Bundesliga relegation 2026-27: safety is 92 points for 16 clubs, Union Berlin and Gladbach cannot reach it

Sixteen of the eighteen Bundesliga clubs are chasing the same number. Reach 92 points and a finish outside the bottom two is guaranteed, whatever anyone else does. The only thing that differs from club to club is how far they still have to travel to get there. Borussia Dortmund need 80 more on top of their 12, RB Leipzig 86 on top of 6, Schalke 04 87 on top of 5, Hamburger SV 89 on top of 3. Every one of those pairs adds to 92. Two clubs have no safety figure at all, Union Berlin and Borussia Mönchengladbach, and that is because 92 is already out of their reach.

Every figure here is as of the September 21 update. Matchday four is complete: Paderborn beat Hoffenheim 3-1 and Schalke drew 0-0 with SV Elversberg on September 21, which takes the season to 36 matches played out of 306. All 18 clubs have now played four and have 30 left, so the points column compares like for like.

A safety line is not a forecast of what a club will need. It is the minimum a club must still collect for a finish outside the bottom two to hold under every combination of results still open to its rivals. The reason that total comes out at 92 and not some other number is sitting at the foot of the table. Union Berlin have 1 point with 30 matches left, so they cannot finish above 91. Mönchengladbach have 0 and cannot finish above 90. A club on 92 is therefore above both of them however the season runs, and having two clubs certainly below you is exactly what avoiding the bottom two means. Nothing above that pair is settled, so the same 92 serves all 16 clubs that can still get to it.

Behind the line is the room, meaning the points a club can still drop and reach 92 anyway. Three points a match over 30 matches is 90, so a club's ceiling today is its current points plus 90, and the room is that ceiling minus 92. Dortmund, who have won all four, top out at 102 and have ten points of room. Eintracht Frankfurt and Schalke have three. SC Paderborn and 1. FC Köln have two. TSG Hoffenheim, VfB Stuttgart and Hamburg have one. With every club on the same 30 remaining matches that figure is simply its current points minus two, so it is the league table in different clothes rather than a second piece of information.

Tenth place down to sixteenth is covered by two points, and the safety lines follow in step: 87 more for Frankfurt and Schalke, 88 for Paderborn and Köln, 89 for Hoffenheim, Stuttgart and Hamburg. Köln are thirteenth on 4 points after losing 2-1 at Hamburg on September 19, one win, one draw and two defeats from four. Hamburg won that match and are sixteenth anyway, level on 3 points with Stuttgart and Hoffenheim. Those three are identical in every column this arithmetic produces: one win and three defeats, 3 points, 30 matches left, a safety line of 89, one point of room behind it, no European or title clinch line, and a reachable range of first to eighteenth. What separates them is goals, Hamburg on 2 scored and 13 conceded, Stuttgart on 6 and 9, Hoffenheim on 7 and 10, and goals are the one input this calculation does not take.

The elimination numbers are counted in defeats, not points. For the four European places, Frankfurt, Schalke, Paderborn and Köln all read 30, which is every match they have left, so that question cannot be closed early for them at all. Hoffenheim, Stuttgart and Hamburg read 29 and can have it closed with a match still to play. For the title all seven read 28. The relegation column is a different matter: it is blank for all seven of them, and for 16 of the 18 clubs in the league. A club is not safe because that column is empty. It means no sequence of that club's own defeats makes relegation certain today.

The two clubs that do carry a relegation number are the same two with no safety line. Union Berlin are seventeenth on 1 point from four matches, beaten 7-0 at Bayern Munich on September 19, and 91 is the most they can finish on. Sixteen rivals can still reach 91 or better, so nothing Union do by themselves settles the question. Mönchengladbach are bottom on 0 points from four defeats, the last of them 4-3 at home to Mainz on September 19, and they top out at 90, a total the other 17 clubs can all still match or pass. Neither club is relegated and neither is close to it. Both relegation tragic numbers read 30, every match they have left, which is the weakest form that number can take, and both clubs can still arithmetically finish first.

The next fixtures in the data are on October 10 and 11, and four of them involve the seven clubs between tenth and sixteenth. Paderborn host Stuttgart and Hoffenheim host Hamburg on October 10, four of the seven on the field in one afternoon and both matches inside the group. Leipzig host Frankfurt on October 11 and Köln host Mönchengladbach the same day. The other club without a safety line is out the day before, Union Berlin at home to Elversberg on October 10. Those last two are the only fixtures of the round that put a club with no line against a club that has one.

How to read these numbers. A clinch number, here a safety line, is the minimum a club must still collect for the outcome to hold under every combination of results still open to its rivals. A tragic number is the number of further defeats after which the outcome is impossible even if that club wins everything else. A reachable range is the highest and lowest final position still arithmetically open. Ties settle nothing in either direction: a rival who can only draw level with us still counts as a threat to our guarantee, and a rival level with us does not eliminate us. Both readings delay the flag, which is why our clinch can trail an official announcement by a day. Goal difference, head to head records and the official tiebreakers play no part, and this arithmetic models four European places and two relegation places and nothing else. The live table is at, the remaining fixtures at, the qualifying and relegation rules at, the figures club by club at and at pages such as, the method at, and to enter results yourself use.