An AFL team has 18 players on the field at once, plus 4 interchange players, for a total of 22 players named in the team on game day.

Game day breakdown

  • 18 players are on the field during play (forwards, midfielders, defenders).
  • Up to 4 players sit on the interchange bench and can rotate on and off the ground freely under the interchange rules.
  • Together, that makes 22 players selected for a standard AFL match.

Squad vs team

  • Across the season, each AFL club has a list (squad) of roughly 38–40 senior players plus 4–6 rookies, so usually about 44 listed players, not counting some special rookie categories.
  • Only 22 of those listed players are picked each week to form the actual team for that match.

Variations in other comps

  • The official Laws of Australian Football allow competitions to use between 14 and 18 players on the field, with up to 4 interchange, so some local or junior leagues play with fewer than 18.
  • Despite these variations, when people ask “how many players on an AFL team,” they almost always mean the professional AFL setup of 18 on field and 4 interchange (22 total).

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.