Chess Olympiad 2026: Dates, Venue, Format — Full Guide

The 46th Chess Olympiad runs from 15 to 27 September 2026 at the EXPO Center in Samarkand, Uzbekistan — 11 rounds of Swiss-system chess in two sections, Open and Women, with teams of four players plus one reserve. That much fits in a sentence. The rest of it runs to well over a hundred pages across three FIDE documents, written in the register of a contract, and organised the way official documents are: by subject, and by which committee owns the subject.

This page is the same information, sorted by the question instead. Everything here comes from FIDE's official invitation and the tournament regulations. Where those documents are silent, we say so rather than guess — and where they disagree with each other, which happens three times, we say that too.

Photo: The EXPO Center in Samarkand, exterior wide shot, the venue for the 46th Chess Olympiad

What's on this page

• The dates
• The venue
• How it's actually played
• Who gets to enter
• The deadlines
• Beds, board, and who pays
• Travel money
• Visas
• Getting there and getting around
• Practical things
• The Olympiad for People with Disabilities
• The Congress
• What isn't known yet
• Where the documents disagree
• Sources

The dates

Three events overlap in Samarkand this September. The Olympiad for People with Disabilities finishes before the main Olympiad's first round is even played. The Congress runs across the back half.

The 46th Chess Olympiad — 15 to 28 September

• 15 September — arrivals, opening ceremony, technical meeting
• 16 to 21 September — Rounds 1 to 6
• 21 September — the Bermuda Party, traditionally held on the eve of the free day
• 22 September — free day: a basketball and football match, plus a sightseeing trip around the city. Registration is required on arrival, at the information desk in your hotel
• 23 to 27 September — Rounds 7 to 11
• 27 September — closing ceremony, on the evening of the final round
• 28 September — departures

FIDE's public announcements say 15 to 27 September. The invitation's own schedule runs to the 28th, because that is when everyone flies home. Both are correct; they are answering different questions.

Round start times have not been published. The invitation gives days only. Under Article 2.6 of the regulations, FIDE is required to tell federations the opening ceremony time, the Round 1 start, the final round finish, and the closing ceremony time no later than six weeks before the opening — which puts the deadline around 4 August 2026. Any schedule you find before then is somebody's guess.

The venue

The Olympiad is played at the EXPO Center, inside the Silk Road Complex in Samarkand. FIDE also refers to the same building as the Silk Road International Exhibition Center, which is why searching for one name sometimes misses the other.

This is not an untested hall. It staged the FIDE Grand Swiss and the Women's Grand Swiss in September 2025 — the events where Anish Giri and Vaishali Rameshbabu booked their places in the Candidates — and Samarkand hosted the World Rapid and Blitz Championships back in 2023. Uzbekistan has been rehearsing this building in public for three years.

A few things the regulations pin down:

• No official hotel may sit more than a 30-minute drive from the playing venue (Article 4.9.3)
• For the duration of the event, the venue may host only the Olympiad and side events approved by FIDE's Global Strategy Commission (Article 4.9.2)
• The hall is decorated with the FIDE flag and the flags of the host and every participating nation (Article 4.9.5)

The Olympiad for People with Disabilities plays somewhere else entirely — the Silk Road by Minyoun Hotel, on Konigil massivi street.

How it's actually played

Two sections, Open and Women. Swiss system, 11 rounds in each. Teams of four players plus one reserve. Every team has a captain, who may also be one of the players and who may appoint a deputy — in writing, to the Chief Arbiter. Every federation names a Chief of Delegation, who handles administration and all dealings with the organiser. The higher-seeded team takes White on the odd-numbered boards.

