The saga appeared close to resolution on 14 July, when reports indicated Barcelona and Ter Stegen had cleared the administrative hurdles holding up a loan move to Amsterdam, paving the way for the German international to travel for a medical.
Those obstacles resurfaced within days, however, and the situation has hardened further in the past 24 hours, according to reporting by journalist Matteo Moretto.
The dispute no longer centres on tax arrangements alone, as it did earlier in the process, but on which club will cover the bulk of Ter Stegen's wages. The 33-year-old earns in the region of €16 million per season, one of the highest salaries in Barcelona's squad, and the Catalan club is reportedly unwilling to repeat the arrangement used during his loan at Girona, where the Catalan side covered around 97 per cent of his wages.
Barcelona want Ajax, described as the financially stronger party in this deal, to take on a significantly larger share this time, partly to protect the club's position under Financial Fair Play rules.
Ter Stegen remains under contract at Barcelona until 2028 and has continued pre-season training with Hansi Flick's squad while the two clubs negotiate. Any eventual deal is expected to take the form of a season-long loan, likely without an obligation to buy, though the collapse in talks has left that framework in doubt for now.
The delay is also squeezing Ajax's own preparations. The Dutch club began pre-season on 1 July and has already played its opening friendlies, with Conference League qualifying matches now under way, leaving the club still without the experienced goalkeeper it had identified as a priority reinforcement for the new Eredivisie campaign.
For Barcelona, resolving the situation carries its own urgency, as the club is keen to free up wage-bill space to register other incoming signings. Until an agreement on the salary split is reached, neither side can move the transfer forward, and what once looked close to a formality is now shaping up to be one of the more protracted sagas of the Spanish transfer window.