manage it.”

Tuesday’s move is the latest in a series of moves by the NCAA to clean up December, which was cited by coaches as one of the busiest on the football calendar because of postseason games, coaching changes, the early signing period for high school recruits and the transfer portal. The early signing period for recruits is now the Wednesday before conference championship games, almost a month before the portal opens.

Here are other key December/January college football dates for the 2025-26 season:

Early signing period: Dec. 3-5
Conference championships: Dec. 5-6
Bowl games begin: Dec. 13
CFP first-round games: Dec. 19-20
CFP quarterfinals: Dec. 31-Jan. 1
Transfer portal opens: Jan. 2
CFP semifinals: Jan. 8-9
Transfer portal closes: Jan. 16
CFP national championship: Jan. 19

Since the introduction of transfer portal windows, the NCAA made them shorter each year. The windows were opened for a combined 60 days in the 2022-23 offseason (45 in the winter, 15 in the spring). In the 2023-24 offseason, they moved to 45 total days (30 in the winter, 15 in the spring). The most recent offseason saw the portal window days shaved to 30 (20 in the winter window, 10 in the spring).