At the board:

• Time control: 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, then 30 minutes for the rest, with a 30-second increment from move one
• Default time: 15 minutes. Arrive later than that and you lose the game
• No draw by agreement before Black's 30th move. The only earlier finishes permitted are threefold repetition or stalemate
• FIDE-approved electronic boards and clocks throughout
• Digital countdown screens in the playing area; the session begins on the Chief Arbiter's announcement

Scoring and silverware:

• Match points: a win scores 2, a draw 1, a loss 0. Most match points takes the section
• Hamilton-Russell Cup — the Open winner
• Vera Menchik Cup — the Women's winner
• Nona Gaprindashvili Trophy — best combined federation, decided by the lowest sum of Open place plus Women's place
• Team medals — gold, silver and bronze to every member of the top three in each section, players, reserves and captain alike
• Board medals — awarded on tournament performance rating
• Category medals — this is the one most people miss. Before Round 3, the teams in each section are divided by rating into five roughly equal categories. The best finisher in each category takes gold, excluding the top-rated team and excluding anyone who has already medalled outright. It is how a federation from the middle of the table flies home with metal

The trophies remain FIDE property. The winning federation holds custody until the next Olympiad, with the dates and the federation's name engraved on the base.

Who gets to enter

Every FIDE member federation may enter one team in each section. Affiliated members representing an autonomous territory contained within no more than one federation may also enter, subject to FIDE Council approval.

And, by a decision of the FIDE Council, a refugee team is eligible for both the Open and the Women's sections — a line in the invitation that arrived with no fanfare and deserves more attention than it got.

The deadlines

Federation-facing, in order. Two of these are walls rather than dates.

• 17 April 2026 — invitation letters sent to every national federation
• 20 April 2026 — registration opens
• 15 May 2026 — federations confirm they intend to participate
• 15 July 2026 — full squad registration: Chief of Delegation, captains and players with their FIDE IDs, accompanying persons, and all visa information. Also the last day to request a room upgrade
• around 4 August 2026 — FIDE's own deadline to publish round start times
• 15 August 2026 — accreditation closes. The invitation's wording is blunt: registrations submitted after this date cannot be accepted. Payment also falls due for anyone the organisers are not covering
• around 29 August 2026 — hotel allocations announced, within two weeks of registration closing

Two rules sit behind those dates and cost real money. Adding or swapping a delegation member later than two months before the start triggers a fee of 100 euros per person, and neither visa support nor a bed is guaranteed for that person (Article 3.6). And a federation that registers a team and then fails to turn up may be sanctioned by the FIDE Council (Article 3.5).

Beds, board, and who pays

What FIDE covers — up to 13 people per federation: five players and a captain in the Open team, five players and a captain in the Women's team, and one Chief of Delegation. Full board — breakfast, lunch and dinner — from arrival to departure. Each team gets two standard doubles and two standard singles; the Chief of Delegation gets a standard single. Hotels are 4- and 5-star, with the regulations setting four stars as the floor. Open and Women's teams from the same federation, along with their captains and Chief of Delegation, stay in the same hotel.

What you cover — everything for extra delegation members, travel and rooms both. Room upgrades, subject to availability, requested by 15 July and paid in advance. Extra nights outside the official dates, where availability cannot be guaranteed. And 100 euros per accompanying person, paid before arrival, which buys event transport and an accreditation badge for the Fan Zone and Expo area.

One detail is easy to miss inside a dense paragraph, and it matters more than its placement suggests: hotels are allocated on the basis of how your team finished at the previous Olympiad. Where you placed in Budapest in 2024 decides your address in Samarkand in 2026. Teams find out within two weeks of registration closing.

At check-in, a bank card must be provided as a deposit. Cash is accepted only in exceptional cases, pre-agreed between the federation and the Organising Committee.

Travel money

FIDE subsidises travel for federations at Development Levels 3, 4 and 5, capped per person and varying by continent:

• Africa — 1,200 euros per person, up to 14,400 for a full team
• Americas — 1,800 euros per person, up to 21,600 for a full team
• Asia — 700 euros per person, up to 8,400 for a full team
• Europe — 900 euros per person, up to 10,800 for a full team
• Oceania — 1,800 euros per person, up to 21,600 for a full team

A full team here means 12 people: Open and Women's squads of five players and a captain each.

Federations at Levels 1 and 2 may apply in exceptional circumstances — a remote location that makes tickets expensive, or a weak economy evidenced by a per-capita GDP well below the world average. The FIDE Treasurer rules case by case, at her sole discretion, and may raise any federation's subsidy on the same authority.

