How Rainbow Six Siege transfers work: windows, loans and limits

On Monday, May 18, the first mid-season transfer window of the 2026 Rainbow Six Siege season opens. For a little over two weeks, the teams that hold a place in the game's regional leagues can sign, release and swap players. When it closes, rosters freeze again until mid-August. Fans see the result as a string of announcements; the teams work inside a precise set of rules.

Those rules sit in the BLAST R6 Global Rulebook, the document in which Ubisoft, the game's publisher, and BLAST, the organizer it works with, set the rules for the whole circuit. Its version for the season's Kickoff was last updated in March 2026. This guide explains, from that text, how a move happens in Siege: who the rules apply to, what a roster is, when a transfer can be made and when it counts as done, how contracts and buyouts are handled, the special loans for the world championship, what happens when a player walks out mid-season, and the eligibility rules every new signing must meet. It ends with a real case from Ubisoft's own team records.

BLAST R6 Global Rulebook, Season 2026, Kickoff update of March 2026.

Who the transfer rules apply to

The rulebook divides Season 2026 into five regions: the Asia-Pacific League (APL), the China League (CNL), the Europe MENA League (EML), the North America League (NAL) and the South America League (SAL). China is the exception. Its league is run by Tencent under its own rules, and BLAST R6 rules apply to Chinese teams only when they play in global competitions. The APL is itself split into three subregions: APAC North, Asia and Oceania.

Most of the transfer rules turn on one word: License. A License is the right to compete in a regional league, and it comes in three types. Partner teams were invited by Ubisoft into a regional league and belong to R6 SHARE, the Ubisoft program that covers Partner and Affiliate teams. Affiliate teams were promoted, kept their place or were invited and belong to the R6 SHARE Affiliate Program, or qualified through the Challenger Finals. Standard teams are not part of R6 SHARE and were invited or qualified through the Challenger Finals. A team whose Affiliate or Standard License is renewed for a new season because of its results in the previous one is called Maintained, and it is not subject to promotion or relegation.

A team can hold only one License at a time. Each one is represented by a License Holder, the person the team appoints and, in the rulebook's words, the only person authorized to act as the team's representative. Standard teams without a legal entity sign a Team Participation Agreement instead, and are represented by a player or a staff member, the Appointed Team Member. That difference matters later, because the agreement binds the players to one another in a way a company contract does not.

Teams without a License, such as those coming through the second tier, follow stricter rules, explained further down.

What a roster is under the rulebook

A roster is a group of five to seven players: five starters and up to two substitutes. To stay eligible, a team must keep at least its License Holder or Appointed Team Member and the five starters of its main roster. On top of that, it adds a team manager, one coach per roster and as many support staff as it likes.

Teams may also add players through a Secondary Roster, a second roster that may play in another region. Across the main and the secondary roster together, a team may register no more than 12 players. A team with two rosters in different regions still holds one License, and if both rosters qualify for the same competition, the team must choose which one goes forward.

This structure is the backdrop to every transfer. A move between the main and the secondary roster is a transfer too, and it uses up part of the same allowance as a signing from another team.

The four transfer windows of Season 2026

Teams with a License may transfer players only during set periods, the transfer windows. Section 4.6.3 of the rulebook lists four for Season 2026, the season that began in March with an off-season window and ends after the Six Invitational 2027, the world championship.

The three mid-season windows are short, 16 days each from 9am CET on the opening day to 9am CET on the closing day. The first opens in May, the second in August and the third in November, ahead of the regional Last Chance Qualifiers for the Six Invitational, which the rulebook places in every region in December and January. The off-season window of February 2027 is the one where whole teams can be rebuilt.

When a transfer counts as done

A transfer is not a press release. Under section 4.6.3, it is executed only when the parties have agreed to be legally and unconditionally bound to the participation of the incoming player or coach by the end of the window. The teams must then email the move to Ubisoft, BLAST and the tournament organizer concerned, with every party to the deal in copy. The agreement may take effect after the window closes, as long as it does so before the roster lock and meets the rulebook's promotional obligations.

