Women's Candidates Tournament 2026

The FIDE Women's Candidates Tournament 2026 will be an eight-player chess tournament that will determine the challenger for the Women's World Chess Championship 2026. The tournament will take place at the Cap St Georges Hotel and Resort in Pegeia, Cyprus, between 28 March and 16 April 2026. It will be held alongside the Candidates Tournament 2026.^[1][2]

It will be a double round-robin tournament. The winner of the tournament will challenge the defending Women's World Chess Champion Ju Wenjun in the title match.

The eight players to qualify will be:^[3]

In conjunction with the Open Candidates Tournament 2026, the runner-up of the previous championship match no longer automatically qualifies, unlike any previous Women's Candidates Tournament. Instead, the 2025 match is part of the FIDE Women's Events 2024–25, a new qualification path which is a circuit that includes the 2024 and 2025 World Rapid and Blitz Championships, the Grand Prix series, the World Cup and the Grand Swiss.^[4] A player's score is the sum of her highest scores in up to 5 qualifying events.^[5]

•  : Current leader – set to qualify for Women's Candidates Tournament 2026 (Next top leader if the current top player has already qualified through other route)
•  : Current World Champion – ineligible for Women's Candidates Tournament 2026 qualification
•  : Player qualified for Women's Candidates Tournament 2026 via another path
•  : Player ineligible for Women's Candidates Tournament 2026 qualification

The table is collapsed by default and can be sorted on any column.

The tournament will be an eight-player, double round-robin tournament, meaning there will be 14 rounds with each player facing each of the others twice: once with the white pieces and once with the black pieces. The tournament winner will qualify to play Ju Wenjun for the World Championship in 2026.

The time control will be 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, then 30 minutes for the rest of the game, plus a 30-second increment per move starting from move 41. Players will get 1 point for a win, ½ point for a draw and 0 points for a loss.

Tiebreaks for the first place will be addressed as follows:^[2]

• If two players are tied, they will play two rapid chess games at 15 minutes plus 10 seconds per move. If a three- to six-way tie occurs, a single round-robin will be played. If seven or eight players are tied, a single round-robin will be played with a time limit of 10 minutes plus 5 seconds per move.
• If any players are tied for first after the rapid chess games, they will play two blitz chess games at 3 minutes plus 2 seconds per move. In the case of more than two players being tied, a single round-robin will be played.
• If any players are still tied for first after these blitz chess games, the remaining players will play a knock-out blitz tournament at the same time control. In each mini-match of the proposed knock-out tournament, the first player to win a game will win the mini-match.

Ties for places other than first will be broken by, in order: (1) Sonneborn–Berger score; (2) total number of wins; (3) head-to-head score among tied players; (4) drawing of lots.