TI 2026 schedule: every confirmed stage and date in Shanghai

The TI 2026 schedule spans 13 to 23 August 2026 in Shanghai. The Swiss group stage plays across 13–16 August in best-of-three series, a rest window follows on 17–19 August, and the single-elimination main event runs 20–23 August. Daily match start times are not announced yet.

Planning your viewing around a Dota event is mostly about two things: which days have play, and roughly when each day starts. The first is locked, and you will find it laid out below. The second is still open — Valve has confirmed the stage windows but not the hour-by-hour The International 2026 schedule, so anyone publishing exact match times right now is guessing. We would rather hand you a calendar you can trust than a precise-looking grid that turns out wrong.

The full TI 2026 schedule at a glance

Here is The International 2026 schedule in the simplest form: stage, dates, and format. Keep in mind that the group phase is dense — three days of best-of-three series compress a lot of Dota into a short window — while the playoff days are fewer but carry far higher stakes. The table below is the whole event on one screen.

The shape is worth reading before you commit your evenings. The Dota 2 TI schedule front-loads volume in the group stage and back-loads drama in the playoffs. What looks gentle on paper — three group days, three playoff days — hides how much can swing on a single best-of-three once elimination starts, so the back half is the part you protect.

Reading the TI schedule day by day

The opening four days are where the field gets sorted. Because the format is Swiss, the TI schedule does not split teams into fixed groups; instead they are paired by record, so the matchups sharpen as the days pass and the standings firm up. By the end of the group block you know who carried momentum into the bracket and who scraped through on the final day.

The playoff weekend is the part most casual viewers circle on the calendar. After the break, the TI 15 schedule shifts into single-elimination, which means every series can end a team's run. That TI 15 schedule caps with the grand final on the 23rd, and the international Dota 2 schedule treats that day as the centrepiece of the whole event. If you can only clear your evenings for a few days, the 20th through the 23rd is the stretch to protect.

• 13–16 Aug: Swiss rounds — best-of-three, field gets seeded.
• 17–19 Aug: break window — no official play listed.
• 20–23 Aug: playoff bracket — single-elimination through the grand final.

What the TI 2026 start date does and doesn't tell you

The TI 2026 start date is 13 August, and that is the anchor everything else hangs on. Lock that TI 2026 start date in first, because what it does not tell you is the exact local time the first series goes live — that has not been published. The International 2026 date you should mark is that 13 August opener; every window after it follows from there. For a Filipino audience the practical upside is the venue clock: Shanghai is effectively on our time, so when those daily times land, expect comfortable afternoon and evening slots rather than overnight.

Treat any TI game schedule floating around with exact kickoff times as unofficial for now, and be just as wary of any precise the international schedule that claims hour-by-hour windows. The one firm TI 2026 date is that 13 August opener; the rest of the international schedule is dates-only until Valve releases the broadcast plan. We will publish the daily TI schedule today only once that plan exists, and our tournament hub tracks any calendar change as it is announced.

How the dates connect to the rest of the event

The schedule only makes sense alongside who is playing and how the bracket fills. Once you have The International 2026 date locked, the next question is which teams occupy it — and that field is still being finalised through the regional routes our road to Shanghai page tracks region by region. After the group phase ends on 16 August, the seeding it produces flows straight into the standings and bracket tracker, so those two pages are the natural next reads once you have the dates down.

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