That definition has two practical effects. A deal still subject to a condition at the end of the window is not executed. And a deal agreed in principle on the last day but not binding in time falls outside the window and must wait for the next one.

The window limits when a move is completed, not when it is discussed. Under section 4.6.2, players and coaches may talk to another team directly, as long as their roster is not locked and their existing contract allows it. Ubisoft and BLAST strongly advise players and coaches to contact their License Holder before entering any discussion or negotiation about a potential transfer. It is advice, not an obligation, and the rulebook leaves the rest to the contracts.

Paperwork follows the signing. Under section 4.6.1, licensed teams provide the tournament organizer with eligibility documents for every new player and coach at the start of each competition, and section 3.3.6 sets the season's deadline for supporting documents: at the beginning of each season and no later than seven days before the team's first official match of the season.

Contracts, buyouts and disputes

A player's contract with a team may carry a buyout, the sum a new team pays to release the player before the contract ends. The rulebook does not set buyouts, cap them or publish them. What it does is require transparency between teams.

Section 4.6.2 lets a player or a coach discuss a move with another team only if any restriction that applies to it has been disclosed to the acquiring team. It gives transfer or buyout fees, where there are any, as an example of such a restriction. In other words, the price of leaving is known to the team that wants the player before the talks go ahead. The rule concerns the two teams; it does not require the fee to be made public.

The publisher and the organizer also stay out of the contracts themselves. Ubisoft and BLAST state that they do not intend to interfere in agreements between teams and players, and that any resulting dispute is to be resolved exclusively between the parties involved. A disagreement over a buyout, a salary or a release clause is therefore a matter of contract law between a team and a player, not a matter for the league's referees. How such a dispute is settled depends on the contract and the country whose law governs it.

In Siege, a window decides when a deal can be completed; the contract decides whether it can be done at all.

What counts as a roster change

The heart of the system is the count of Roster Changes, the unit in which each window's allowance is measured. The rulebook's rule for the mid-season windows is short.

"During a mid-Season Transfer Window, Teams with a License can operate a maximum of three (3) Roster Changes," section 4.6.4.1 states. A change of coach counts toward that limit. So does adding a Free Agent, a player without a team, and so does taking in a player on loan, according to section 4.6.1.

Moves inside a team are counted too. Under section 4.6.4.3, moving a player or a coach between the main and the secondary roster is a Roster Change, and in a mid-season window a team may swap at most two players and one coach between its two rosters. A team that moves a player up from its secondary roster and signs a new coach has therefore used two of its three changes.

The off-season works differently. In that window, licensed teams have no limit on the number of changes, so it is the only one in which a licensed team can replace its whole roster.

There is one exception to the unlimited off-season, and it follows from the Team Participation Agreement. Under section 4.6.4.2, Standard teams whose License was Maintained from one season to the next may make no more than two Roster Changes in the off-season window.

The cap can be lifted, but only by the players. A team may exceed it if all the players named in the existing Team Participation Agreement unanimously consent, and the team must then sign a new agreement that reflects the updated roster. For these teams, the players named in the agreement therefore have a say in how far the roster changes.

The second tier has a rule of the same kind. A Standard team under a Team Participation Agreement must keep three players to retain a bye into the groups of the Challenger Finals, the tournament that hands out the last places in the regional leagues. Under section 4.7.2, a team that holds a bye earned by a Tier 2 result may change at most two players from the roster that earned it.

Loans for the Six Invitational

Loans are the most tightly limited move in the Siege rulebook. They exist for one event only, the Six Invitational, and for one window only, the third mid-season window in November. Section 4.6.4.5 sets out how they work.

During the loan, the team that borrows the player is fully responsible for his participation in the Six Invitational. A loan also counts as one of the three Roster Changes of the window, so a qualified team that borrows a player has two changes left for everything else.

