World Cup 2026 Schedule: Every Match, Every Venue, Every Kickoff

The world cup 2026 schedule is the largest fixture grid in tournament history — one hundred and four matches across thirty-nine days, sixteen stadiums and three host countries spanning five time zones. This post pulls the whole thing into one place: dates, stages, venues, kickoff-time conventions, and the few times in the calendar where the public information is still incomplete.

If you are trying to plan your viewing month, this is your map. We have built in our live fixture grid below for easier filtering.

The fixture grid

Filter by date, venue, team or stage:

The schedule, in seven stages

That is 39 days from kickoff to lift, with rest days between stages built in.

Group stage: June 11 to June 27

The group stage runs for seventeen days, during which every team plays three matches. At its peak — the middle weekend — there are matches at multiple venues every day, often with overlapping kickoffs.

A few important markers:

• Opening match. Mexico vs South Africa, Estadio Azteca, June 11. Local kickoff time is not yet finalised in publicly available FIFA materials, so we are not naming a specific clock time. Multiple secondary sources have flagged "3pm ET" and "20:00 CDT" as candidates — these are inconsistent and should be reconciled by FIFA before publication of a definitive time.
• Final group-stage matchday. June 27. All four matches in the last group played simultaneously is a 1994-onwards convention to prevent late-match collusion; we expect FIFA will maintain it.
• Rest day before R32. Some teams (those whose final group match is on June 26 or 27) will have only one or two rest days. Others up to four.

Round of 32: June 28 to July 3

The new Round of 32 stretches across six days, with eight matchdays at two or three matches per day. This is the first World Cup ever to feature a Round of 32 — we have a dedicated explainer on why FIFA chose this structure over byes.

Two scheduling things to know:

1. Two-day gap between final group match and first knockout. Teams who finish the group stage on June 26 will have just over 48 hours before their R32 fixture begins on June 28. Teams who finish on June 27 will have even less.
2. Venues for the R32 are split across all 16 host stadiums. No single venue hosts more than two R32 matches. This is part of FIFA's tri-host load-balancing.

Round of 16: July 4 to July 7

Eight matches in four days. Two per day, typically with one early kickoff (US Eastern afternoon) and one late kickoff (US Eastern evening). The R16 winners advance to the Quarter-finals after a one-day rest break on July 8.

Quarter-finals: July 9 to July 11

Four matches across three days. Historically, the Quarter-finals are where the "story of the tournament" begins to crystallise — surprise teams that survived R32 and R16 face the heaviest favourites.

Venue distribution for the Quarter-finals has not been pinned to specific stadiums in our verified sources beyond AT&T Stadium (Dallas) hosting one Quarter-final and one Semi-final. The remaining three Quarter-final venues are tracked by FIFA's fixture page.

Semi-finals: July 14 and July 15

Two matches. One per day. The first Semi-final is on July 14, the second on July 15. AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas hosts at least one Semi-final per FIFA's host-city allocation.

Both semi-final venues should be roofed or partially roofed (AT&T is retractable, the other candidate venues vary). Mid-July daytime temperatures in some US host cities approach 35 °C — a relevant factor for scheduling, since FIFA must give players adequate recovery in unusually hot venues.

Third-place play-off: July 18

Played at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. Local kickoff time confirmed in our sources as 17:00 ET (21:00 UTC).

The third-place play-off is a single match between the two Semi-final losers. Historically these have been higher-scoring than the Final — both teams play with less pressure, and rotation is usually heavier.

Final: July 19, MetLife Stadium

The Final is at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey — branded by FIFA as the "New York New Jersey Stadium." Local kickoff is 15:00 ET (EDT, UTC-4) = 19:00 UTC.

The stadium has been prepared for the Final with two notable changes:

• A new natural-grass pitch (Tahoma 31 Bermuda) installed in May 2026, replacing the artificial surface used during the NFL season.
• Roughly 1,740 corner seats removed to bring pitch dimensions to FIFA-required specifications. Final WC capacity sits at around 82,500.

Host time zones — at a glance

If you want to convert a kickoff time to your local time, use these mappings (in effect during the tournament window):

A 15:00 ET kickoff (e.g. the Final) is:

• 12:00 PT (Seattle, Vancouver, LA, SF Bay Area)
• 13:00 MT
• 14:00 CT (Dallas, Houston, Kansas City)
• 14:00 in Mexico City and Monterrey (UTC-5)
• 20:00 BST in the United Kingdom
• 21:00 in Central Europe (Madrid, Paris, Berlin, Rome)
• 22:00 in Athens, Cairo, Moscow
• 23:00 in Saudi Arabia, UAE
• Next morning 04:00 in Tokyo
• Next morning 05:00 in Seoul

Match distribution by venue

Verified counts (from FIFA and StadiumDB):

• AT&T Stadium (Dallas) — 9 matches, including a Semi-final. The most of any venue.
• MetLife Stadium (NY/NJ) — 8 matches, including the Final.
• BMO Field (Toronto) — 6 matches (5 group + 1 knockout).
• Lumen Field (Seattle) — 6 matches.
• Estadio Azteca (Mexico City) — 5 matches, including the opener.

Per-venue counts for the remaining eleven stadiums were not consistently confirmed in a single primary source as of 2026-05-19. Defer to the FIFA fixture page closer to the date.

The biggest matchdays

A few dates to circle now:

• June 11 — Opening match. Mexico vs South Africa, Estadio Azteca. Tournament begins.
• June 27 — Final group-stage matchday. Last chance to qualify for the Round of 32.
• June 28 — Round of 32 begins. First knockout matches.
• July 4 — Round of 16 begins. US Independence Day, with potential US national-team match.
• July 14 — First Semi-final.
• July 19 — Final. Kickoff 15:00 ET / 19:00 UTC.

What to do if a kickoff time changes

It happens. Two reasons:

1. Broadcaster requests. Major rights holders sometimes negotiate adjusted kickoffs for primetime viewing.
2. Weather. Tournament protocol allows for heat-related kickoff adjustments at the very hottest venues (Dallas, Houston, Miami, Monterrey).

If you have already bought tickets or planned a watch party, the safest source of truth is the FIFA app and the FIFA scores & fixtures page. Third-party calendars (Google, Apple, broadcaster widgets) may lag by 24–48 hours.