Premier League clubs spent £3.46bn this summer. That is a new all-time record for a single window, and it is the second year running the record has fallen.
The £3.14bn mark set twelve months ago went when Iliman Ndiaye left Everton for Manchester City on deadline day for an initial £60m. Enzo Fernandez's £125m switch from Chelsea to City, confirmed after the window had already shut, pushed the number further still.
Deadline day alone accounted for £475m of business, up from £391m the year before. Figures were supplied to BBC Sport by Paul Macdonald of FootballTransfers.com.
For a sense of scale: five years ago the same 20 clubs spent £1.13bn in a summer. The number has roughly tripled.
Three of football's ten biggest transfers happened in one window
All three went to English clubs. In fact four of the Premier League's five most expensive signings ever were completed between June and September this year.
Fernandez topped the list at £125m. Before him, City had paid £116m for Nottingham Forest's Elliot Anderson, and Chelsea had gone to £117m for Morgan Rogers from Aston Villa. Liverpool committed an initial £106m to Paris St-Germain for Bradley Barcola, a fee that can climb to £123m.
Outside England, only two deals this summer have topped £60m: Yan Diomande to Real Madrid, and Anthony Gordon's move from Newcastle to Barcelona.
Tottenham broke their own record for Sandro Tonali in a deal that could reach £100m, then spent £85m on Mateus Fernandes from West Ham and up to £85m on Savio from Manchester City. City also paid £85.6m for Lille's Ayyoub Bouaddi, Arsenal took Bruno Guimaraes from Newcastle for £75m, and Manchester United finally landed Carlos Baleba from Brighton for £70m.
Of the 20 most expensive transfers completed anywhere this summer, 14 involved a Premier League buyer. Newly promoted Ipswich Town spent more than Barcelona, AC Milan, Juventus and European champions PSG.
Who actually spent the most
Manchester City, at £458m. Enzo Maresca replaced Pep Guardiola and was given the budget to build something of his own. City recouped £304m in sales, so the net figure is considerably kinder.
Chelsea came next at £349m out, but sold £382m worth of players, finishing the window £33m in profit. Tottenham were third with £302m after two straight seasons of finishing 17th.
Ipswich spent £171m trying to stay up, which is more than Manchester United's £148m. Hull, also promoted, brought in 18 new players, six of them on deadline day alone.
Eleven clubs broke their own transfer record
More than half the division. Six of them did it more than once.
Coventry managed it four times over. Aurele Amenda came in for an initial £15.4m, then Loum Tchaouna for £20m, then goalkeeper Carl Rushworth's loan was made permanent at £22m, and finally Caleb Yirenkyi arrived at £23.1m to top the lot.
Aston Villa and Ipswich each broke their record more than once too. James Trafford at Leeds, Mamadou Sangare at Brentford, Luka Vuskovic at Brighton and Liam Delap at Nottingham Forest were all £40m-plus club records.
The Premier League is increasingly shopping at home
Around 35% of all deals involving a fee this summer were between two Premier League clubs, up from 30% last year. Widen that to include purchases from lower down the English pyramid and the figure hits 44%.
Net spend across the division still sits above £1bn, comfortably the highest in Europe. Bundesliga and Ligue 1 clubs, by contrast, took in more than they paid out.
So why are English clubs buying from each other rather than raiding the continent? Part of it is trust in proven Premier League output. A good number of last season's expensive imports, many from the Bundesliga, did not deliver what their price tags promised.
There is also the accounting angle. Chelsea and Villa traded players in both directions this summer, which does useful things to a balance sheet.
And there is a long-standing complaint from English executives: the moment a Premier League club shows interest, the asking price abroad goes up.
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