When do the 2027 marathon major ballots open and close?

Which marathon majors have a 2027 ballot, and which do not?

Six do, one does not.

• Tokyo, London, Berlin, Chicago, New York, Sydney: a random ballot or drawing decides general entry. Applying is free (except New York's application fee), and being drawn is pure luck, not speed.
• Boston: no public ballot. Entry is by qualifying time, submitted during Registration Week (14 to 18 September 2026 for the 2027 race), with a cut-off applied when the race is oversubscribed.

The free official ballot is always the cheapest route into any of these races. Charity places, tour-operator packages and "guaranteed" resale entries all exist, but they cost far more and none of them is the ballot. Enter the free draw first; treat everything else as a fallback if you miss out.

When does each 2027 marathon ballot open, close and draw?

Windows are staggered across the back half of 2026. These are the confirmed and expected dates; each event page below is kept in sync with the official source:

• Tokyo Marathon 2027: general entry 14 to 28 August 2026, free to enter, results 18 September 2026. Race day 7 March 2027.
• TCS London Marathon 2027: the 2027 ballot is closed and drawn, and result emails went out. A record 1,338,544 people applied. Successful applicants had to confirm by 16:00 BST on Friday 31 July 2026, and that deadline has passed, so a place not confirmed by then was lost. The next open ballot here is for 2028. Remaining 2027 routes are charity, Good for Age and club places.
• BMW Berlin Marathon 2027: the lottery runs 1 October to 12 November 2026, with results due 3 December 2026, per the organizer's own lottery page; race day is 26 September 2027.
• Bank of America Chicago Marathon 2027: applications run 08:00 US Central on 8 October 2026 to 14:00 US Central on 29 October 2026, free to apply, with drawing results emailed 8 December 2026 and payment due by 15 December. Guaranteed-entry claims go through the same window and the same form. Race day 10 October 2027.
• TCS New York City Marathon 2027: 2027 drawing dates listed as "to be announced"; the 2026 window ran in February with the drawing in March.
• TCS Sydney Marathon 2027: opens 10:00 AEST on 29 September 2026, closes 10:00 AEDT on 19 October 2026, with results and card charges on 3 November 2026. If drawn, entry is charged automatically: AUD 280 domestic or AUD 330 international. Full walkthrough: Sydney Marathon 2027 ballot guide.

Any date shown as expected rather than confirmed is inferred from the previous cycle and carries an estimate marker on the event page. We re-check the official sites regularly and update the record the day a real date lands.

What does it actually cost to enter?

Entering the ballot is free at Tokyo, London, Berlin, Chicago and Sydney: you enter card details at registration, but the entry fee is only charged if you are selected. New York is the exception. It charges a non-refundable application/processing fee (USD 11 in recent cycles) whether or not you get in, on top of the full entry fee if accepted.

If you are drawn, the entry fee itself varies a lot by race and by where you live. As a rough guide from the most recent cycles: Tokyo was JPY 19,800 domestic or USD 230 overseas; London 2027 is GBP 79.99 for UK entrants or GBP 275 international; Berlin's participation fee on the organizer's current lottery page is EUR 215 (EUR 205 in 2026). Treat these as indicative until each race publishes its 2027 fee.

What are the odds of getting a place?

Low, and getting lower, because these races are more oversubscribed every year. None of the majors publishes official ballot odds, but the application numbers tell the story: London drew a world-record 1,338,544 ballot applications for 2027, up 18% on the year before, and New York took more than 240,000 drawing applications in its 2026 cycle. Tokyo's general ballot has historically run at roughly 10 to 1 (an unofficial figure). Every application inside the window has an equal chance; there is no early-bird advantage and no way to buy better odds within the ballot itself.

Because any single ballot is a long shot, the realistic strategy is to enter several. Each is free (bar New York's small fee), the windows barely overlap, and entering five majors gives you a far better chance of running at least one than betting everything on one draw.

Is there a Boston Marathon lottery?

Not one you can enter off the street. Boston is the only Abbott World Marathon Major with no general ballot: to enter as a general runner you must first run a certified qualifying time for your age and gender, then submit a registration application at baa.org during Registration Week. For the 2027 race that week ran 14 to 18 September 2026, closing at 17:00 ET on Friday 18 September 2026; the B.A.A. published those dates on its official qualifying page on 27 July 2026.

There is one genuinely random element, and it is worth being precise about because it gets described online as a lottery when it is not. Because more runners qualify than there are places, the B.A.A. applies a cut-off and admits the fastest applicants; then, to fill the field, it randomly selects roughly 1,000 further runners from the qualifiers whose times fell below that cut-off. You have to already hold a qualifying time to be in that pool, so it is a draw among qualifiers, not a public ballot. Hitting the standard is the opportunity to apply, not a guaranteed place. If you cannot run a qualifier, charity entry is the main alternative. Full detail is on the Boston Marathon 2027 page.

What about the other big running ballots?

Beyond the seven majors, several other races run their own draws and appear in our running ballots list: the Nagoya Women's Marathon 2027 (general entry 17 to 24 September 2026, results early October), the Generali Berlin Half Marathon 2027, the AJ Bell Great North Run 2027, the Maratona dles Dolomites 2027 road cycling draw, and the UNBOUND Gravel 2027 lottery (1 to 15 November 2026, winners announced 21 November). Each one is free to enter unless the event page says otherwise.

We are not affiliated with any marathon organizer or the Abbott World Marathon Majors. This guide points you to the official free route for each race; always apply on the organizer's own site.