Fantasy football waivers clear at a time set by the platform and the league: ESPN's standard waiver process begins daily between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. ET, and Yahoo's weekly waivers end after 11:59 p.m. PT on Tuesday. Sleeper leagues choose their own day and time.
Waiver times by platform
| Platform | When waivers clear | What a league can change |
|---|---|---|
| ESPN | Daily, between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. ET | The waiver period, 1 to 4 days |
| Yahoo (weekly waivers) | After 11:59 p.m. PT Tuesday | The waiver rule |
| Sleeper | The day and time the league sets | The day and the daily time |
The ESPN row comes from ESPN's Waiver Period page, the Yahoo row from Yahoo's waivers overview and the Sleeper row from Sleeper's waiver settings page.
ESPN
ESPN defines a waiver period as the length of time a player must spend on waivers before claims are processed. The default is 1 day. A league manager can change it at any time during the season to 2 days, 3 days or 4 days, and ESPN said most players then clear on Thursday, Friday or Saturday mornings.
A player dropped during the week stays on waivers for the full period in the league rules. With a 1 day period, ESPN said the claim processes at the next waiver run that is at least a full 24 hours later, so a player dropped at 8 p.m. ET on Thursday is processed at about 4 a.m. ET on Saturday.
In ESPN's standard system, the player goes to the team with the highest waiver priority that made a claim, and that team then moves to the end of the waiver order, according to ESPN's Waivers Overview. Players nobody claimed become free agents once all claims are processed. In leagues that use a free agent budget, offers are processed in batches one or more times each week, as the league settings specify.
Yahoo
Yahoo offers weekly waivers and continuous waivers. Weekly waivers have three start times and one end time. After 11:59 p.m. PT on Tuesday, the players still unclaimed can be added by the first manager to claim them.
| Yahoo weekly setting | When unclaimed players go on waivers |
|---|---|
| Game Time - Tuesday | When their first game of the week begins, or 5:30 p.m. PT Monday if they have no game |
| First Game of the Week - Tuesday | At the scheduled start of the week's first game |
| Sunday - Tuesday | At 10:00 a.m. PT Sunday |
With continuous waivers, all unclaimed players are on waivers at all times, and a claim starts a timer for other managers to add claims of their own. Yahoo said the default period is 2 days and that the commissioner of a private league can set it anywhere from no waivers to 7 days. A player is never added on the same day the claim is made under continuous waivers. A commissioner can also choose "None" as the waiver rule, which turns waivers off so that unclaimed players go to the first manager who adds them.
Sleeper
Sleeper lists three waiver options: After Games Waivers Clear, Time Players Are on Waivers After Drop and Custom Daily Waivers. After Game Waivers lets a league specify the day players clear waivers after playing in a game. Custom Daily Waivers lets the league pick a time of day or night for claims to clear every 24 hours. Sleeper's page refers to a default 3 a.m. processing time, which a custom time overrides, and it does not name a time zone. With neither of those two settings chosen, all players are free agents and can be added immediately.
When more than one setting is on, a claim can process later than first shown. Sleeper said the options can override each other and a claim will not process until the latest of the times they set.
Where the settings are
On ESPN the league manager controls the waiver period, on Yahoo the commissioner picks the waiver rule and the claim priority from the Edit League Settings page, and on Sleeper Custom Daily Waivers is turned on in the league's General Settings.