MIES/NEUCHATEL (Switzerland) - FIBA, the world governing body, and the International Centre for Sports Studies (CIES) have published the International Basketball Migration Report (IBMR) 2025, highlighting a further increase in international transfers.
The 14th edition of the annual report reviewed FIBA's data on international transfers with the CIES's established analytics to detail player movement trends as well as other global basketball tendencies for the period 2024-25. Basketball continued its global growth and more records were broken as shown in the IBMR 2025.
The number of international transfers (13,555) rose once again, with both the totals of men's transfers (10,361) and women's transfers (3,194) getting new benchmarks. The number of international transfers - up from 13,149 for 2023-24 - has increased 120 percent since the 2010-11 season, which was the first season reviewed by the IBMR.
A GLOBAL SNAPSHOT
The USA once again was the largest exporter of players by a large margin, with a total of 1,994 players. Spain remained in second place with 628, while France was third again with 619 players.
Non-US players made up 26 percent of the NBA and 15 percent of the WNBA rosters.
Argentina has the most U21 players, followed by the BNXT League in Belgium and the Netherlands, and Brazil.
Leagues in Spain, Italy and Germany registered the highest number of foreign players.
Africa nearly quadrupled its number of transfers between 2021 (124) to 2025 (485), however maintains a neutral balance in terms of exports/imports.
Asia experienced an even larger surge, with transfers jumping from 92 to 456 over the same four-year stretch (2021-2025).
U21 players receive the most playing time in the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA).
RECORD TRANSFERS TO NCAA
More men's and women's players headed to the United States to play NCAA Division I basketball. A record total of 888 men's international players competed in the college game - up 7.5 percent from the previous season - while women's college basketball had a record 951 international players - up 14.9 percent from 2023-24. FIBA established an expert group during the 2024-25 season to monitor this player movement and support young players, families, National Federations, clubs, and agents in making informed collegiate decisions, while continuing to provide guidance on eligibility, contracts, and professional pathways as outlined in a newly published document.
FIBA Secretary General Andreas Zagklis said: "I would like to once again thank the CIES and our own, newly created FIBA Players unit led by World Cup participant and Olympian Kimberley Gaucher, for its continued work in this field. This FIBA report has become a global reference for player movements and professional basketball trends.
"In the 14th edition that we publish today, we observe that FIBA's digital platform managed no less than 13,500 transfers in just 12 months, a new record. We are very satisfied to see more players, and especially more women, finding professional basketball opportunities both at home and abroad.
"Certain trends, especially in Africa and Asia/Oceania, are directly attributable to FIBA's recent efforts to shape international club competitions into a coherent pyramidal framework. We are also pleased with the growth of the domestic leagues in Europe and Latin America, while we maintain our focus on the flows of young players to the NCAA.
"FIBA will continue to invest resources in boosting the growth of the sport across the globe, and understanding player movement is a major part of achieving that," Zagklis concluded.
The 2025 International Basketball Migration Report is available for download here.
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About FIBA FIBA (fiba.basketball) - the world governing body for basketball, is an independent association formed by 212 National Basketball Federations throughout the world. It is recognized as the sole competent authority in basketball by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
For further information about FIBA, visit fiba.basketball or follow FIBA on facebook.com/fiba, twitter.com/fiba, instagram.com/fiba, linkedin.com/fiba and youtube.com/fiba. About CIES - The International Centre for Sports Studies CIES (cies.ch) is an independent study centre located in Neuchatel, Switzerland. It was created as a Foundation in 1995 by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the University of Neuchâtel, the City and State of Neuchatel. Using a multi-disciplinary approach, CIES provides research and top-level education to the world of sport. Since its creation, CIES has aimed to be a bridge between the worlds of research, education, and sports organisations. It encourages the exchange of knowledge and experience between stakeholders from both academia and the international sports industry. Thanks to its international network of universities and experts, CIES supports and conducts research and education projects all around the world.