Scope and definition
The comparison covers the completed Premier League seasons from 2011–12 through 2025–26. Each has 380 recorded matches. A draw is counted when the home and away scores are equal at the recorded final result. The draw rate is the number of draws divided by completed matches, shown to two decimals.
The denominator is fixed, which makes the percentage easy to compare. The 2010–11 record was not included because its 370 completed matches do not provide the same coverage. A missing fixture is not a draw and was not converted into one.
The seasonal draw record
The table moves between low-draw and high-draw seasons without a steady staircase. The low in 2018–19 is followed by 24.21% in 2019–20 and 21.84% in 2020–21, while the latest two seasons climb again to 24.47% and 27.37%.
| Season | Matches | Draws | Draw rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2011–12 | 380 | 93 | 24.47% |
| 2012–13 | 380 | 108 | 28.42% |
| 2013–14 | 380 | 78 | 20.53% |
| 2014–15 | 380 | 93 | 24.47% |
| 2015–16 | 380 | 107 | 28.16% |
| 2016–17 | 380 | 84 | 22.11% |
| 2017–18 | 380 | 99 | 26.05% |
| 2018–19 | 380 | 71 | 18.68% |
| 2019–20 | 380 | 92 | 24.21% |
| 2020–21 | 380 | 83 | 21.84% |
| 2021–22 | 380 | 88 | 23.16% |
| 2022–23 | 380 | 87 | 22.89% |
| 2023–24 | 380 | 82 | 21.58% |
| 2024–25 | 380 | 93 | 24.47% |
| 2025–26 | 380 | 104 | 27.37% |
The early part of the record already contains the full range of the story. 2012–13 reaches 28.42%, 2013–14 falls to 20.53%, and 2015–16 returns to 28.16%. The 7.89-point swing between adjacent seasons is not a rounding artefact: it represents 30 matches in a 380-game schedule. Later, 2017–18 at 26.05% gives way to 2018–19 at 18.68%, a difference of 28 draws.
After the low, the sequence alternates rather than climbing every year. Draws rise to 92 in 2019–20, fall to 83 in 2020–21, rise to 88 in 2021–22, then edge down through 87 and 82 before the latest jump to 104. The rate therefore rewards a season-by-season reading; adjacent seasons can move in opposite directions.
Counting matches beside the percentage also prevents false precision. On a 380-match schedule, one match is about 0.26 percentage points. A difference of one or two percentage points can be only a handful of results, while the nine-to-ten-point differences between the low and high are much more substantial.
The range matters
The high of 108 draws in 2012–13 is only one more than the 107 recorded in 2015–16, but their context differs from the low. The high rate is 28.42%, while the low season has 71 draws at 18.68%. The 37-match difference is 9.74 percentage points of a fixed 380-match schedule.
There are also repeated values. 2011–12, 2014–15 and 2024–25 all sit at 24.47%, despite being separated by more than a decade. Repetition at the same rate argues against treating every seasonal movement as a structural shift. Some variation is ordinary fluctuation around a broad band.
The 15-season unweighted average is 23.75%. Seven seasons are above that level and eight are below it. The split is close to even, which again favours a cyclical reading over a one-direction trend.
The low-draw seasons are not all alike. 2013–14 has 78 draws, 2018–19 has 71, and 2020–21 has 83. They sit at different points in the venue balance: 2018–19 has 47.63% home wins and 33.68% away wins, while 2020–21 is the one season in which away wins exceed home wins. The draw rate alone cannot describe that surrounding result mix.
The high-draw seasons also differ. 2012–13 has 108 draws with 166 home wins and 106 away wins. 2015–16 has 107 draws with 157 home wins and 116 away wins. The near-identical draw totals sit beside different home and away distributions, which is why “more draws” should not be treated as a synonym for “more balanced venues.”
The recent return
The latest rate of 27.37% is the second-highest in the window, behind 2012–13. It represents 104 draws, 11 more than 2024–25 and 22 more than the 2023–24 total. Compared with the low in 2018–19, the latest season adds 33 draws and 8.69 percentage points.
That rebound does not mean the competition has entered a permanent draw era. The series has already moved from 28.16% in 2015–16 to 22.11% in 2016–17, then from 26.05% in 2017–18 to the 18.68% low. A high latest value is a fact about the latest row; persistence requires future completed seasons.
Because the denominator is fixed, the latest movement can be read in match counts as well as percentages. Every 2.63 percentage points is roughly ten matches in a 380-game season. The 8.69-point difference from the low is therefore about 33 matches, exactly the observed gap between 71 and 104 draws.
The latest 104 draws are nine more than the 95-match level that would represent exactly 25% of a 380-game season. That is a useful scale, but it should not be read as a threshold with special meaning. It simply shows that the latest rate is materially above a quarter of matches ending level.
The move from 82 draws in 2023–24 to 93 in 2024–25 and then 104 in 2025–26 is the clearest recent upward run. It is the longest uninterrupted rise in the final part of the table, but three seasons are not enough to establish a new long-run regime. The appropriate evergreen wording is that the latest season is high within the observed window.
Draws inside the result mix
A draw rate is one part of a three-way result distribution. When the draw share rises, the combined share of home and away wins falls. In 2025–26, draws were 27.37%, home wins 42.63% and away wins 30.00%. In 2018–19, the low-draw season, home wins were 47.63% and away wins 33.68%.
This contrast shows why the draw series should be read beside venue outcomes. The low-draw season had more decisive matches, with home wins carrying the larger share. The latest season had more level results and a smaller home-win share. The aggregate does not tell us whether those changes came from closer teams, finishing, tactics or other conditions; it only describes the final result mix.
The same table can be used as a check against over-reading short runs. A draw percentage is a compact label for a full season, but it does not preserve the order of the matches, the length of a run or the context of individual results. Two seasons can finish at similar percentages after very different sequences. The table therefore supports comparison of final outcomes, not a claim that matches followed the same rhythm.
It is also useful to keep the three categories together when describing direction. A rise in draws is not evidence that home wins and away wins moved in the same way; one can fall while the other rises. The recorded 2020–21 split, where away wins exceeded home wins, is a reminder that the draw series sits inside a changing venue balance. That is why the article reports draws as a focused outcome while retaining the wider result mix around it.
The enduring finding is variability: draw rates can move by nearly ten percentage points without changing the league’s fixed match count.
The draw table is deliberately read as a distribution rather than a ladder. A season can sit near the average after a very different sequence of results from another season with the same final percentage. That is why the article keeps the raw count beside the rate and reports the home and away shares where they add context. The fixed schedule makes the arithmetic transparent, but it does not make the underlying match sequence identical from year to year.
For a future update, the safest practice is to append only a completed season, preserve the same definition of a draw, and recalculate the average over the expanded window. A new high or low would then be judged against the same baseline rather than compared with a moving or partly complete denominator. Until such a row exists, the current reading remains descriptive: the latest draw rate is high in the observed series, while the full history still shows substantial seasonal movement.
Limits and method
Data source: Xtra-Stats. The sample includes completed Premier League matches from 2011–12 through 2025–26. The earlier 2010–11 record was excluded because its checked coverage was 370 matches. Draw rate is draws divided by completed matches and rounded to two decimals.
This is a descriptive result-frequency study. It does not evaluate the quality of a draw, score timing, team strength, expected goals, tactical intent or any causal mechanism. The latest value is not a forecast, and no incomplete season is used to extend the series.