PDC World Darts Championship 2027: dates, format, bracket and schedule

The essentials in brief

The PDC World Darts Championship 2026/27 runs from 11 December 2026 to 3 January 2027 at Alexandra Palace in London, in the Great Hall for the first time. Luke Littler defends the title he won on 3 January 2026 against Gian van Veen (7-1). 128 players, £5,000,000 in prize money, full schedule below.

The essentials in six points

• Edition: the 34th PDC World Darts Championship, and the 20th at Alexandra Palace.
• Dates: starts on Friday 11 December 2026, final on Sunday 3 January 2027.
• Format: sets, all 128 players enter in the first round, 32 seeds.
• Prize money: £5,000,000, of which £1,000,000 to the winner.
• Final: Sunday 3 January 2027, first to 7 sets.
• Schedule and bracket: set out in full below, updated at the end of every session.

Dates and venue for the 2026/27 edition

The tournament begins on Friday 11 December 2026 and ends on Sunday 3 January 2027, 24 calendar days in all. The final is played in the Great Hall at Alexandra Palace in London. The dates were announced on 6 August 2026 (Sky Sports, 6 August 2026) and stand unchanged as of 28 October 2026.

This edition moves into the Great Hall after nineteen years in the West Hall of the same building. The change of room comes with a capacity raised to 180,000 tickets across the whole tournament, allocated by ballot. The categories and prices are set out in the tickets section of this guide.

Session times. The World Championship runs to two sessions a day as standard: afternoon at 12:30 GMT (13:30 in Paris) and evening at 19:00 GMT (20:00 in Paris). That was the 2026 pattern, which had 36 sessions over 20 days of play. Session times and the exact number of sessions for 2026/27 had not been published as of 28 October 2026.

Getting there. Alexandra Palace is served by Alexandra Palace railway station (National Rail) and by the Piccadilly line (Wood Green, then a bus). Door times are published with the official schedule for each session.

Format, rounds and number of players

The PDC World Darts Championship is played in sets, with 128 players and 127 matches in total. The format in force since the 2026 edition puts everyone into the first round, seeds included: the top 32 of the PDC world ranking are seeded, which keeps them apart in the first round, but they play that first round instead of being exempt. The direct consequence is 64 first-round matches every year, and no seed arriving partway through the draw.

A set is played over five legs at most, so first to 3 legs. The number of sets needed rises with each round: first to 3 sets in the first and second rounds, first to 4 sets in the third and fourth rounds, first to 5 sets in the quarter-finals, first to 6 sets in the semi-finals and first to 7 sets in the final. The final is therefore best of 13 sets.

The deciding set. In a set that has to produce the winner of the match, the tie-break rule applies from 2-2: a two-leg lead is needed to take the set and the match. If a deciding set reaches 5-5, a sudden-death leg separates the two players. Sets that are not decisive stop at 3 legs.

The order of the rounds. First round, then second, third and fourth, quarter-finals, semi-finals, final. The tournament spans 24 days with a break around Christmas, which traditionally follows the end of the second round. The 2026/27 dates for that break, and the exact spread of the rounds, have not yet been published.

Who qualifies. Three routes: the top 40 of the two-year PDC world ranking after the 2026 Players Championship Finals, the next 40 of the one-year Pro Tour ranking, and 48 international qualifying places. That makes 128 players, including the 32 seeds in the final draw.

What the tournament is worth beyond the title. The two-year world ranking. £5,000,000 of prize money enters the ranking, and the 2025 edition's prize money drops out of the calculation on the same date. The top 64 after the final keep their professional tour card for another year.

What shapes the running order. A match played in sets is a long one: the final can run to 13 sets, so up to 65 legs. First-round sessions string together several short matches, while the closing rounds offer only one or two matches per session. That is why the same tournament mixes three-match evenings with single-match evenings.

Bracket and results

The 2026/27 draw has not been made yet. No first-round draw date was scheduled as of the date of this survey. Until then the structure of the bracket is known and stable, because it follows from the format: 128 players, 64 first-round matches, 127 matches in total, one single path through to the final.

