List of D.C. United first-round draft picks

This is a list of first-round draft picks made by D.C. United of Major League Soccer. D.C. United were an original MLS franchise, joining the league in its inaugural 1996 season.

Chris Ponitus, first-round draft pick in 2009, plays as a winger for D.C. United. He was selected from the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Every year during January, each MLS franchise seeks to add new players to its roster through a collegiate draft known as the "Major League Soccer SuperDraft" which is more commonly known as the MLS Draft. Teams are ranked in inverse order based on the previous season's record, with the worst record picking first, and the second worst picking second and so on. The exception is teams that qualify for the MLS Cup Playoffs, as teams that reach further levels in the playoffs receive a later selection in the draft, with the tiebreaker being regular season record. The MLS Cup champion picks last in the draft, while the MLS Cup runner-up picks second-to-last. Clubs have the option of trading away their picks to other teams for different picks, players, allocation money, or a combination thereof. Thus, it is not uncommon for a team's actual draft pick to differ from their assigned draft pick, or for a team to have extra or no draft picks in any round due to these trades.

United have selected number one overall three times: Freddy Adu, Alecko Eskandarian and Jason Moore. D.C. United's first selection as an MLS team was Raúl Díaz Arce, a Salvadoran international striker who previously played for Firpo of the Primera División de Fútbol de El Salvador. The team's most-recent first-round selection was Michael DeShields, a defender from Wake Forest.

Player selections

GK	Goalkeeper	DF	Defender
MF	Midfielder	FW	Forward

Selected number one overall	Enshrined in the National Soccer Hall of Fame

Draft		Player name	Position	College	Notes
Year	Pick
Original Allocations
1996 IP	10	Raúl Díaz Arce	FW		[Note A]
1996 IA	4	Jeff Agoos	DF	Virginia	[Note A]
	14	Jaime Moreno	FW		[Note A]
	24	John Harkes	MF	Virginia	[Note A]
	34	Juan Berthy Suárez	MF
College Draft Era
1996	2	Eddie Pope	DF	North Carolina	[1] [Note A]
1997	10	Danny Care	DF	Clemson
1998	No first-round draft pick
1999	1	Jason Moore	MF	Virginia
SuperDraft Era
2000	12	Bobby Convey	MF	Project-40
2001	3	Mark Lisi	MF	Clemson
	4	Ryan Nelsen	MF	Stanford
	8	Santino Quaranta	MF	Project-40
2002	8	Justin Mapp	MF	Project-40
	11	Daouda Kanté	DF	FIU
2003	1	Alecko Eskandarian	FW	Virginia
	5	David Stokes	DF	North Carolina
2004	1	Freddy Adu	MF	IMG Soccer Academy
2005	No first-round draft pick
2006	7	Justin Moose	MF	Wake Forest
2007	11	Bryan Arguez	MF	IMG Soccer Academy
2008	No first-round draft pick
2009	6	Rodney Wallace	DF	Maryland	[2]
	7	Chris Pontius	FW	UC Santa Barbara	[2]
2010	No first-round draft pick
2011	3	Perry Kitchen	MF	Akron	[3]
2012	6	Nick DeLeon	MF	Louisville	[4]
2013	17	Taylor Kemp	DF	Maryland	[5]
2014	2	Steve Birnbaum	DF	California	[6]
2015	17	Miguel Aguilar	FW	San Francisco	[7]
2016	11	Julian Büscher	MF	Syracuse
2017	12	Chris Odoi-Atsem	DF	Maryland	[8]
2018	No first-round draft pick
2019	14	Akeem Ward	DF	Creighton	[9]
2020	21	Simon Lefebvre	GK	Temple
2021	4	Kimarni Smith	FW	Clemson
	5	Michael DeShields	DF	Wake Forest
2022	No first-round draft pick
2023
2024	7	Jacob Murrell	FW	Georgetown