The dates for the upcoming Indian Premier League (IPL 2026) auction is drawing closer, with the players set to go under the hammer on December 16 in Abu Dhabi. All teams are busy finalising their strategy for the event, where they will look to make strategic additions and complete their squads, having already announced their retention lists earlier in November.
However, with the IPL 2026 auction set to be a mini auction, there will be some differences in rules from the mega-auction last time around. The biggest one will be the influence of IPL 2026 Retention Rules on RTM availability of each team.
RTMs play a key role in helping franchises buy back their players and deciding the auction dynamics but the big question remains – Is there RTM in IPL 2026 Auction?
The RTM rule, which was scrapped from the 2022 season, made a return for the 2025 mega-auction but with conditions. The number of RTMs available depended on the number of retentions made by the franchise. With a maximum of six players allowed to be retained, if a franchise used all six slots, they would have 0 RTMs. So it basically corresponded on the number of slots that haven’t been used.
In the 2026 auction, however, the IPL 2026 Retention Rules mention no cap on minimum retentions, and hence there will be no RTMs. Each team is free to make as many retentions and releases before the auction and is required to build a maximum squad size of 25 players with no more than eight overseas signings allowed.
Thus, the only way for a team to reacquire a player that they have released is by actively bidding against other teams and submitting the highest price. The absence of RTMs in mini auction also ensures that no team gets extra advantage, especially with limited resources available as compared to a mega-auction.
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Another of the significant IPL 2026 auction rules will be the cap on the earnings of overseas players. The maximum fee that an international player can earn will be the lowest of the two between the highest retention price or the highest price at the previous mega auction. This was done to clamp down on the trend of overseas players skipping mega-auctions and registering only for mini-auctions to attract higher prices.
Thus, in the IPL 2026 auction, an overseas player can earn a maximum of INR 18 crores, although Rishabh Pant was sold at INR 27 crores. This is because the highest retention amount was INR 18 crore, which is the lower value of the two numbers.
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