The 32 seeds are placed so that they cannot meet in the first round and land in separate eighths of the draw. The other 96 players, qualified through the Pro Tour ranking or the international circuits, are drawn against them. A theoretical bracket is therefore possible as soon as the seeds are published, before the full draw is even made.

Updating during the tournament. From the day before the start, this table switches to results mode: one row per match, with the round, both players, the score in sets and the date of the session. Scores are entered at the end of each session, and the page carries its last-updated date in the editorial footer. Before the tournament, the same table serves as the projected bracket, with the seeds and the qualifiers already known. A withdrawal or a replacement modifies the bracket: the row concerned is flagged and the update date changes. Matches not yet played stay listed without a score, never with an estimated result.

Where to find the day-by-day running order. The session-by-session schedule, with times in GMT and Paris time, is set out in the next section of this guide. Results as sessions unfold, and live scoring, belong to the live page linked from the "Where to follow the tournament live" section.

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Sources (consulted on 28 October 2026): PDC, statement of 6 August 2026 on the dates and the ballot (reported by Sky Sports on 6 August 2026); Sky News, 3 January 2026, 2026 final Littler v van Veen 7-1; Wikipedia, "2027 PDC World Darts Championship", consulted on 28 October 2026, for the format, the prize money and the split of qualification places; the 2026 edition's official schedule for the session pattern (36 sessions, 12:30 and 19:00 GMT).

Match-by-match schedule

The official 2026/27 schedule has not been published as of 28 October 2026. Two markers are fixed, though: the start on the evening of Friday 11 December 2026, and the final on Sunday 3 January 2027. In between, the session grid follows the World Championship rhythm, two sessions a day in most cases.

What is published and what is not. The dates come from the PDC's announcement of 6 August 2026: from 11 December 2026 to 3 January 2027, 24 calendar days, with a Sunday final in the Great Hall for the first time. Nothing else is fixed: not the session-by-session split, not the spread of the rounds across the calendar, not the line-up. The first-round draw has not been made, so no match can be announced in advance.

The reference pattern. The 2026 edition is the model. It had 36 sessions spread over 20 days of play: thirteen consecutive days from 11 to 23 December for the first two rounds, a three-day break around Christmas, a return on 27 December for the third round, four days of competition from 27 to 30 December, a day without a session on 31 December, then three closing sessions. Quarter-finals on 1 January over two sessions, semi-finals on 2 January in the evening, final on 3 January.

The time slots. The afternoon starts at 12:30 GMT (13:30 in Paris) and the evening at 19:00 GMT (20:00 in Paris). Two exceptions in the 2026 edition: 11 December and 17 December had a single evening session. The semi-finals started at 19:30 GMT (20:30 in Paris) and the final at 20:00 GMT (21:00 in Paris).

What the Sunday changes. In 2026 the final was played on Saturday 3 January. In 2027 it is played on Sunday 3 January: the competition week shifts by a day, and both the quarter-finals and the semi-finals change weekday. The grid below therefore applies the 2026 time slots to the official 2026/27 dates. It shows what can be planned, not what is confirmed.

One ticket, one session. The grid is there to choose what you want to watch, not just when to come. First and second round sessions string together four short matches, the quarter-finals take two sessions, the semi-finals a single evening of two matches, and the last session of the edition holds only one match. Anyone who wants to see a particular player waits for the draw before buying: before that, they can only book a slot.

What the grid does not say. The exact number of 2026/27 sessions, the final times and the spread of the rounds are not published. Once they are, this table is filled in row by row, each session getting its round, its two players and its score at the end of the session. No line-up appears before the draw, and a postponed match stays flagged as such rather than being replaced by an estimate.

TV and streaming coverage

In the UK and Ireland, Sky Sports shows the whole World Championship live, and the 2026 edition opened the new five-year deal signed with the PDC. In France, the 2026 edition was shown by L'Équipe; for 2026/27, no French rights holder had been announced as of 28 October 2026. The full list of broadcasters by country is kept up to date on our TV coverage page.

