Professional sumo runs on a fixed calendar. There are six tournaments a year, always in the odd-numbered months, each 15 days long, and each starting and ending on a Sunday. The Japan Sumo Association publishes the sumo tournament schedule years ahead — the dates now run to November 2028 — together with the two dates that decide every trip: the day tickets go on sale, and the day the rankings come out. This guide gives you all three years, both of those dates for every tournament, and what happens in the months with no tournament at all.
📖 What you’ll learn
- Every Grand Sumo tournament date for 2026, 2027 and 2028
- Which city and venue hosts each of the six tournaments
- When tickets go on sale — and why the rankings come out after you buy
- Which of the 15 days is worth choosing, and what time the day runs
- Where to see sumo in the even-numbered months, when no tournament is on
The Grand Sumo tournament schedule: six basho a year
The Grand Sumo tournament schedule is fixed. Six tournaments are held each year, in January, March, May, July, September and November. Each runs 15 days, Sunday to Sunday. Three are held in Tokyo and one each in Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka. The Association confirms the dates roughly two years in advance.
One point of vocabulary first, because it trips up a lot of English searches. A basho is a tournament, not a wrestler. The full term for the six ranked tournaments is honbasho, and the Association’s English pages render it as “Grand Sumo Tournament.” When a result talks about the Aki basho, it means the September tournament in Tokyo.
The even-numbered months hold no tournament at all. February, April, June, August, October and December are given over to regional tours, training and, in December, the run-up to the January tournament. If you are planning a trip around sumo, that is the first thing to check: half the year has no ranked sumo in it.
Q. When is the next sumo tournament?
A. The September 2026 tournament runs from September 13 to September 27 at the Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo, and its ranking sheet was published on August 31, 2026. Every day of it is sold out, and the official ticket site states there will be no same-day sales. The next tournament after it opens in Fukuoka on November 8, with tickets released on September 19, 2026.
The full schedule for 2026, 2027 and 2028
Here are all 18 Grand Sumo tournaments the Association has scheduled, with the ticket and ranking date for each.
| Tournament | First day – final day | City and venue | Advance tickets on sale | Banzuke released |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | ||||
| January | January 11 – 25 | Tokyo — Ryogoku Kokugikan | December 6, 2025 | December 22, 2025 |
| March | March 8 – 22 | Osaka — EDION Arena Osaka | February 7, 2026 | February 24, 2026 |
| May | May 10 – 24 | Tokyo — Ryogoku Kokugikan | April 4, 2026 | April 27, 2026 |
| July | July 12 – 26 | Nagoya — IG Arena | May 16, 2026 | June 29, 2026 |
| September | September 13 – 27 | Tokyo — Ryogoku Kokugikan | August 8, 2026 | August 31, 2026 |
| November | November 8 – 22 | Fukuoka — Fukuoka Kokusai Center | September 19, 2026 | October 26, 2026 |
| 2027 | ||||
| January | January 10 – 24 | Tokyo — Ryogoku Kokugikan | December 5, 2026 | December 21, 2026 |
| March | March 14 – 28 | Osaka — EDION Arena Osaka | February 6, 2027 | March 1, 2027 |
| May | May 9 – 23 | Tokyo — Ryogoku Kokugikan | April 10, 2027 | April 26, 2027 |
| July | July 11 – 25 | Nagoya — IG Arena | May 15, 2027 | June 28, 2027 |
| September | September 12 – 26 | Tokyo — Ryogoku Kokugikan | August 7, 2027 | August 30, 2027 |
| November | November 14 – 28 | Fukuoka — Fukuoka Kokusai Center | September 18, 2027 | November 1, 2027 |
| 2028 | ||||
| January | January 9 – 23 | Tokyo — Ryogoku Kokugikan | December 4, 2027 | December 24, 2027 |
| March | March 12 – 26 | Osaka — EDION Arena Osaka | February 5, 2028 | February 28, 2028 |
| May | May 14 – 28 | Tokyo — Ryogoku Kokugikan | April 8, 2028 | April 24, 2028 |
| July | July 9 – 23 | Nagoya — IG Arena | May 20, 2028 | June 26, 2028 |
| September | September 10 – 24 | Tokyo — Ryogoku Kokugikan | August 5, 2028 | August 28, 2028 |
| November | November 12 – 26 | Fukuoka — Fukuoka Kokusai Center | September 16, 2028 | October 30, 2028 |
Four things are worth reading out of that table before you book anything.
The shape never varies. Across all 18 tournaments listed, the first day is a Sunday, the final day is a Sunday, and the gap between them is exactly 15 days. A tournament always contains three weekends, counting the two Sundays at either end.