In practice, the rule lets a licensed team that is not going to the world championship lend a player to one that is, for the duration of the event, without a permanent transfer. The loan cannot outlast the Six Invitational, so the player's place on his own team is not given up.

Sudden departures and Free Agents

Players sometimes leave in the middle of a season, and section 4.6.4.4 deals with it from both sides. When a player or a coach leaves a licensed team suddenly and no substitute is available, the team may ask Ubisoft and BLAST, through its License Holder and at once, to add a Free Agent. Ubisoft may deny the request if it reasonably believes the departure was not sudden, unforeseeable or unintended.

The rulebook is harder on the player who leaves without a valid justification. Unless he gives a reasonable justification, he may not play in a regional league for a team with a License for a period that depends on when he left. The rulebook does not define what counts as a reasonable justification.

In each case, the bar runs until the same point of the following season. It covers regional league play for licensed teams only: the player may still compete in BLAST R6 with a team that holds no License.

Roster lock, tags and match-day changes

Between windows, rosters are locked. Under section 4.5, a team with a License cannot add anyone to a locked roster until the next window opens. For teams without a License, the lock is tighter: their roster is locked for the whole of their participation in a regional or global competition. They also cannot change their roster between a Six Invitational Last Chance Qualifier and the Six Invitational itself, or between the Challenger Finals and the Kickoff of the regional league.

The lock covers names as well as players. Once player tags have been submitted at registration, they may not be changed before the next roster lock, and a change made during a lock without BLAST's approval may result in penalties or fines. A player's in-game name is registered for the season, and under section 4.9 a change may only be requested outside a period of roster lock.

Transfers set the roster; substitutions decide who plays a given match. A team may bring in one or two of its substitutes for starters. Under section 4.8, the coach or the manager tells the tournament administrator which starters come out and which substitutes come in, at least 60 minutes before a best-of-one match, or ahead of the first map of a best-of-three or best-of-five series. Fifteen minutes before the start, the administrator tells both teams which substitutions were made, and no further substitution can be requested.

When a team cannot field five eligible players, section 4.4 allows stand-ins. A coach or a staff member may step in if approved. A stand-in player from outside the roster is a last resort, needs approval and must meet the eligibility rules, with narrow exceptions on residence for offline events. A stand-in fills a gap; it is not a transfer and does not use a window.

Eligibility: age, residence and documents

Every new signing must meet the eligibility rules of section 3.3. The first is age. Each player and staff member must be 18 or older at their first BLAST R6 match, as shown on official government documents. A player under 18 therefore cannot take part in BLAST R6 competition, whatever team signs him.

The second is residence. Players must live in the region they compete in, so a player who joins a team in another region must also reside in that region to play for it. Coaches have more room: they may work remotely for online matches, but must be present at offline events. The third is paperwork, due by the deadline of section 3.3.6 described above.

Conflicts of interest are covered too. Under section 3.3.7, a team provides a statement of absence of conflict of interest at registration, before any transfer of its License and whenever Ubisoft's regional esports manager or the tournament organizer asks for it. Joint control is one such conflict: holding 5 percent or more of the voting power, or 10 percent or more of the ownership, in several teams. Failing to provide the statement, or misrepresenting facts in it, can lead to sanctions up to the team's disqualification from BLAST R6.

A case from the official record

Ubisoft's esports site keeps a timeline of each team, and Team Falcons' record shows how these rules look in practice. On March 5, 2025, the team registered five players at once, Yuzus, Solotov, BriD, LikEfac and Shaiiko, with Stooflex as coach and Eaglemees as analyst. Under the 2026 rulebook, five new players at once fit only the off-season window, the one without a limit for licensed teams.

The same record shows smaller moves. On June 10, 2025, Stooflex is listed as leaving the team and joining it again as analyst on the same day: a change of role is recorded as a departure and an arrival. On March 25, 2026, the record shows jume joining as a player and Shaiiko leaving the team, a one-for-one change made before the season's first regional event. The next entry, dated March 30, is the Europe MENA League Kickoff, where the record lists a fourth place.

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