FPL chips explained

Chips are one-off boosts that let you break the normal rules of Fantasy Premier League for a single Gameweek. Used well, one chip can be worth twenty or thirty points over what you'd otherwise score. Used on autopilot, it's a wasted asset you don't get back.

For 2026/27, there are eight chips, not four — you get two complete sets of the Wildcard, Free Hit, Bench Boost and Triple Captain. Your first set has to be used somewhere in Gameweeks 1–19: whatever's left unplayed expires at the Gameweek 19 deadline (13:30 UK, Saturday 2 January 2027), with no carry-over into the second half. A fresh, identical set then unlocks from Gameweek 20 for the rest of the season. You can still only play one chip in any given Gameweek. (If you played in 2025/26, note the Assistant Manager chip from that season is gone — plan around these four only.) Here's what each does and when it's strongest, then how the two-set structure changes the strategy.

Wildcard

What it does: unlimited free transfers for one Gameweek. You can rebuild your entire squad with no point hits, as long as your final team stays within budget and the usual squad rules (15 players, max three per club).

Crucially, the Wildcard is permanent — the new team you build carries forward. That makes it the tool for fixing structural problems, not chasing a single big Gameweek.

When it's strongest:

• Your team has drifted out of shape — too many players you'd need several −4 hits to move on.
• A run of fixtures swings hard for or against several of your teams at once. Load up on players with a green run on the fixture grid.
• Around a Blank or Double Gameweek, to line up as many playing (or double-playing) assets as possible.

Don't burn it early over one or two injuries — a couple of transfers usually fixes that. Save the Wildcard for when the whole squad needs surgery.

With two sets in play, the calculation has shifted, though. A second Wildcard arrives at Gameweek 20 regardless, so firing your first one earlier in the season — say, once your squad's post-launch mistakes are clear — is a lower-risk move than it used to be. There's no benefit to sitting on it into December hoping for a perfect moment: if it's still unused at the Gameweek 19 deadline, it's simply gone.

Free Hit

What it does: unlimited free transfers for one Gameweek only — then your team snaps back to exactly what it was the following week.

This is the opposite of the Wildcard. It's a single-week rental, ideal when one Gameweek looks nothing like the rest of your season.

When it's strongest:

• A Blank Gameweek, where several of your players have no fixture. Free Hit fields a full eleven that all play, then reverts.
• A big Double Gameweek you can't fully exploit with normal transfers, letting you pack the team with players who play twice.
• A one-week fixture where a cluster of cheap, in-form players all have dream matches.

Because the team reverts, you never have to worry about the long-term balance of the side you build — optimise purely for that single week.

Bench Boost

What it does: for one Gameweek, all 15 players score, not just your starting eleven. Your four bench players' points count too.

When it's strongest:

• A Double Gameweek, so all fifteen players ideally play twice.
• When your bench is genuinely strong — cheap players who start, not £4.0m keepers and non-playing fodder.

The mistake is playing Bench Boost with a weak bench. It's worth setting up a Wildcard a week or two earlier specifically to give every bench slot a nailed-on starter, then Bench Boosting. Points from a bench of non-starters are points left on the table.

Triple Captain

What it does: your captain scores triple points that Gameweek instead of the usual double.

When it's strongest:

• A premium, explosive player with a Double Gameweek — two matches at triple weight is the classic use.
• Failing a double, an elite forward or midfielder at home to weak opposition, ideally on penalties.

Look for ceiling, not safety. Triple Captain rewards a hauls-or-nothing profile — the player who might return fifteen, not the reliable seven. Our expected points projection is a good starting filter, but for this chip weight the upside heavily.

Planning two sets, not one

The golden rule: chips reward preparation. The managers who gain most don't decide on a Friday — they map their chips to the season's Blank and Double Gameweeks weeks in advance, then transfer towards each one.

For 2026/27, that planning happens twice. Your first-half Wildcard, Free Hit, Bench Boost and Triple Captain all have to be spent somewhere before the Gameweek 19 deadline, and there's real use-it-or-lose-it pressure attached — a chip still sitting unused in November isn't being saved, it's at risk of being wasted. From Gameweek 20, the second set opens up and runs to the end of the season, which is when the Blank and Double Gameweeks that decide most chip strategy tend to cluster.

A sensible shape: use your first Wildcard early to fix the squad mistakes everyone makes at launch, and spend your first Free Hit, Bench Boost or Triple Captain on whatever single-week opportunity the opening half of the season throws up, rather than holding out for a perfect moment that might never arrive before the deadline. Then reset for the second half — hold the new Bench Boost and Triple Captain for a Double Gameweek, use the new Free Hit to survive a Blank, and keep the new Wildcard in reserve for whenever your squad structure breaks again. You don't have to follow anyone's template — but you should always know, roughly, which chip is going where, and which half of the season it belongs to.

The planner is built for exactly this: you can stage transfers across future Gameweeks and see how a chip week comes together before you commit. For everything else that changed this season, see our 2026/27 rules changes guide; for how the points themselves are calculated, read how FPL scoring works. Next, get to grips with fixture difficulty, since almost every chip decision is really a fixture decision.