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Aug 06 When Does the Marathon Ballot Open? The Annual Pattern Aug 06 What Each Marathon Major Actually Costs to Run Aug 06 London vs New York: Which Marathon Is Harder to Get Into? Aug 05 Sydney vs Cape Town: The Two Newest Marathon Majors Compared Aug 05 Didn't Get Into the Tokyo Marathon 2027? Your Options Aug 05 When Do Tokyo Marathon 2027 Lottery Results Come Out? Aug 04 Marathon Ballot Applications Just Keep Setting Records Aug 03 The Boston Cutoff, Explained for Normal Runners Aug 02 London Marathon Good For Age, Explained Aug 01 NYC Marathon Lottery Odds: 1 in 100 and Falling
[ Wire ] · Dispatch · Aug 06

What Each Marathon Major Actually Costs to Run

There is no single true answer to "how much does it cost to run all 8 Marathon Majors," because the races publish entry fees in five different currencies and converting them into one number means picking an exchange rate that will be wrong by the time you read this. What does exist is eight clean, published figures, one per race, plus what each charges for a charity place instead of the ballot or lottery.

What does each Major charge to enter?

  • Tokyo: approximately ¥23,300 for overseas entrants, charged only if you are drawn in the lottery.
  • Boston: $260, charged on acceptance once your qualifying time or application is confirmed.
  • London: £79.99 for UK residents, £225 for international entrants, charged if the ballot succeeds.
  • Sydney: AU$280 for local entrants, AU$330 for international entrants, charged if the ballot succeeds.
  • Berlin: €205, charged only if you are drawn in the lottery.
  • Chicago: $250 for US entrants, $260 for international entrants.
  • New York: $255 for NYRR members, $315 for non-members.
  • Cape Town: R5 (about $0.30) just to apply to the ballot, with the real race fee charged only on success and not yet published.

What does a charity place cost instead?

Charity minimums run well above the standard entry fee at every Major that publishes one:

  • Tokyo: approximately ¥100,000 through the Run with Heart program.
  • Boston: $5,000 or more through the B.A.A.'s official charity partner program, the highest published minimum of the eight.
  • London: £2,000 to £3,000 via official charity partners.
  • Sydney: AU$1,500 or more via official charity partners.
  • Berlin: €1,500 or more via official charity partners.
  • Chicago: $1,750 or more via official charity partners.
  • New York: $2,500 to $5,000 depending on the charity partner.
  • Cape Town: not yet published. Charity entries opened June 26, 2026, and the minimum has not been released.

A charity minimum is a floor, not a ceiling. Most partners expect fundraising above the stated number, and it usually does not include the entry fee itself, which is often billed separately.

Which one is actually cheapest?

Within its own currency, Berlin's €205 and Boston's $260 sit near the low end of headline entry fees, and Cape Town's R5 application cost is the lowest number on this list by a wide margin, though its true race fee is still unpublished. Tokyo's ¥23,300 looks like the largest raw figure here, but yen and dollars are not directly comparable without a conversion this post deliberately skips. There is no honest way to crown one race definitively cheapest across currencies without picking an exchange rate snapshot that stops being accurate almost immediately.

Do you pay even if you do not get in?

It depends on the race. Tokyo and Berlin only charge the entry fee if you are actually drawn in the lottery, so a miss costs nothing beyond the ballot's own application terms. Boston charges only on acceptance once a qualifying time or BQS application clears. London, Sydney, Chicago and New York charge at the point of successful ballot or lottery entry, not for the act of applying itself, aside from Cape Town's separate small non-refundable application fee.

What's missing from every number above?

Flights, hotels, race-week expenses, and for many international entrants a tour operator package that bundles guaranteed entry with travel at a markup over the standalone entry fee. None of that is included here because none of it is a fixed, organiser-published figure the way an entry fee or charity minimum is.

For a total that adds up only the figures that actually parse, without an invented conversion, the Marathon Majors Cost Calculator lets you tick any subset of the 8 races and switch between entry-route and charity-route pricing, kept in each race's own currency. Every race's own page carries its current entry window: London, Tokyo, Boston, Berlin, Chicago, New York, Sydney, Cape Town.

Sources: Abbott World Marathon Majors, each race's own official registration or FAQ page as cited in this site's Majors Cost Calculator

Sources Each race's official entry page Entry fee and charity minimum figures per race from this site's majors.json, each independently sourced from the organiser's own registration or FAQ page. No cross-currency conversion is applied anywhere in this post; figures are given only in each race's own published currency.