Peniche, Portugal. Photo: Margarita Salyak//World Surf League
Several changes are coming to the Championship Tour in 2026. A handful of the CT’s biggest names are expected to return to action, including former world champions John John Florence, Gabriel Medina, and Stephanie Gilmore, to name a few. The WSL’s Finals Day experiment will end, with nine “regular season events” and three events down the final stretch of the season carrying a weighted points structure to determine a world champion. And the season will all end at Pipeline in December again, like many fans were familiar with before permitting disputes saw the WSL move its CT event at Pipe to the beginning of the calendar year. The league announced many of these changes to its CT format back in May. On Monday, they released the full 2026 itinerary with contest windows at each stop.
The CT returns to kicking off at Bells Beach in April and running through Easter weekend. The three-stop Australian leg will wrap up by mid-May. With the exception of October’s Surf Abu Dhabi Pro, which ran for the first time earlier this year, the 12-stop season includes waves that have regularly hosted CT contests throughout the years.
2026 Championship Tour Schedule
Stop No. 1 – Bells Beach, Victoria, Australia: April 1 – 11
Stop No. 2 – Margaret River, Western Australia, Australia: April 17 – 27
Stop No. 3 – Snapper Rocks, Queensland, Australia: May 2 – 12
Stop No. 4 – Punta Roca, El Salvador: May 28 – June 7
Stop No. 5 – Saquarema, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: June 12 – 20
Stop No. 6 – Jeffreys Bay, South Africa: July 10 – 20
Stop No. 7 – Teahupo’o, Tahiti, French Polynesia: August 8 – 18
Stop No. 8 – Cloudbreak, Fiji: August 25 – September 4
Stop No. 9 – Lower Trestles, San Clemente, Calif., USA: September 11 – 20*
Stop No. 10 – Surf Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE: October 14 – 18**
Stop No. 11 – Peniche, Portugal: October 22 – November 1
Stop No. 12 – Banzai Pipeline, Hawaiʻi, USA: December 8 – 20***
*Last regular-season event
**Start of postseason, reduced field
**Full CT fields rejoin postseason surfers to compete for Pipe Masters Titles
The league also announced format changes for the men’s and women’s fields in regular season events as well as its transition to the three postseason events in Abu Dhabi, Peniche, and on the North Shore. You can see the full breakdown of how each individual event has been tweaked, here.
