FPL Free Hit: What It Does and When It's Worth It

The FPL free hit is the chip managers understand best in theory and spend worst in practice. It hands you unlimited transfers for one gameweek and then takes the whole squad back, which sounds like a licence to chase fixtures. It is not. It is insurance against absence, and our own numbers show why the difference matters.

What does the free hit do in FPL?

It gives you unlimited free transfers for a single gameweek. At the next deadline your squad reverts to exactly what it was before you played the chip: the same 15 players, the same team value. Nothing you buy on a free hit stays with you.

You can also only play one chip in any single gameweek. A free hit and a bench boost can never share a week, which matters more than it sounds when a big blank and a big double land close together.

How many free hits do you get in 2026/27?

Two, one in each half of the season. Managers get a full set of four chips per half this season, a wildcard, a free hit, a bench boost and a triple captain, so eight across the campaign.

The first set has a hard expiry. It has to be played before the Gameweek 19 deadline at 13:30 GMT on Saturday 2 January, and nothing carries into the second half. Chips you are still holding on 2 January are chips you have wasted.

What a one-week squad swap is actually worth

Here is the honest arithmetic, using our Gameweek 1 numbers as of 19 August 2026.

At team level, a single round is enormously wide. The Algorithm has Arsenal at a 61 per cent chance of a clean sheet and 2.66 goals expected at home to Coventry. The same round has Coventry at 7 per cent and 0.50 goals.

That spread is the thing a free hit lets you buy for a week. The trap is assuming the player-level gain is as wide as the fixture-level gap.

It is not. Haaland projects 6.16 points in Gameweek 1, the highest figure on our board, and the fortieth name on that same board projects 3.55. So even a perfect swap, a fringe starter out for the best asset in the game, is worth under three points. And you cannot do it eleven times: you already own decent players, and the budget constrains what you can reach in a single week.

Say a fixture-chasing free hit genuinely upgrades five spots by a point or two each. That is a five to ten point week, and it has cost you a chip you only get twice.

Now the other side of the ledger. When six or seven of your squad are not playing at all, they return nothing, and a free hit recovers their entire expected haul rather than an upgrade on it. Mid-ranked starters on our board sit around 3.5 to 4.5 points a week, so a squad carrying seven blanks is handing back something in the region of 25 points. Same chip, three to five times the return.

Verdict: play the free hit against absence, not against a fixture list you dislike.

Free hit or wildcard?

Different jobs, and the test is simple. A wildcard is permanent, so you play it when you would be happy to keep the team you build. A free hit is temporary, so you play it when you would hate to keep the team you build.

That is why the free hit suits a one-week emergency squad full of players you would never own long term, and the wildcard suits a rebuild you are committing to for months. Our fuller read on sequencing the four is in the FPL chip strategy guide for 2026/27.

When to use your free hit

Three situations earn it, in order.

The biggest blank you face before the expiry. This is the chip's whole purpose. If a cup round or a rearranged midweek leaves you with five or more players not involved, the free hit turns a write-off into a normal score.

A double gameweek you cannot get a full squad into. If your best route to eleven doublers costs four hits and a rebuild, a free hit does it for nothing and gives your squad back afterwards. Worth reading alongside what a double gameweek is actually worth.

An injury pile-up you refuse to buy your way out of. Four players flagged in one week is the case where a temporary squad beats spending 12 points of hits on players you do not want in October.

What does not earn it: a bad week of fixtures, one blank, or boredom in September. The second-half fixture calendar is not fixed yet, so hold the first free hit until the blanks are actually published rather than guessing at them now.

FAQ

How many free hits do you get in FPL? Two, one per half. The first must be used before the Gameweek 19 deadline on 2 January and does not carry over.

Is the free hit better than taking hits? Usually yes when four or more players need replacing, because four transfers at minus four each is 12 points before you have gained anything. Below that, take the hit and keep the chip.

Can I play a free hit and a bench boost in the same gameweek? No. One chip per gameweek, always.

Check the numbers behind any of this yourself on our free FPL predicted points table, or get a free score on your current squad with Rate My Team.