There are eight World Marathon Majors in 2027, and the doors in are all different: a drawing in Chicago, a lottery in Berlin, a free ballot in Sydney, qualifying times only in Boston, a Good For Age window in London, charity places almost everywhere. They also open and close at very different times, and most of them are not open when people start thinking about them.
Right now, in mid-October 2026, more of them are open at once than at any other point in the year. Here’s the whole 2027 picture in one place: what you can enter today, what’s coming, what’s already decided, and, because a race date is also a training date, the Monday a 16-week plan would start for each one.
The short version
| Race | 2027 date | How you get in | Status on 16 October 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sydney | Sun 29 Aug | Ballot, free to enter; charity and travel packages | Ballot closes Mon 19 Oct, 10:00 AEDT. Results 3 Nov |
| Chicago | Sun 10 Oct | Drawing; guaranteed by qualifying time, legacy, charity or tour operator | Applications open until Thu 29 Oct, 2 pm CT. Drawing results Tue 8 Dec |
| London | Sat 24 + Sun 25 Apr | Ballot (closed), Good For Age for UK residents, charity | Good For Age applications open until Thu 29 Oct, 16:00 GMT |
| Berlin | Sun 26 Sep | Lottery, fast-runner entry, Jubilee Club, charity, tour operators | Lottery open until Thu 12 Nov. Results 3 Dec |
| New York City | Sun 7 Nov | Drawing, time qualifiers, charity, NYRR 9+1 | Drawing expected in February 2027 |
| Boston | Mon 19 Apr | Qualifying time only (plus charity) | Decided: acceptances went out 29 Sep |
| Tokyo | Sun 7 Mar | Lottery | Decided: results went out 18 Sep |
| Cape Town | Sun 23 May | Lottery (closed), charity, tour operators | Lottery closed; charity and tour-operator places open |
Shanghai (Sunday 6 December 2026) is being assessed as a candidate for a ninth Major. If it passes, it joins the series from 2027; its 2026 registration closed in May.
Open right now
Sydney Marathon: 29 August 2027
First, because it closes first. The TCS Sydney Marathon ballot opened on 29 September and closes on Monday 19 October 2026 at 10:00 Sydney time. That’s 23:00 UTC on Sunday 18 October, so 01:00 Monday in Berlin, midnight in London and 7 pm on Sunday evening in New York. Entering the ballot is free; if you’re drawn, the fee (AUD 280 for Australian residents, AUD 330 for everyone else) is charged and you’re told on 3 November.
Race day is Sunday 29 August 2027. A 16-week plan starts on Monday 10 May 2027.
Chicago Marathon: 10 October 2027
The Bank of America Chicago Marathon takes applications for 2027 until Thursday 29 October 2026, 2:00 pm CT. It’s not first come, first served: everyone who applies in the window goes into the drawing, and the results come out on Tuesday 8 December 2026. The entry fee is $250 for US residents and $260 for everyone else.
Some entries skip the drawing. A qualifying time from a marathon run between 1 January 2025 and 29 October 2026 gets you in (for 16–34-year-olds that’s 2:50 for men and 3:20 for women; the standards go up with age). So does legacy status, which means five or more Chicago finishes in the last ten years, and charity or tour-operator places, which have their own deadlines later in 2027.
If you’re in, your race is on Sunday 10 October 2027, and a 16-week plan starts on Monday 21 June 2027.
London Marathon: 24–25 April 2027
The 2027 ballot closed back in May with a record 1,338,544 applications. The race has about 100,000 places, split across two days for the first time, and only a share of them are allocated through the ballot. What’s open now is Good For Age: 6,000 places (3,000 men, 3,000 women) for UK residents who ran a qualifying time on a certified course between 1 October 2025 and 30 September 2026. For runners aged 18–39 the standards are under 2:52 for men and under 3:38 for women, and they loosen with age. Applications close at 16:00 GMT on Thursday 29 October 2026, and places go fastest first, so hitting the standard doesn’t guarantee one.
A detail that matters for planning: in 2027 the men’s Good For Age field runs on Saturday 24 April and the women’s on Sunday 25 April. Charity places are available all year, and the 2028 ballot will most likely open right after the 2027 race, as it has in previous years.
A 16-week plan for the Sunday starts on Monday 4 January 2027. If your place is for the Saturday, the plan ends a day early; nothing else changes.
