How do I enter the Chicago Marathon 2027 drawing?

The Chicago Marathon 2027 dates

• Applications open: 08:00 US Central, Thursday 8 October 2026
• Applications close: 14:00 US Central, Thursday 29 October 2026
• Guaranteed-entry payment deadline: 23:59 US Central, Tuesday 10 November 2026
• Drawing results emailed: Tuesday 8 December 2026
• Drawing payment deadline: 23:59 US Central, Tuesday 15 December 2026
• Race day: Sunday 10 October 2027, the 49th running

Every one of those comes from the event's own apply page rather than from last year's pattern, which is a change from how this guide read through the summer.

What it costs

For the 2026 race the official entry fee was USD 250 for United States residents and USD 260 for everyone else. The 2027 fee has not been published. Nothing is charged at application time on the drawing route; the fee is taken only when an entry is awarded, and the clock on paying it is short.

That is the part people miss. Being drawn on 8 December is not the end of it: if the fee is not paid and registration not completed by 23:59 US Central on 15 December 2026, the event says you are not registered and get no bib. Seven days, over a week most people are not watching their inbox.

The routes that skip the drawing

The drawing is the route for people with no other claim. Chicago also runs a set of guaranteed entries, and every one of them is applied for inside the same 8 to 29 October window, not separately. The official page is explicit that guaranteed access is only available during the application window, so a qualifying time is worth nothing if the form is not submitted in time.

• Time qualifier, if your marathon time meets the published standard for your age group and division on race day. For 2027 the qualifying result must come from a marathon run between 1 January 2025 and 29 October 2026, and the standards table lives on the official apply page.
• Legacy finisher, if you have finished the Chicago Marathon five or more times in the last 10 years.
• Bank of America Chicago Distance Series, if you completed all three events in the series in the qualifying year (the Shamrock Shuffle 8K, Chicago 13.1 and the marathon itself).
• A cancelled entry rolled forward under the event's standard cancellation policy, or under its pregnancy and postpartum policy.
• The High Performance Program, which is capped at 150 participants and charges a reduced fee.

Guaranteed applications are reviewed, which takes up to 10 business days, and only then does the event ask for the fee. One detail worth knowing before you pick a route: a guaranteed application that is reviewed and rejected does not simply fail. The event switches it to a non-guaranteed application and puts you in the drawing instead, so applying on a claim you are not sure about does not cost you the draw.

Charity and tour operator entries sit outside all of this. Charity places are guaranteed and first come, first served, with a fundraising minimum of no less than USD 2,200, and only charities inside the official programme hold guaranteed entries. Tour operator places work the same way through the official operator programme. Both stay available after the drawing has been run, which is what makes them the fallback for anyone who applies and misses.

Your real odds

Nobody outside the event can work them out. Chicago does not publish the number of drawing applications it receives, so there is no denominator to divide by, and any specific figure you see quoted is an estimate rather than an organizer number. What is public is the shape of the problem: the field is around 55,000 runners and a large part of it is taken by time qualifiers, legacy finishers, the distance series, charity teams and tour operators before the drawing selects anyone.

That is the useful way to read it. If you hold any guaranteed claim at all, use it, because the guaranteed routes are the ones with published rules and the drawing is the one with none.

What to do before you apply

Applying early inside the window does not help: the drawing is run after it closes, from the full pool, and duplicate applications are stripped out first. What does help is having the paperwork ready before you submit, because a guaranteed claim has to clear a review and that review takes up to 10 business days, well inside the window that runs to 29 October 2026.

• Check whether you hold any guaranteed claim at all, and dig out the proof. A time qualifier needs results documentation showing a finish inside the standard for your age group and division, from a marathon run between 1 January 2025 and 29 October 2026.
• Check the standards for your age on race day, Sunday 10 October 2027, rather than your age today. That is how the event calculates it, and for anyone near a band boundary it is the difference between a guaranteed entry and the draw.
• Put 8 December 2026 in the calendar as well as 8 October. That is results day, and the payment window that follows it closes on 15 December.
• Join the official Mile by Mile e-newsletter at chicagomarathon.com if you want the event's own reminders, or follow this event page for a free alert when the window opens and closes.