Visas

Uzbekistan has spent recent years simplifying entry, and for a good number of nationalities the answer is that no visa is needed at all. For everyone else:

• A passport valid for more than six months is required either way
• An e-visa is available through the official portal, usually issued for stays of up to 30 days
• Register first. The Organising Committee issues an official invitation letter on registration, and that letter supports an application at an embassy, a consulate, or online
• No Uzbek embassy in your country? A visa on arrival is available at the airport. Apply at least 15 days ahead, then email the issued file to visas@fide.com
• The same address reaches the Organising Committee's visa support team for anything unclear

Getting there and getting around

Free, provided by the organisers: transfers to and from Samarkand International Airport, the railway station and the bus station, wheelchair transport included; daily transport between the official hotels and the playing and Congress venues; transport to and from both ceremonies. Information desks operate in the airport arrivals area and at the railway station.

Not free: the leg from Tashkent to Samarkand. The Organising Committee undertakes to lay on sufficient capacity, but the cost is the participant's. This catches people out, because everything either side of it is covered.

Explicitly your problem: lost luggage. The Organising Committee disclaims responsibility and advises anyone on a connecting flight to carry essentials in cabin baggage. Report it at the Airport Help Desk and they will forward the bag to your hotel when it surfaces.

Getting in, in practice: Samarkand International Airport is served by more than 20 airlines flying to around 30 destinations across Europe, Asia and the Middle East, and handles over 1.5 million passengers a year. It sits close to the centre, a short taxi or bus ride away. The Afrosiyob high-speed train links Samarkand with Tashkent, Bukhara and Qarshi several times daily. Around town: buses, minibuses and taxis, though Registan Square, the Bibi-Khanym Mosque and Shah-i-Zinda sit close enough to walk between.

Arrival details go through the official registration portal — that is what the transfers are built from.

For the city itself rather than the tournament, our practical guide to Samarkand for visitors covers where to stay, what to see, and how the place actually works between rounds.

Practical things

• Weather — September is Samarkand's good month: 22 to 28°C by day, 11 to 15°C in the evening, dry, with very little rain. Summers here run above 35°C, so the timing is deliberate
• Money — the Uzbek som. Cards are widely accepted, especially in the cities. Notes run from 1,000 to 200,000 som. The invitation quoted roughly 14,000 som to the euro in spring 2026, but check a live rate rather than trusting a figure printed months earlier
• Power — 220V, 50Hz, plug types C and F. Standard continental European sockets. Anyone arriving from the UK, the US or Australia needs an adapter and should check their devices handle 220V
• Phone — country code +998. Operators are Ucell, Beeline, Uzmobile and Mobiuz; SIM cards are sold at the airport, railway stations, operator offices, malls and dealers
• Emergencies — 112 universal, 103 ambulance, 101 fire, 102 police. Emergency medical care is available to all visitors in Uzbekistan
• Insurance — strongly advised, covering travel and the full duration. The organisers maintain a permanent medical emergency service at the venue
• Dress code — national team kit strongly encouraged; otherwise, dress neatly
• Badges — accreditation is mandatory and should be worn at all times in the playing venue, the official hotels, and other official venues. The accreditation centre is at the playing venue

One quiet rule that gets registrations rejected: federations upload one identity photograph per participant, maximum 2 MB, vertical, 768 by 1024 pixels, strictly official-style portrait. The invitation states plainly that registrations without a suitable photograph cannot be approved. It is not a formality.

The Olympiad for People with Disabilities

The 3rd FIDE Chess Olympiad for People with Disabilities runs from 10 to 18 September, finishing before the main event's first round, in a different building — the Silk Road by Minyoun Hotel. Seven rounds of Swiss, with the same time control as the main Olympiad. Unlike the main event, its round times are published: Round 1 at 15:00 on 11 September following the 14:00 opening ceremony, Rounds 2 to 6 at 15:00 daily, and Round 7 at 11:00 on the 17th.