Advance tickets always go on sale on a Saturday, at 10:00 a.m. Japan time. The lead time is not constant, though. It runs from 29 days before the first day, for the March 2027 tournament, to 57 days for July 2027. The Nagoya tournament in July is consistently the earliest on sale of the six, at roughly eight weeks out.
The banzuke — the ranking sheet that sets who fights, and whether they fight at all — comes out 13 days before the first day in 13 of the 18 tournaments listed, and on a Monday in 16 of them. The exceptions cluster in winter: the January tournaments release their sheets around 20 days early to clear the New Year holidays, and the sheet for January 2028 lands on Friday, December 24, 2027.
And the schedule is genuinely long-range. At the time of the September 2026 tournament, the Association had already fixed dates through the November 2028 tournament, which opens on November 12, 2028. A trip can be planned around a published date more than two years out.
Q. How far in advance are sumo dates confirmed?
A. About two years. The Association’s official schedule page carries three calendar years at a time, with venues, first and final days, ticket release dates and ranking release dates for each tournament. Dates that far out are firm enough to book flights around, though venues do change at longer notice, as Nagoya’s move to IG Arena in 2026 showed.
Where each basho is held, month by month
Tokyo takes January, May and September; Osaka takes March, Nagoya takes July, and Fukuoka takes November.
| Month | Traditional name | City | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | Hatsu Basho | Tokyo | Ryogoku Kokugikan |
| March | Haru Basho | Osaka | EDION Arena Osaka (Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium) |
| May | Natsu Basho | Tokyo | Ryogoku Kokugikan |
| July | Nagoya Basho | Nagoya | IG Arena |
| September | Aki Basho | Tokyo | Ryogoku Kokugikan |
| November | Kyushu Basho | Fukuoka | Fukuoka Kokusai Center |
Tokyo hosts three of the six — January, May and September — all at the Ryogoku Kokugikan, the Association’s own arena in the east of the city. That is why a search for a Tokyo Grand Sumo tournament has three possible answers, and why Tokyo is the easiest city to build a trip around.
The other three travel. March goes to the EDION Arena Osaka, and this is the one English-language listings most often get wrong: the spring tournament is the March tournament in Osaka, not the May tournament in Tokyo, whatever the weather suggests. July belongs to Nagoya, which moved to the newly built IG Arena for the 2026 tournament. November goes to the Fukuoka Kokusai Center, which is why you will see it called both the November tournament and the Kyushu basho.
Q. Which sumo tournaments are held in Tokyo?
A. January, May and September, all at the Ryogoku Kokugikan in the east of the city. The other three are in Osaka in March, Nagoya in July and Fukuoka in November. Eight months of the year, Tokyo has no ranked sumo on at all, so the month you visit decides whether you see a tournament there.
The two dates before every basho: tickets, then the rankings
Tickets go on sale about five weeks before the first day. The ranking sheet appears 13 days before it. That order is the single most useful thing to understand about the sumo calendar, because it means you buy your seat before you know who is fighting.
The gap is not a small one. When advance tickets for the September 2026 tournament were released on August 8, the sheet naming which wrestlers would be in the top division was still three weeks away; it was published on August 31. Withdrawals are later still, and are announced during the tournament itself. Choosing a day because a particular yokozuna is on the card is not something the schedule allows you to do.
What the schedule does allow is buying early, which matters more than it sounds. The September 2026 tournament sold out on every one of its 15 days, and the official ticket site stated plainly that no tickets would be sold at the door. Seats for the Tokyo tournaments are the hardest of the six to get.
Two practical notes for visitors from abroad. Purchases on the official English site are credit card only, with a service fee of ¥2,000 (approx. US$13) per ticket, and the tickets are collected from a Seven-Eleven store inside Japan rather than printed at home. Prices at the Kokugikan in September 2026 ran from ¥3,500 (approx. US$23) for a weekday chair seat in the highest tier to ¥60,000 (approx. US$400) for a weekend box seating four. The full breakdown of seats and sites is in our guide to buying sumo tickets, and the ranking sheet itself is explained in sumo rankings.
Q. How early do sumo tickets sell out?
A. For Tokyo, assume the release day itself. All 15 days of the September 2026 tournament sold out in advance, with no same-day tickets offered. Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka are easier, and weekdays in the first week are easier again. Tickets are released on a Saturday at 10:00 a.m. Japan time, five to eight weeks before the first day.
Which of the 15 days should you choose?