The UK, the long-standing rights holder. Sky Sports has covered the championship since the first PDC edition in 1994 and shows all of it, sessions included. The new five-year deal between the PDC and Sky Sports began with the 2026 edition, so the move to the Great Hall does not change broadcaster. Our sources do not date the previous deal; the new one is dated.

Elsewhere, the dated 2026 list. The rights split recorded for the 2026 edition covers around twenty markets: Viaplay in the Netherlands and the Nordic countries, DAZN in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy, Sport1 in Germany, VTM in Belgium, TVP Sport in Poland, Nova Sport in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Pragosport in Hungary, Arena Sport in the Balkans, Maincast in Ukraine. Outside Europe: Peacock and FanDuel TV Extra in the United States, Fox Sports in Australia, Sky Sport in New Zealand, StarHub TV in Singapore, Rigour in China, BeIN Sports in the Middle East and North Africa. That list is the 2026 edition's, not 2026/27's: it is re-checked market by market before the start.

France. L'Équipe showed the 2026 edition. For 2026/27, no French broadcaster is confirmed as of 28 October 2026. In the meantime, coverage runs through video.pdc.tv, the PDC's own service, which streams live matches, highlights and classic matches on subscription, outside the UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, where the rights sit with local broadcasters.

Time zones and replays. A 12:30 GMT session starts at 13:30 in Paris, a 19:00 GMT evening at 20:00. The 19:30 GMT semi-final falls at 20:30 in France and the 20:00 GMT final at 21:00. Replays depend on each broadcaster; the PDC archives the highlights and the standout matches itself.

What the final pulls in. The British record is the 2024 final, with a peak of 3.71 million viewers. Outside the UK, the record is German: a peak of 3.10 million and an average of 2.19 million on Sport1 for the 2025 final. Source: Wikipedia, "PDC World Darts Championship", viewing records, surveyed on 28 October 2026.

Tickets, prices and sales windows

The 2026/27 World Championship puts a record 180,000 tickets on sale, driven by the move to the Great Hall at Alexandra Palace. The dates were confirmed on 6 August 2026 and the price grid settled by the PDC on 7 August 2026. The amounts below are those charged by the official partner, recorded on 28 October 2026. They are not the See Tickets face value: that varies with the session and the seat, and is not published in our sources.

Where to buy, and where not to. Official ticketing runs through See Tickets, reachable from the PDC website. Packages with accommodation run through Sportsbreaks, the event's official partner. Those two channels are the only ones to name. A ticket bought elsewhere carries no rights at all: no guaranteed entry, and no refund if a session is cancelled.

Official resale. It happens only on See Tickets Fan-to-Fan, the platform where a holder resells their seat to another spectator. The rule is blunt but clear: resale outside the official platform leads to the tickets being cancelled. A buyer who pays on a third-party site can arrive at the door with invalidated tickets and no recourse.

The ballot, a first. The 180,000 tickets are distributed through a ballot, a draw system used by the World Championship for the first time. It changes the way you buy: demand is registered within a window, then places are drawn, and being first to your screen gives you no advantage. The ballot's opening and closing dates had not been published as of 28 October 2026.

Three sales windows. Sales run in three phases, in this order: annual PDCTV subscribers, PDC pre-sale, then general sale. Each stage widens the circle of buyers, from the subscriber to the general public. The exact dates of the three windows have not been announced: this page is updated as soon as the PDC publishes them.

Prices by session type. Recorded on 28 October 2026 with the official partner. The ranges are "from" prices: the final price depends on the seat and the session chosen.

What those prices say. A first-round afternoon starts at £133, an evening in the same round at £145, £12 more for the same day of matches. The gap widens with the rounds: £198 for a third-round evening, £249 for the semi-finals and the final, already sold out on 28 October 2026. The sessions at the end of the tournament are the dearest and the hardest to get.

Limits per buyer. Each buyer is capped at 2 sessions and 6 tickets per session. Those limits apply in every sales window: a large group cannot form around a single session and has to go through Fan-to-Fan to make up its seats.

