How LaLiga 2026-27 qualification and relegation work: 107 points for the top four, three clubs short of safety

Four clubs can still guarantee a Champions League place by themselves: Barcelona, Atlético Madrid, Real Betis and Real Madrid. All four need the same final total to do it, 107 points. Sevilla, one place below them, has no such number: its own bar is higher still, 109, and the most it can reach is 106.

These figures are the September 21 update, with 69 of the season's 380 matches played, 18 clubs on seven matches and Athletic Club and Levante on six.

The format has nothing hidden inside it. Twenty clubs play 38 matches each, three points for a win and one for a draw, and the table on the final day is the answer. The top four places go to the Champions League. The bottom three go down. There is no playoff at either end, no extra round for fifth and no second leg for 18th, which is why every figure on this site is counted in points rather than in wins.

A clinch number is the points you still have to collect before the place is yours whatever anyone else does, counted as if every rival won all of its remaining matches. That worst case does not set one bar for everybody. It sets 107 for the four clubs at the top and 109 for the sixteen below them. The four get the lower bar because of Sevilla: fifth place has 13 points with 31 matches left, so it tops out at 106, and that is the fifth highest ceiling in the division. Finish above 106 and a fifth club cannot exist. So Barcelona needs 86 more points, Atlético 91, Betis 91 and Real Madrid 92, and each of those four sums to exactly 107. Sevilla's blank is the same arithmetic read from the other side. The four ceilings above its own are Barcelona's 114, Atlético's 109, Betis's 109 and Real Madrid's 108, so Sevilla has to clear 108 and its bar is 109. Winning all 31 remaining matches puts it on 106, three short. That column only fills in when the clubs above drop points and those ceilings come down.

Atlético Madrid shows how fast one match moves this. Its 91 means 30 wins and a draw from 31 matches. It plays at Alavés on October 10, in the first round back after the break, and there are only three ways that ends. Win, and Atlético has 19 points with 30 matches left, and the number becomes 88. Draw, and it has 17 with 30 left, and the number becomes 90, which is every remaining match won. Lose, and the number disappears: 16 points plus 30 matches is a ceiling of 106, the bar is still 107, and Atlético joins Sevilla in the blank column.

The clinch column and the elimination column read a level finish in opposite directions, and that is deliberate. In the clinch column a rival who can draw exactly level with you counts as a threat, because a club level on points can still finish above you and this arithmetic will not guess which way that goes. In the elimination column that same rival does not count, because drawing level does not put it above you. The reachable rank column splits the same way: the best rank counts only clubs that are certainly ahead of you, the worst rank counts every club that can pull level. One rule runs through all of it, that a tie is read against the club being judged, and the price is that a clinch here can appear a day after the official confirmation. The goals columns order the table you see and never enter these numbers. On this update every one of the 20 clubs still reads 1 to 20 in the reachable rank column.

The same arithmetic runs the bottom of the table. Seventeenth or better is safe, and the bar for certain safety is 99 points, set by Elche's ceiling of 98. It is the same 99 for all 17 clubs that have a safety number at all, so what separates them is only how far off it they are: Barcelona needs 78 more points, Levante 94. Three clubs have no safety number, because Elche tops out at 98, Valencia at 97 and Málaga at 96, and each of the three has to clear the third lowest ceiling among its rivals, which is 100, so each would need 101. Valencia and Málaga are also the only clubs carrying a relegation elimination number, and for both it is 31, every match they have left. Above them the Champions League elimination column reads 31 for Sevilla, which means losing all 31 and finishing on the 13 points it already has, below the four clubs already above that. It reads 30 for Alavés, Deportivo La Coruña, Real Sociedad and Athletic Club, 29 for eight more clubs, and 28 for Elche, Valencia and Málaga, the smallest in the division. The top four have nothing in that column, because even losing every remaining match would leave each of them on a total that fewer than four clubs have already passed.

Nothing moves until October 10. That day Málaga host Espanyol, Alavés host Atlético Madrid and Rayo Vallecano host Athletic Club. On October 11 Barcelona host Getafe, Real Sociedad host Deportivo La Coruña, Elche host Celta Vigo and Real Madrid host Villarreal. Racing Santander host Valencia on October 12. Several of those move a figure named above. Alavés against Atlético decides whether Atlético keeps a column at all. Barcelona against Getafe takes 86 down to 83. Real Madrid against Villarreal takes 92 down to 89. Racing against Valencia is the 19th placed club's next chance to lift a floor of 4 points. The one that ends a blank is Elche against Celta Vigo: an Elche win puts it on eight points with 30 left, a ceiling of 98 against a safety bar that falls to 98, and the column opens at 90.

How to read the columns. A clinch number is the fewest further points that guarantee an outcome even if every rival wins everything it has left. An elimination number is the number of remaining matches lost after which the outcome is impossible even if you win all the rest. A blank means the arithmetic cannot answer yet, not that the answer is bad. A level finish is always read against the club being judged, which is why a clinch here can land a day late, and why the goals columns never enter the calculation. The live table is at, the remaining fixtures at, the qualification and relegation picture at, the clinch and elimination columns at, the scenario tool at and the method in full at. Club pages run like for Atlético and for Sevilla.