Take a weekday in the first week if you want it cheap and calm, and the closing Sunday if you want the championship decided in front of you. Three days carry names, and all three fall on a weekend. Day one is shonichi, the opening Sunday. Day eight is nakabi, the middle day, which is also always a Sunday. Day 15 is senshuraku, the closing Sunday, when the championship is settled and the prizes are handed over. Those three sell first and cost the most.
Weekdays cost less — at the Kokugikan the same chair seat was ¥3,500 on a weekday and ¥4,000 at a weekend in September 2026 — and the hall is quieter in the first week. That is a fair trade if this is your first tournament and you would rather see the ring than the back of someone’s head.
The day itself is long. At the September 2026 tournament the doors opened at 8:45 a.m. on most days, with the lowest divisions fighting to a nearly empty hall through the morning. The top-division bouts start around 2 p.m., and the last bout of the day is at about 6 p.m. One ticket covers the whole card. Doors open later towards the end of a tournament — 10:30 a.m. on days 13 and 14 in September 2026, and 10:00 a.m. on the final day — because the lower divisions, whose wrestlers fight seven times across the 15 days, have fewer bouts left to get through.
Q. What time should I arrive at a sumo tournament?
A. Around 2 p.m. if you want the top division, which is when the hall fills up. Arrive at opening — 8:45 a.m. on most days of the September 2026 tournament — if you want to see the lower divisions and walk around a half-empty arena first. The last bout is at about 6 p.m. either way, and a ticket covers the whole day.
Between the tournaments: the jungyo tour calendar
Sumo does not stop in the even months. Between tournaments the wrestlers travel on jungyo, regional exhibition tours that take the top divisions to towns with no arena of their own. The bouts do not count towards any ranking, which is part of why they are worth seeing: the hall is smaller, the mood is lighter, and wrestlers who are unreachable at the Kokugikan sign autographs and pose for photographs.
| 2026 tour | Dates | Route |
|---|---|---|
| Spring tour | March 29 – April 2026 | Kansai, Hokuriku, Tokai and Kanto — 20-plus one-day events, opening with a ceremonial tournament at Ise Shrine |
| Summer tour | August 2 – 30, 2026 | Northern and eastern Japan, between the Nagoya and September tournaments |
| Autumn tour | October 6 – 25, 2026 | Twenty stops from Tsukuba in Ibaraki down to Ube in Yamaguchi, ending two weeks before the November tournament in Fukuoka |
The autumn tour of 2026 shows how the calendar is stitched together. It opened at Tsukuba in Ibaraki on October 6, worked west through Kanazawa, Kyoto, Osaka and Hiroshima, and finished at Ube in Yamaguchi on October 25 — two weeks and a few hundred kilometres from the Fukuoka Kokusai Center, where the November tournament began on November 8. The tour is not a detour from the schedule. It is the road to the next tournament.
A tour day is shorter than a tournament day, and starts earlier. According to the Japan Sumo Association, gates open at 9:00 a.m., the lower divisions train through the morning, the bouts proper begin at 11:30 a.m., the top-division and yokozuna ring-entering ceremonies are held at 1:00 p.m., and the bow-twirling ceremony closes the day at about 2:30 p.m.
Q. Can you watch sumo outside the tournament months?
A. Yes, on the regional tours. In 2026 the Association ran a spring tour from late March, a summer tour from August 2 to 30, and an autumn tour from October 6 to 25, each a series of one-day events in a different town. The bouts are exhibitions and do not affect the rankings, and each tour schedule is published on the Association’s site a few months ahead.
Summary
- Six tournaments a year, in January, March, May, July, September and November. No ranked sumo in the even months.
- 15 days, Sunday to Sunday, every time — in all 18 tournaments scheduled for 2026 through 2028.
- Three in Tokyo — January, May and September at the Ryogoku Kokugikan — plus Osaka in March, Nagoya in July and Fukuoka in November.
- Tickets go on sale on a Saturday, five to eight weeks before the first day. The ranking sheet follows 13 days before it, so you buy before you know the field.
- Tokyo sells out. All 15 days of the September 2026 tournament went in advance, with no same-day sales.
- The even months belong to the tours. The 2026 autumn tour ran through 20 towns, from Ibaraki to Yamaguchi, on the way to Fukuoka.
Related guides: How to buy sumo tickets · Ryogoku Kokugikan · Sumo rankings and the banzuke · What is sumo?
A calendar this fixed is unusual in professional sport. The same six months, the same four cities, the same 15 days beginning on a Sunday, published two years out and rarely moved. It means the planning runs the other way round from most trips: you do not wait to hear when sumo is on, you pick a date and the sport will be there. What you cannot know in advance is who will be standing on the clay when you arrive — and that, by the design of the calendar, is settled 13 days before you walk in.