The schedule weighs on the price. The session matters as much as the seat category. The first round lines up four matches per session, the quarter-finals spread over two sessions, and the final fills a single session. Above all, nobody can know in advance which session will host a given player: the first-round draw happens after the buying windows. A buyer who wants to see a favourite therefore books a session, not a line-up.

What is not published yet. Face values by category, the opening date of the general sale, the ballot dates and the arrangements for people with reduced mobility do not appear in the information published on 28 October 2026. Those four points are added here as soon as the PDC makes them public. Landmarks from previous editions do not carry over to the Great Hall, whose layout differs from the West Hall.

Prices and availability recorded on 28 October 2026. They move as sessions fill: a figure shown today is no commitment for the next sales window.

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Prize money and awards

The PDC World Darts Championship 2026/27 pays out £5,000,000, of which £1,000,000 to the winner. The scale published for this edition is identical, round by round, to the 2026 edition's: no figure moves, up or down.

All 128 players are paid. The prize fund is built so that a first-round defeat already brings £15,000. That threshold alone means 64 payments and £960,000, close to a fifth of the total. The winner takes 20% of the fund. Put another way, the title is worth nearly all 64 first-round defeats combined, which come to £960,000.

What each round brings. The table below reproduces the official scale published by the PDC, with the comparison to the previous edition, amount and percentage.

Where the 2025 to 2026 jump came from. The £5,000,000 total was introduced for the 2026 edition, doubling the 2025 edition's £2,500,000. The 2026/27 scale therefore carries over last year's level, with no further rise.

The nine-dart bonus. The table published for 2026/27 has no nine-dart line. The 2026 edition had one, funded by the sponsor: £60,000 to the player, £60,000 to a spectator drawn at random and £60,000 to Prostate Cancer UK for every nine-darter thrown. Whether that scheme continues is not confirmed in the documents consulted on 28 October 2026.

The title sponsor. Paddy Power, which gives the event its name, has renewed its sponsorship through 2031.

What those amounts weigh in the ranking. World Championship winnings enter the two-year world ranking and stay there for 104 weeks. At the end of the tournament, the 2026/27 edition's £5,000,000 joins the calculation while the 2025 edition's prize money leaves on the same date. A player who went deep in January 2025 is therefore playing in January 2027 against the disappearance of their own points.

Qualified players and the road to Alexandra Palace

The 128 players in the 2026/27 draw split three ways: 40 through the two-year world ranking, 40 through the one-year Pro Tour ranking, 48 through international qualifying. As of 28 October 2026, the published list names 32 of those 48 international qualifiers.

The two orders of merit, not yet settled. The top 40 of the PDC world ranking are known after the 2026 Players Championship Finals, and the next 40 of the one-year Pro Tour ranking at the same moment. Those 80 names are therefore not published as of the date of this survey. The list below covers international places only.

The 48 international places. They are won on the regional circuits and on the PDC's development tours: Development Tour and Challenge Tour, Women's Series and Women's World Matchplay, Asian Tour and the Asian Championship, the North American circuit (CDC) and the Latin American one (CDLC), Nordic and Baltic, Oceania (ADA, DPNZ, Trans-Tasman), plus the European continental qualifiers. Two changes for 2026/27: Africa has two guaranteed places for the first time, split into a North Africa qualifier and a South Africa qualifier, and the Trans-Tasman Championship becomes a fourth Oceania route.

No wildcards. The system has no discretionary invitations: every place is either a ranking or the result of a qualifying tournament. That is why players from sixteen different countries appear in the draw, with no arbitration by the organiser.

The rule that closes the door on regional qualifiers. A player who has held a Pro Tour card for more than two years, or who sits in the world's top 64, cannot use an affiliated qualifier to enter the draw (rule 3.9 of the PDC rulebook). The place then goes to the next player on the circuit concerned. That happened for the 2026 edition in North America, where the place was reassigned to the highest-ranked CDC Pro Tour player not yet qualified.

