The 2026/27 Primera Federación season will look familiar in almost every respect — until attention turns to the bottom of the table.
Fourteen teams will continue to compete in a single nationwide group, facing each other home and away across 26 matchdays. The champions will be promoted directly to Liga F, while the clubs finishing from second to fifth will contest the play-offs for the other promotion place.
Only the team finishing bottom will be relegated.
How the 2026/27 Women’s Primera Federación will work
- Teams: 14 in a single group.
- Matchdays: 26, with home and away fixtures.
- Automatic promotion: the champions.
- Play-offs: the teams finishing from second to fifth will compete for the other promotion place.
- Relegation: only the bottom club.
- 2027/28 season: 28 teams divided into two groups.
The change is substantial. During the 2025/26 season, the bottom four clubs — those finishing from 11th to 14th — were relegated. In the new campaign, the teams in 11th, 12th and 13th will stay up.
This does not mean the RFEF has permanently reduced the threat of relegation. The 2026/27 season will act as a bridge towards a major restructuring of the national women’s divisions below Liga F.
Fifteen teams will be promoted to Primera Federación
Segunda Federación will consist of 42 clubs divided into three groups of 14. The top five teams in each group will earn automatic promotion to Primera Federación.
That means 15 clubs will move up from the third tier.
At the end of the season, Primera Federación will lose the two teams promoted to Liga F and the one relegated to Segunda Federación. It will receive the two clubs coming down from the top flight and the 15 promoted from Segunda Federación.
The result will be a 28-team competition divided into two groups from the 2027/28 season.
The RFEF General Assembly has already approved the restructuring. Segunda Federación will also expand from three groups to four.
Primera Federación is currently a single nationwide division immediately below Liga F. The expansion will change both its scale and its competitive logic. It is expected to reduce travel distances, bring more clubs into the second tier of Spanish women’s football and reshape the route to the top flight.
How the promotion play-offs to Liga F will work
The transition will not change the battle at the top.
The team finishing first will be crowned champions and promoted automatically. The clubs placed from second to fifth will contest two-legged ties: second against fifth and third against fourth in the semi-finals, followed by a final between the two winners.
If a tie remains level after both legs and extra time, the team that finished higher in the regular-season table will progress. League position will therefore continue to matter during the play-offs.
The main difference will be found in the other half of the table. In a 14-team division with only one relegation place, a much larger section of the league could find itself safely clear of danger but also out of the promotion race relatively early.
How clubs maintain meaningful sporting objectives and competitive intensity during the final weeks will be one of the questions raised by this exceptional season.
Because the 2026/27 Primera Federación will not yet be the new competition. It will be the season needed to build it.
