What Is the Easiest Marathon Major to Get Into?
Sydney is the easiest Marathon Major to get into through a ballot, accepting roughly 32.5% of applicants for its 2026 race, the best published odds of the eight. But Boston sidesteps the odds question entirely: there is no lottery to lose, only a qualifying time to beat, which plenty of runners find more achievable than any draw.
Which Major has the best ballot odds?
Sydney, by a wide margin among races that publish a rate. Ranked most to least forgiving:
1. Sydney: roughly 32.5% (2026 ballot, down from about 44% in 2025) 2. Chicago: roughly 25% (this site's estimate, field against applicants; Chicago Event Management does not publish an official rate) 3. Berlin: roughly 20% (published rate; SCC Events does not release application totals) 4. Tokyo: roughly 10% (published rate, steady across recent editions) 5. London: roughly 1.3% (last published rate; the record 2027 draw did not get one) 6. New York: roughly 1% (2026 non-guaranteed drawing)
Cape Town has never published an acceptance rate for either of its two ballots so far, so it cannot be ranked. Full sourcing sits on each race's own ballot history page.
Does "easiest" mean "easy"?
No. Even Sydney's 32.5% means roughly two out of three applicants miss, and the trend is worsening: Sydney's own rate fell 27% year over year as applications jumped 56% to more than 123,000 for a 40,000-place field. Every Major that publishes a rate has seen demand climb, so "easiest" here means best odds among a set of races that are all, to varying degrees, hard to get into.
Is Boston easier than entering a ballot?
For a specific kind of runner, yes. Boston runs no ballot at all: hit the age-graded qualifying standard inside the B.A.A.'s entry window and there is nothing left to luck. That trades a random draw for a training block, which is a different kind of hard, not an easier one, but it removes the lottery entirely. Starting with the 2027 race, the B.A.A. also added a random draw for roughly 1,000 spots among qualifiers who beat their standard but missed the cutoff, covered in Boston's new 2027 lottery. Runners who can already hit their standard get in with certainty; runners who cannot are shut out regardless of luck.
What about Cape Town?
Unknown. Africa's newest Major has run two ballots since its 2025 debut and published an acceptance rate for neither. Roughly two-thirds of its field stays reserved for African-passport runners, which likely shapes the odds for applicants elsewhere, but nothing is confirmed. Check the Cape Town ballot page as more data publishes.
So which is actually easiest?
If odds are the only variable you can influence, Sydney. If a certified time is more within your control than a lottery result, Boston. Everyone else sits somewhere between the two: apply to the ballot Majors and treat the better-odds races (Sydney, Chicago, Berlin) as the higher-probability bets. The Marathon Ballot Simulator models how each race's published rate compounds across multiple entry years, which matters more than a single year's odds for anyone planning to keep applying. Each race's own page tracks the current cycle: London, Tokyo, Boston, Berlin, Chicago, New York, Sydney, Cape Town.
Sources: Abbott World Marathon Majors, Sydney 2026 ballot results, Chicago 2026 ballot results, Berlin 2025 race recap, Tokyo 2026 ballot results, London 2027 ballot results, New York 2026 drawing results, Cape Town 2027 ballot page