First apron

The first apron is a spending line a few million above the luxury tax. Crossing it costs a team roster-building tools rather than just money: no acquiring players via sign-and-trade, no full mid-level exception (only the smaller taxpayer MLE), no bi-annual exception, no signing buyout players who earned more than the MLE, and trades must return salary within 110% of what goes out.

Some of these restrictions also apply as a hard cap: using the full MLE, the bi-annual exception, or acquiring a player by sign-and-trade hard-caps a team at the first apron for the rest of the season.