Your BQ buffer is the gap between your marathon time and the published Boston qualifying standard for your age group and category. Boston is the only Major with no ballot, and when more qualifiers apply than the field can hold, the B.A.A. accepts the fastest applicants first. The buffer, not the standard itself, is what usually decides who gets in.
Recent editions all cut off faster than the published standard: 4 minutes 34 seconds under for 2026, 6 minutes 51 seconds under for 2025, and 5 minutes 29 seconds under for 2024. For the 2026 race, 33,249 runners applied with a valid qualifying time, 24,362 were accepted, and 8,887 qualified applicants were turned away.
By your age on Boston race day, not your age when you ran the qualifier, using the men's or women's standards. The 2027 open standards are 2:55:00 for men 18 to 34 and 3:25:00 for women 18 to 34, with slower standards in five-year bands up the age groups.
From 2027 the B.A.A. indexes net-downhill courses. Times from courses dropping 1,500 to 2,999 feet get 5:00 added, times from courses dropping 3,000 to 5,999 feet get 10:00 added, and courses dropping 6,000 feet or more no longer count as qualifiers.
The qualifying standards are the official 2027 B.A.A. standards from baa.org, last verified July 13, 2026. Cutoff figures come from the B.A.A.'s registration announcements, archived on our Boston qualifier history pages.
A fast marathon opens doors beyond Boston: London Good for Age, Chicago's time qualifier, Berlin's fast-runner pool, and the New York and Sydney priority standards. The qualification checker runs your time against all eight Majors at once, with each race's real entry rules applied.