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12:00 Didn't Get Into the London Marathon 2027? Your Options Jul 09 London Marathon 2027 Ballot Results Are Out 12:00 Why It's So Hard to Get Into a Marathon Right Now 12:00 London Marathon 2027: Two Days, 100,000 Runners 16:00 Perseverance's marathon pace: one mile every 74 days
[ Wire ] · Dispatch · Jul 10

Didn't Get Into the London Marathon 2027? Your Options

The 2027 TCS London Marathon ballot results landed by email on Thursday 9 July 2026. A record 1,338,544 people applied for the two-day Double, so most applicants woke up to a rejection. The good news: several routes into the 2027 race are still open, the fastest-moving one is open right now, and the next Major ballot opens in five weeks.

How many people missed out on London 2027?

London drew 1,338,544 applications, up 18% on the 1,133,813 world record set a year earlier. The 2027 field is the biggest ever at 100,000 runners, 45,000 on Saturday 24 April and 55,000 on Sunday 25 April 2027. London has not published how many of those places went to the ballot, and the total includes charity, Good for Age, championship and elite entries, so no honest acceptance rate exists yet. Simple arithmetic still tells the story: even if every place had gone to the ballot, more than 92% of applicants would have missed out.

The full numbers are on the London 2027 ballot results page, and the ballot simulator shows what odds like these mean over several years of entering.

Can you still get a charity place for London 2027?

Yes, and it is the most realistic route left. London runs the largest charity programme of any marathon, with more than 1,000 partner charities holding bonded places. Most big-name partners set a fundraising minimum between £2,200 and £3,000, plus a registration fee of about £100. Applications typically open within 48 hours of ballot results, and the popular causes fill in days rather than weeks, so this is a move-now route, not an autumn one. For 2027 only, charity places also include the chance to run on the Saturday.

The London charity place tracker lists 32 of the biggest partners with verified minimums and live application status.

Do you qualify for Good for Age or Championship entry?

Good for Age is UK residents only and capped at 6,000 places, split 3,000 men and 3,000 women. For 2026 the standards were sub 2:52:00 for men and sub 3:38:00 for women aged 18 to 39, rising by age group. Places go fastest-first, so hitting the published time only earns the right to apply.

Championship entry asks much faster times: sub 2:38:00 marathon or sub 1:11:30 half for men, sub 3:10:00 or sub 1:26:00 for women in 2026. It requires membership of a UK athletics club and is capped at 1,200 places.

London Marathon Events will publish 2027 criteria for both routes in the autumn.

Which marathon ballots open next?

A London rejection in July leaves a full calendar ahead. Confirmed and expected windows:

  • Tokyo 2027: entries 14 to 28 August 2026, draw 30 September. Published odds have run near 10%.
  • Sydney 2027: ballot 24 September to 17 October 2026, draw 29 October. The friendliest published odds of any Major, around 33% last cycle.
  • Berlin 2027 and Chicago 2027: windows not yet announced; both lotteries ran through the autumn last cycle.
  • New York 2027: lottery expected in February 2027.
  • Cape Town 2028: the eighth Major's ballot is expected next June, after its first ran 10 to 24 June 2026.

The Majors comparison keeps all eight entry windows side by side. London Marathon Events also points unsuccessful applicants to its sister races, Brighton, Frankfurt and Lisbon, which take entries without a ballot, and to the virtual TCS London Marathon MyWay.

When does the 2028 London ballot open?

No date yet, but the 2027 ballot ran from 24 April to 1 May 2026, so expect the 2028 window around late April 2027. Two things worth knowing before then. The draw is fully random every year and rejections do not carry over, so there is no guaranteed entry after any number of misses. And the window itself is only a week long. Free London ballot alerts exist for exactly this reason: one email when the window opens, another before it closes, and the 2028 ballot becomes impossible to miss.

Sources: London Marathon Events, Ballot Results 2027: What You Need to Know, Good for Age entry, Championship entry

Sources London Marathon Events Charity minimums verified per-charity in this site's London charity tracker (May 27, 2026); entry-route criteria from London Marathon Events pages (accessed July 10, 2026)