Youth Soccer Age Groups: U.S. Soccer provides update on plan for player registration

U.S. Soccer has announced an official update on its new policy for player registration, which will impact how youth soccer age groups are constructed in future seasons.

The much-discussed decision will allow youth soccer governing bodies with flexibility regarding whether they will utilize birth year or school year age group formats.

See below for the full release from USSF:

“U.S. Soccer and our members are committed to growing participation and providing the best experiences to participants at all levels. U.S. Soccer has a number of initiatives focused on supporting the growth of soccer in America, and is constantly listening and learning on how to best support those bringing soccer to life all across the country.

In phase 1 of the Ecosystem Review, membership and other stakeholders highlighted several important issues that are essential to a successful and thriving soccer ecosystem. Player registration is one issue that we are reviewing collaboratively across all levels of play, specifically between birth year (January 1-December 31) and seasonal year (August 1-July 31 or September 1-August 31) registration. U.S. Soccer facilitated informal feedback to understand how registration choice fosters growing the game and developing winning teams. We determined that this is a highly complex and important issue that merited a more formal process. Registration affects every child and handling this process with care is a top priority.

Our Process

U.S. Soccer conducted a survey with members, leagues, and clubs, while also gathering formal feedback from the broader ecosystem. We received over 15,000 responses from members, leagues, clubs, coaches, families, and participants.

Results

We’ve gotten very clear feedback: members need the flexibility to organize their player registration calendar based on what will best support soccer in their environment and communities. U.S. Soccer members want more kids to experience the joy of soccer — and to offer the optimal opportunity for each player’s desired development.

Starting in the Fall of 2026, members and leagues will have reasonable flexibility to choose the best registration option for their participants. There is no registration change for the 2025-2026 season.

Final Decision

• U.S. Soccer’s new policy allows member organizations to be the decision-maker on the registration choices for leagues and competitions that they sanction and/or run.
• For the Fall 2025-2026 season, there should be no change to current registration choices.
• For the Fall 2026-2027 season, member organizations will be responsible for approving the registration choice for their leagues and competitions. The primary registration choices are: (1) Birth Year – January 1-December 31, (2) Seasonal Year – August 1-July 31, or (3) Seasonal Year – September 1-August 31.

The Why Behind The Final Decision

As outlined in our previous statement, we recognize how important this decision is and ran a thorough process to capture feedback about the best path forward. Below outlines the key insights that emerged from our assessment of over 15,000 ecosystem stakeholder responses to support this decision.

• Localized Decision-Making | Player registration should reflect the unique characteristics of local participants (e.g., school year timing)
• Segment-Based Considerations | Acknowledgement that registration choice may need to differ across the recreation, competitive, and pre-professional segments
• Primary Registration Choices | Three registration choices emerged as the best options to cover participants across the country; more than three may become confusing, but a different option could be appropriate at the recreation level
• Scouting Clarity | Regardless of the registration choice, players will need to be scouted based on their birth year
• Member Visibility Over Leagues & Participants | Member organizations, with the visibility of their entire sanctioned league population, can ensure leagues are appropriately aligned via the annual affiliation / sanctioning process
• Alignment of Post-Season Play & Standalone Competitions | It is generally seen that for regular seasons serving as qualifiers for post-season competitions, those seasons should be on the same registration choice as the end-state competition (e.g., national championships); for standalone competitions not part of league play (e.g., showcases), member organizations will be responsible for working with the competition organizers on clearly communicating the approved registration choice

Immediate Steps – Next 60 Days

We are working quickly with our members to develop communications and best practices that will support this decision, with the goal of centralizing resources on a U.S. Soccer webpage by our Annual General Meeting on February 27, 2025. You can expect the following resources to be available around that time:

• Parent/Guardian-, Team-, Club-Specific Communications – outline considerations for players, team formation, and club needs
• Collaboration with Leagues – best practices for how member organizations and leagues can work together on any new annual protocols related to registration choice and associated team formation needs
• Scenario–Based Resources – support member organizations, leagues, clubs, teams, and parents / guardians as they navigate unique player scenarios

Until then, please know it is a top priority for U.S. Soccer to support our members and ecosystem stakeholders through this transition, and we anticipate members will begin working with leagues and participants immediately on their path forward.”

>> U.S. Soccer’s Statement on Final Player Registration Decision