Still to be decided. The last sixteen international places are settled between 1 and 30 November 2026: PDCE qualifiers (Mediterranean, South-East Europe, Czech Republic, Netherlands and Belgium, DACH), the Polish qualifier, the China Championship, the CDC Continental Cup, the Nordic and Baltic Championship, Trans-Tasman, the South Africa qualifier, the Youth World Championship, and finally the qualifier reserved for tour card holders on 30 November. Access to the Pro Tour itself runs through Q-School in January, which hands out the two-year cards.

Entry round: since the 2026 edition, all 128 players enter in the first round, seeds included. No exemptions exist in this format.

Honours list and defending champion

Luke Littler is the defending champion. He beat Gian van Veen 7-1 in the final on 3 January 2026 with a 106.02 average, after dropping only four sets across the whole tournament. He is the fourth player in history to retain a PDC world title, and the first since Gary Anderson in 2016.

Seven winners, ten editions, few surprises. The last ten finals have crowned only seven different winners, three of them twice: van Gerwen (2017, 2019), Wright (2020, 2022) and Littler (2025, 2026). Michael van Gerwen has played five of those ten finals for two titles, and his 108.06 average in 2017 remains the highest of the decade. In those ten editions, two finals were won by the player with the lower average of the two: 2020 and 2022.

Phil Taylor, the reference outside the window. His 14 world titles remain the record, the last of them won in 2013. His final appearance in a final, in 2018, lost 2-7 to Rob Cross, is also his last at that stage.

Titles by nation. Across the 33 editions, England has 22, the Netherlands 4, Scotland 4, Canada 2 and Wales 1. The last non-British win is van Gerwen's in 2019; the last final without an English player was Price v Anderson in 2021.

What that record says about 2026/27. Littler's 2026 win ended a run of five different winners that began in 2021. He is the seventh player in history to win the title more than once, and the fourth to retain it after Taylor, Adrian Lewis and Anderson.

Players to watch

Five players, each with a dated figure to anchor them. The statistics below are World Championship ones, not current-season ones.

Luke Littler

Two titles in two years, the second at 19. His 2026 final, won 7-1 with a 106.02 average, is the third-highest average of the last ten finals. Across the 2026 tournament he lost only four sets in seven matches, with 17 maximums in the fourth round against Rob Cross (106.58 average) and a 5-0 quarter-final against Krzysztof Ratajski. He arrived in London with six major titles in 2025, the Players Championship Finals among them. Three consecutive finals between 2024 and 2026.

Gian van Veen

2026 runner-up in his first world final, beaten 1-7 but with a 99.94 average, barely three points behind the winner. He had retained his Youth World Championship title in November 2025, beating Beau Greaves in the final. He is the third Dutch player to reach a world final, after Raymond van Barneveld and Michael van Gerwen.

Luke Humphries

2024 champion, a 7-4 winner of a final in which both players averaged above 101, as in 2020. His 103.67 final average is the fourth of the decade behind van Gerwen 2017 (108.06), Cross 2018 (107.67) and Littler 2026 (106.02). He opened his 2026 campaign with a 3-1 win over Ted Evetts.

Michael van Gerwen

Three world titles (2014, 2017, 2019) and five finals in the last ten editions, for two wins. His 108.06 average in the 2017 final has not been matched since. His three lost finals came with averages of 102.88 (2020), 99.58 (2023) and 100.69 (2025), the lowest of them in 2023 against Michael Smith. Five finals in ten editions, for two titles.

Michael Smith

2023 champion with a 100.71 average in the final, after losing the 2022 final with the lower average of the two finalists (99.22). He had already lost the 2019 final to van Gerwen 3-7, with a 95.29 average.

Results from the 2026 season outside the World Championship are not part of this survey. The averages and records quoted cover the 2022 to 2026 editions of the World Championship.

Where to follow the tournament live

The World Championship can be followed live on the Darts Nerd live page, which shows scores session by session, times in GMT and Paris time, and the history of completed matches. The page is updated at the end of each session, not match by match.

What the live page gives you during the tournament. One row per match with the round, both players, the score in sets and the session. Upcoming matches stay listed without a score, never with an estimated result. In the event of a withdrawal or a replacement, the row is flagged and the update date changes in the page footer.

