Cup-tied is an adjective, used primarily in football, used to describe a player who is ineligible to play in a knockout cup competition after transferring from another club during that competition.

In virtually all domestic and international cup competitions, any player who makes an appearance for a club at any stage of the competition is "tied" to that club for all future matches during that season in the same competition. This prevents a strong team from gaining an unfair advantage by signing a talented player from a club that has lost in an earlier round. A team that wishes to transfer a player may deliberately choose to keep that player off its cup roster to ensure that he is not cup-tied, increasing his usefulness to a club that may be involved in the same competition. Similarly, a team may deliberately cup-tie a player to discourage a transfer during that season. Note, however, that this does not restrict most international transfers; cup-tying is only an issue internationally if both teams involved in the transfer have participated in a continental cup competition such as the UEFA Champions League or UEFA Cup.

The only major exception to this rule applies to the UEFA Intertoto Cup, which is conducted during the summer off-season of the major European leagues. UEFA rules stipulate that players are not cup-tied due to participation in the Intertoto Cup prior to the semifinal round.