Berlin Marathon: 26 September 2027
The race has a new title sponsor and a new name, the Generali Berlin Marathon, and the lottery for 2027 opened on 1 October. It closes on Thursday 12 November 2026, with results on Thursday 3 December. The entry fee is €215, charged only if you’re drawn, and it includes a transit pass for race week, pacers and the finish-line poncho.
As in previous years, fast runners skip the lottery with a certified marathon time from 2025 or 2026: 2:45 for men and 3:10 for women born 1983 or later, 2:55 and 3:30 for those born 1968–1982, 3:25 and 4:20 for those born 1967 or earlier. Jubilee Club members (ten or more Berlin finishes) have guaranteed entry, charity places and tour operators open after the lottery, and 50 places at €50 are reserved for holders of Berlin’s Sozialticket.
A 16-week plan starts on Monday 7 June 2027.
Coming up
New York City Marathon: 7 November 2027
The general drawing for 2027 hasn’t been scheduled yet; in 2026 it ran from 4 to 25 February with results on 4 March, so expect something similar in February 2027. Time qualifiers, charity places and tour operators have their own windows around the same time.
One thing that confuses people every year: the NYRR 9+1 programme. Members who run nine NYRR races and volunteer at one get guaranteed entry, but for the year after the one they complete it in. This autumn’s 9+1 drawing handed out places in the 2027 programme, which means guaranteed entry to the 2028 marathon, not 2027. We’ll cover the New York routes in detail closer to the drawing.
A 16-week plan for New York starts on Monday 19 July 2027.
Already decided for 2027
Boston Marathon: 19 April 2027
Boston has no lottery. You need a qualifying time, or a charity place. Registration for qualified runners ran from 14 to 18 September and drew 33,656 applications from 129 countries. On 29 September the B.A.A. began sending acceptances: a record 25,630 qualifiers are in, and the cut-off was 5 minutes 17 seconds faster than the standard, which for 18–34-year-olds meant 2:49:43 for men and 3:19:43 for women. New for 2027, those 25,630 include 1,000 runners drawn at random from everyone who hit the standard but missed the cut-off.
If you didn’t make it this time, the qualifying window for 2028 has been open since 19 September 2026.
Boston is a Monday race. A 16-week plan that ends on the Sunday before starts on Monday 28 December 2026.
Tokyo Marathon: 7 March 2027
The general lottery results came out on 18 September, with payment due by 30 September. There’s no second general lottery for 2027; the only extra draws are for ONE TOKYO Premium and Global members. The lottery for 2028 should open around mid-August 2027, going by previous years.
For those who are in: a 16-week plan starts on Monday 16 November 2026. That’s a month away.
Cape Town Marathon: 23 May 2027
The Sanlam Cape Town Marathon runs its first edition as a Major on Sunday 23 May 2027. The general lottery was held in June 2026 and is closed; what remains are charity places and tour-operator packages. A 16-week plan starts on Monday 1 February 2027.
When does the plan start?
Marathon plans in iRunning (Marathon and Sub-4 Marathon) are 16 weeks long and end on race Sunday, so week 1 begins 111 days earlier, always on a Monday. That gives a fixed start date for every race above:
| Race | 2027 race day | Plan starts Monday |
|---|---|---|
| Tokyo | 7 March | 16 November 2026 |
| Boston | 19 April (Monday) | 28 December 2026 |
| London | 24–25 April | 4 January 2027 |
| Cape Town | 23 May | 1 February 2027 |
| Sydney | 29 August | 10 May 2027 |
| Berlin | 26 September | 7 June 2027 |
| Chicago | 10 October | 21 June 2027 |
| New York City | 7 November | 19 July 2027 |
Two things follow from the table. First, you don’t need to know whether you’re in to know when you’d start: enter the ballot now, put the Monday in your calendar, and decide what to do with it when the result arrives. If Chicago says no on 8 December, the same 21 June works for any other race in the second week of October, and Berlin’s 7 June is only two weeks away from it. Second, the drawings are late enough that there’s no gap to fill with training: even Tokyo, the earliest race, leaves a month between today and week 1.
What the sixteen weeks look like, phase by phase, is in our first-marathon plan guide. In the app you pick the start day and it shows the day you finish, which is a quick way to check the maths for a race that isn’t in this table.
And if you ran Chicago last Sunday: congratulations, and the first two weeks after are walks and easy jogs, whatever the ballots say.
Registration details are from the official race websites as of 14 October 2026. Windows and fees change; check the official site before you enter.