2026–2027 FIDE Women's Circuit

The 2026–2027 FIDE Women's Circuit is a system comprising the top women's chess tournaments in 2026 and 2027, which will serve as a qualification path for the Women's Candidates Tournament 2028. Players receive points based on their performance and the strength of the tournament. A player's final Circuit score will be the sum of their twelve (at maximum, subject to regulations) best results of the year.

It is the women's equivalent of the 2026–2027 FIDE Circuit (open category), succeeding the FIDE Women's Events 2024-2025.

As per regulation 2.1 of FIDE Circuit 2026–2027 Regulations, eligible tournaments are :-

• FIDE‐rated women's individual over‐the‐board standard tournaments
• World Women's Rapid and Blitz Championships, 2026 and 2027
• Continental over‐the‐board Rapid and Blitz Championships 2026 and 2027
• Women's standard national championships
• Other pre‐approved FIDE‐rated tournaments

The following tournaments must follow the criteria mentioned below, unless granted exception.

• Finish between
  • 1 January 2026 and 21 December 2027 (for national women's championships, zonal & continental women's tournaments and traditional women's open tournaments with at least 50 players)
  • 1 January 2026 and 15 December 2027 (for all other eligible tournaments)
  • Exceptions: Women's World Rapid and Blitz Championships 2027 shall be counted irrespective of the dates

• The tournament must have at least
  • 6 players with TAR of at least 2400 (for double round robin tournaments)
  • 8 players (for all other formats)
  • Exception: Women's World Chess Championship 2026 shall be considered though it has only 2 players.

• The number of rounds in the tournament must be at least
  • 4 (for knockout tournaments)
  • 7 (for all other formats)

• TAR of the eligible tournaments must not be less than
  • 2400 (If a tournament is not eligible without FIDE General Assembly approval)
  • 2300 (for all tournaments which do not require General Assembly approval)
• All the players in a tournament must represent at least 3 federations and no more than 50% of 20 highest rated players (or all players if less than 20) shall represent the same federation.
  • Exceptions: National Women's Championships and Zonal Women's Championships (if the zone represents only 1 federation
• Women's World Chess Championship 2026 shall be a recognized tournament irrespective of any of the regulations stated above.

Circuit points obtained by a player from a tournament are calculated as follows:

${\displaystyle P=B\times k\times w}$

where:

• ${\displaystyle P}$ - Points obtained by player from the tournament
• ${\displaystyle B}$ - Basic points
• ${\displaystyle k}$ - Tournament strength factor, calculated as ${\displaystyle k=(TAR-2250)/100}$
• ${\displaystyle w}$ - Tournament weighting
  • 1.0 - Standard (classical) tournaments with at most 1 multi game-day
  • 0.9 - Double Round Robin Tournaments with 6 players and classical tournaments with 2 multi-game days
  • 0.85 - Standard tournaments with 3 multi-game days
  • 0.8 - World Rapid Championship, Knockout Tournaments with fewer than 6 rounds and standard tournaments with 4 multi-game days
  • 0.75 - Standard tournaments with 5 multi-game days
  • 0.7 - Standard tournaments with 6 or more multi-game days
  • 0.6 - World Women's Blitz Championships, Continental Women's Rapid Championships and other eligible women's rapid tournaments
  • 0.5 - Mixed Rapid & Blitz tournaments
  • 0.4 - Continental Blitz Championships and other eligible blitz tournaments

If multiple weighting coefficients apply, these are multiplied together.

Basic points for a tournament are awarded depending on the tournament format:

• Swiss-system: Top 8 (within top half of ranking), ties included.
• Double round-robins 6-7 players: Top 2 with ties.
• Round-robins 8-10 players: Top 3 with ties.
• Round-robins 11-13 players: Top 4 with ties.
• Round-robins 14 players: Top 5 with ties.
• Knockout: Third round or later, up to 8 players.

Points are awarded as follows:

• 11 points for an outright winner with no tie-break criteria applied (in Knockout tournaments, victory in the Final after only the games with the longest time control have been played). Otherwise, 10 basic points will be used for calculation.
• For tied positions, basic points are calculated as 50% of points for final ranking as determined by tournament's tie-break rules, plus 50% of the sum of basic points assigned for the tied places divided by the number of tied players. If no tie-break rule is applied, basic points are shared equally among all tied players.

A player's point total for the ranking is the sum of their best 12 tournaments with the following criteria:

• If player has 11 or 12 tournaments to count:
  • No more than 7 or 8 respectively standard tournaments with the participation of less than 50 players can be counted.
  • No more than 4 rapid/blitz tournaments can be counted.
• If player has 10 tournaments or less:
  • No more than 6 standard tournaments with participation of less than 50 players can be counted.
  • No more than 3 rapid/blitz tournament can be counted.

"Open" refers to classical tournaments with 50 or more participants.

•  : Ongoing event
• M: Masters

At the end of 2027, the best player in the Circuit qualifies the Women's Candidates Tournament 2028, provided that they play in at least 8 tournaments (including at least 5 in standard time controls) and she plays at least 4 standard tournaments with participations of more than 50 players (if they played in 11 or 12 tournaments) or at least 3 standard tournament with participations of more than 50 players (if they played in 10 tournaments).^[2]

Tournament results which can't be counted for qualification for the Women's Women's Candidates Tournament 2028 are marked in   pink.

•  : Current leader – set to qualify for Women's Candidates Tournament 2028 (Next top leader if the current top player has already qualified through other route)
•  : Current Women's World Champion – ineligible for Women's Candidates Tournament 2028 qualification
•  : Player qualified for Women's Candidates Tournament 2028 via another path
•  : Player ineligible for Women's Candidates Tournament 2028 qualification