For practical and historical reasons, some teams from Bermuda, Canada, and Puerto Rico (considered a separate country by FIFA) can also compete in these leagues.

College soccer in the United States is sanctioned by bodies outside the direct control of the USSF, the most important of which is the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).

The USL Championship (USLC) is the only sanctioned Division II men's outdoor soccer league as of 2021.

Due to the continuing litigation against U.S. Soccer, the NASL postponed its 2018 season to August and then cancelled it entirely.

A second Division III league, National Independent Soccer Association (NISA) debuted in August 2019 with eight teams.

The league initially played a fall-to-spring season spanning two calendar years but switched to the standard U.S. schedule in 2022.

Both are recognized in practical terms as playing at a higher level and both since 2020 are considered national leagues earning automatic berths to the US Open Cup first round based on their previous season's league results rather than going through local qualifying.

Additionally, clubs in USL2, UPSL and NPSL pay some of their players and are more accurately described as semi-professional leagues.

[citation needed] USL League Two takes place during the summer months, and has age restrictions.

[20] The National Premier Soccer League is similar to USL2 and also attracts top amateur talent from around the United States.

The United Premier Soccer League takes place year round with two seasons, one in spring and one in fall.

Unlike USL2 and NPSL, the UPSL does not rely on college players and is the national league with the most diverse participation.

WPS closed after the 2011 season due to a dispute with owners, and the WPSL Elite League was the de facto top tier of women's soccer in 2012.

[28] After the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup, USL began exploring the idea of creating a professional league to directly compete with NWSL.

[29] This effort was scaled back to running an amateur revival of the W-League, which would operate beneath the DII Women's Independent Soccer League (WISL) (operated by NISA) and a planned DIII league run by UWS.

[34] While there was never official distinction between the national amateur leagues, it was commonly assumed that the W-League was a higher quality than WPSL.

UWS, as W-League's spiritual successor, has strengthened this image of being the higher-quality amateur league by attracting four teams that had been associated with WPSL Elite.