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A semi-professional athlete is one who is paid to play and thus is not an amateur, but for whom sport is not a full-time occupation, generally because the level of pay is too low to make a reasonable living based solely upon that source, thus making the athlete not a full professional athlete.

Likewise the term semi-professional can be applied to an artist such a photographer or musician who derives some income from their artistic endeavors but who must nevertheless take a day job in order to survive. When applied to vocational tools and equipment, it refers to products that lie between the amateur and professional levels in both quality and cost, though nowadays the term prosumer is often used instead.

In North America, semi-professional athletes and teams were far more common in the early and mid-20th century than they are today. There are many benefits, such as collegiate eligibility and the attendant scholarships, in maintaining amateur status. Eligibility for participation in the Olympics in some sports is still dependent upon maintaining a purely amateur status (although far less so than was previously the case), and such athletes may be supported by government money, business sponsorships, and other systems. At the same time, professional sports have become such a massive and remunerative business that even many low-level feeder teams can afford to have fully professional athletes.

In the United Kingdom there are many semi-professional football teams at non-League level. The bottom division of The Football League (the fourth tier of the English football league system) has traditionally been the cut-off between professional ("full-time") and semi-professional ("part-time") in English football. However, many teams in the top non-league competition (the Football Conference) have become "full-time" in an effort to achieve league status.

Women's football in England is semi-professional at the top levels, as finances depend both on promotion and relegation of parent male teams as of the female teams themselves. Full professionalism for women is thus still in the planning stages; top female players often depend on other sources of income (such as coaching and physical training), and many also go to school while playing.