Qualification works nothing like the main Olympiad, and the arithmetic is worth seeing laid out. The organiser plans for up to 40 teams:

• The top three from the previous edition
• Sixteen teams — the four highest-rated federations from each continent, ranked on the average of their top five rated players with disabilities. Unrated players are assigned a provisional 1400, and only players on FIDE's official disabled players list are counted
• Twelve continental quota places, weighted by continental strength: five extra to the strongest continent, then four, then two, then one
• Three teams from IBCA, ICCD and IPCA — the blind, deaf and physically disabled chess associations
• Up to two nominated by the FIDE President, and up to two by FIDE DIS
• One or two from the host federation — two if the running total is even, one if it is odd, a parity rule that exists purely to keep the field even

Team composition differs as well: four players plus one captain-reserve, drawn from hearing-impaired, physically disabled and visually impaired players in any combination, with at least one player of each gender playing every round. Every player needs a certificate from their national health authority, scanned at registration, with the original produced at the technical meeting. Visually impaired players use talking clocks supplied by the organiser and may bring their own boards, with arbiters' assistants transferring the moves to the electronic boards.

The venue is wheelchair-accessible, and the hotel must provide at least 20 accessible rooms.

The Congress

The FIDE Congress runs from 19 to 28 September, overlapping Rounds 3 through 11. Registration closed on 15 July; later applications are at the discretion of FIDE and the organiser, and after 15 August nothing is accepted at all — except late registration of eligible Congress Delegates.

Two decisions on the agenda matter beyond the room. The General Assembly elects FIDE's leadership for the next four years, and it decides the host of the 2030 Chess Olympiad. An Educational Summit runs alongside, marking the FIDE Year of Chess in Education.

What isn't known yet

Five things are genuinely open. We are listing them as gaps rather than filling them with plausible guesses, and where FIDE has committed to a date, it is here.

1. Round start times for the main Olympiad — due from FIDE by around 4 August, six weeks before the opening, under Article 2.6
2. Which hotels are official, and which team goes where — within two weeks of registration closing, so around 29 August
3. Whether spectators can attend, and how — the documents are silent. A Fan Zone and Expo area exists, and accompanying persons get badges for it, but nothing published explains how an ordinary visitor gets through the door
4. The tie-break procedure for the Olympiad for People with Disabilities — committed to be announced by 1 August 2026
5. Main event tie-breaks in detail — specified in Appendix 2 of the regulations, not reproduced here

Where the documents disagree

Three inconsistencies run across the official documents. None is fatal. All of them will catch anyone quoting a single source.

The Olympiad dates. FIDE's announcements say 15 to 27 September. The invitation's schedule runs to the 28th and lists departures. Use 27 September for the end of play and 15 to 28 for the full period on the ground.

The Disabilities Olympiad dates. The media accreditation notice says 10 to 17 September. The invitation and the regulations both say 10 to 18, with departures on the 18th. Two documents beat one, and the schedule is explicit — use 10 to 18.

The Disabilities venue. The tournament regulations carry an unfilled placeholder where the venue name should be, a row of dashes in Article 9A. The invitation names the Silk Road by Minyoun Hotel. Use the invitation — it is the later document, and the more specific one.

None of this is remarkable. It is what happens when three documents are drafted by different hands on different timelines and published as though they were one — every large event produces the same seams. It is also the reason a page like this is worth keeping.

We will update this page as FIDE fills the gaps — round times in early August, hotel allocations at the end of it. The Samarkand 2026 hub collects everything else we publish on the 46th.

Sources

All facts on this page are drawn from FIDE's own documents, listed below. Where those documents are silent or disagree, this page says so rather than filling the gap.

• Invitation: 46th Chess Olympiad, 3rd FIDE Chess Olympiad for People with Disabilities & FIDE Congress 2026 — FIDE, 19–20 April 2026
• Regulations for the 46th FIDE Chess Olympiad, Main Competition — FIDE Handbook
• Regulations for the 3rd FIDE Chess Olympiad for People with Disabilities — FIDE Handbook
• Media accreditation announcement — fide.com, 28 May 2026
• FIDE delegation inspection visit to Uzbekistan, March 2026 — fide.com
• Official event sites: chessolympiad2026.fide.com, dis-olympiad2026.fide.com, congress.fide.com

Compiled 15 July 2026.