The schedule is separate. The session-by-session detail, with the times of each match, sits in the schedule section of this guide. The live page does not duplicate it: it follows the matches in play, or those that have just finished.

The channels. The split of broadcasters by country is covered in the TV section of this guide. In France, the question of the 2026/27 broadcaster was not settled at the date of this survey, and the 2026 detail is given there for reference.

Beyond the broadcasters. The 2026 edition was available on PDCTV, the PDC's streaming service, outside the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, where the rights sat with local broadcasters. The PDC's official accounts post scores and key moments as a complement.

What to know about the times. The World Championship's standard sessions are the afternoon at 12:30 GMT (13:30 in Paris) and the evening at 19:00 GMT (20:00 in Paris). The 2026/27 times are to be confirmed.

Frequently asked questions

When is the 2027 World Darts Championship?

The tournament runs from Friday 11 December 2026 to Sunday 3 January 2027, 24 calendar days. The start and the final were announced by the PDC on 6 August 2026. The final is set for the first Sunday of January from the 2026/27 edition onwards, which is why an edition carries two years in its name: 2026/27.

Where is the World Darts Championship held?

At Alexandra Palace in London, in the Great Hall for the first time. The tournament has been held there since the 2008 edition, but in the West Hall until the 2026 edition, nineteen years in all. The change of room comes with a capacity raised to 180,000 tickets across the whole tournament.

How do you get tickets for the World Darts Championship?

By ballot, not direct sale. Registrations open in advance, then tickets are allocated by draw. The categories, prices and sales windows are set out in the tickets section of this guide, with the date each price was recorded.

Which TV channel shows the World Darts Championship in France?

The French broadcaster for the 2026/27 edition had not been settled as of 28 October 2026. For the 2026 edition, coverage in France was provided by L'Équipe. Rights change regularly from one cycle to the next: the TV section of this guide gives the table by country and the nature of each offer, free or paid.

How much does the winner of the World Darts Championship get?

£1,000,000, or 20% of the £5,000,000 total. The runner-up gets £400,000, the semi-finalists £200,000 and the quarter-finalists £100,000. A first-round appearance alone brings £15,000, since all 128 players in the draw are paid.

How many players take part in the World Darts Championship?

128 players, for 127 matches. Since the 2026 edition, all of them enter in the first round, seeds included, which produces 64 first-round matches. The top 32 of the world ranking are protected by a draw that stops them meeting at that stage.

What is the format of the World Darts Championship?

Matches are played in sets, each set going to five legs at most. The number of sets needed rises with each round: 3 in the first and second rounds, 4 in the third and fourth, 5 in the quarter-finals, 6 in the semi-finals and 7 in the final. The final is therefore best of 13 sets. In a deciding set, a tie-break applies at 2-2: a two-leg lead is needed to close it out, and at 5-5 a sudden-death leg separates the players.

Who is the reigning World Darts Champion?

Luke Littler, winner on 3 January 2026 against Gian van Veen, 7-1, with a 106.02 average. He had already won the 2025 edition by beating Michael van Gerwen 7-3. He is the fourth player to retain a PDC world title, the first since Gary Anderson in 2016.

How do you qualify for the World Darts Championship?

Three routes: the top 40 of the two-year world ranking, the next 40 of the one-year Pro Tour ranking, and 48 international places awarded on the regional circuits and development tours. No discretionary invitations exist: every place is won in a ranking or a qualifying tournament.

Sources, method and updates.

Last revised: 28 October 2026.

Sources consulted on 28 October 2026: PDC, prize money scale and qualification structure for the 2026/27 edition; Wikipedia, "2027 PDC World Darts Championship", for the prize money, the international qualifiers, the dates and the format; Wikipedia, "2026 PDC World Darts Championship", for the honours list, the 2026 final and the nine-dart bonus; Wikipedia, "PDC World Darts Championship", for the finals since 2017 and the titles by nation.

Method: every amount, date, score and average on this page is taken from a published, dated source. Data not published at the date of this survey is flagged as such. No estimates, no rounding, no reconstructed data. The page is reviewed after every session during the tournament.