When Will the Boston 2027 Cutoff Be Announced?
Short answer: expect it in the last week of September 2026. Registration Week for the 2027 Boston Marathon closes at 5:00 p.m. ET on Friday, September 18, and in each of the last three cycles the Boston Athletic Association published the cutoff and began sending acceptance emails roughly ten to thirteen days after the window shut. The BAA itself commits only to notifying all applicants by early October, so treat any specific date as an informed expectation rather than a promise.
What the last three cycles actually did
This is not guesswork about process. The gap between the Friday close and the announcement has been remarkably consistent, and it has been shrinking slightly:
- 2024 race: registration ran September 11 to 15, 2023. Notifications began Thursday, September 28, 2023, with a cutoff of 5:29. That is thirteen days.
- 2025 race: registration ran September 9 to 13, 2024. The 6:51 cutoff, the second highest ever, was announced on September 25, 2024. That is twelve days.
- 2026 race: registration ran September 8 to 12, 2025. The BAA announced a 4:34 cutoff and 24,362 accepted qualifiers on Monday, September 22, 2025. That is ten days.
Applying the same pattern to a September 18 close puts the 2027 announcement somewhere between Monday, September 28 and Friday, October 2, 2026. The middle of that range is the sensible thing to plan around.
Why it takes about two weeks
The delay is not administrative dithering. The BAA cannot know the cutoff until it has seen every application, because the cutoff is an output, not a rule. Staff verify each submitted time against the official results of a certified marathon run inside the qualifying window, rank the verified field by buffer, and fill the qualifier allocation from the fastest buffer downward. The buffer belonging to the last runner who fits is the cutoff. Everything else, including the number you will read in the headline, falls out of that arithmetic. The step by step version is in what happens after you apply.
Two things could stretch the 2027 timeline slightly. The downhill index adjustment applies for the first time this cycle, so times from courses with a net drop greater than 1,500 feet have to be recalculated before they can be ranked. And the new random draw for qualifiers who missed the cutoff, described in the qualifier selection explainer, is an extra step between setting the cutoff and sending the final emails. Neither is large, but a few extra days would not be surprising.
What you will be told, and in what order
In recent years the public announcement and the individual emails have arrived together, or within a day of each other, and the emails have gone out in batches over two or three days. That batching is the source of most of the anxiety online: a friend hears on the Monday and you hear on the Wednesday, and in between it is easy to assume the silence means rejection. It does not. Check the spam folder and the address registered in your BAA account before concluding anything.
The announcement itself normally carries the cutoff, the number of accepted qualifiers, and the number of applicants turned away. For the 2024 race, 33,058 people applied and 11,039 were denied. For 2026, 24,362 were accepted at a cutoff of 4:34 under the standard, the first year under the tightened standards.
What to do in the meantime
Nothing, in terms of the application. Applying early in the week does not help, the field is not first come first served, and there is no queue position to improve. What is worth doing is setting your expectation honestly before the email lands. Our central estimate for 2027 is a cutoff near 5:15, give or take about 1:45, which is our estimate and not a BAA figure. If your buffer is comfortably past that, plan your spring. If it is inside the range, the sane move is to enter a backup marathon now rather than in October, and what to do if you miss the cutoff lays out the realistic options. Either way, run your time through the cutoff predictor to see how that buffer would have fared against every real Boston cutoff since 2014, which is a better guide than any single forecast.
Frequently asked questions
When will the Boston 2027 cutoff be announced?
The BAA has committed to notifying all applicants by early October 2026. Based on the last three cycles, which took ten, twelve and thirteen days after registration closed, expect the cutoff between roughly September 28 and October 2, 2026.
Does the BAA announce the cutoff before sending acceptance emails?
No. In recent years the public cutoff announcement and the individual acceptance emails have come out together or within a day of each other, with emails sent in batches over two or three days.
Why does it take two weeks to set the cutoff?
Because the cutoff is calculated, not decided in advance. The BAA has to verify every submitted qualifying time, rank the whole verified field by buffer, and fill the allocation from the fastest down. The buffer of the last runner who fits becomes the cutoff.
What if I do not get an email when others do?
Emails go out in batches over several days, so a gap of a day or two means nothing. Check your spam folder and confirm the address on your BAA account before assuming you were not accepted.