All events & mapMarathonBoston Marathon
Sport · Event guide
The 2027 Boston Marathon is scheduled for April 19. Qualifying is a separate application route, and a qualifying performance alone does not guarantee entry; official charity partners are another route to check.
01 · Event details
Timing: Monday, April 19, 2027 · published
Venue or host area: The point-to-point race corridor from Hopkinton toward Boston; use current B.A.A. runner and spectator information for exact 2027 locations.
Access: The 2027 qualifier application window has closed. A qualifying performance does not guarantee a place; the B.A.A. lists an official charity program with partner-specific terms and availability.
02 · Plan the visit
The B.A.A. reports that the 2027 qualifying process is closed and that a qualifying time is not itself a guarantee of acceptance. The official charity program is a separate route; partner requirements and remaining places vary. Check the B.A.A.'s current athlete and charity pages before booking, and do not treat an older course map as a 2027 route plan.
03 · Location
Massachusetts' capital is a compact, walkable city of narrow colonial streets, with the marathon course running from the western suburbs into Back Bay.
The airports serving Boston and its region:
Connections, terminals and transfer arrangements change — confirm them with the airline and the organiser rather than planning around a fixed transfer time.
The point-to-point race corridor from Hopkinton toward Boston; use current B.A.A. runner and spectator information for exact 2027 locations.
The catalogue marker shows Boston, United States at city or region level only — it is not an entrance, a gate, a course or a transfer route. For the event’s position among its category peers, open the Marathon overview and map.
04 · Overview
A 26.2-mile point-to-point race from Hopkinton, a small town west of Boston, through eight towns and into the Back Bay, run on Patriots' Day — the third Monday in April. About 30,000 runners start in waves from the town common and finish on Boylston Street beside the Boston Public Library. The course is net downhill but front-loaded with hills: the Newton climbs, with Heartbreak Hill at mile 20, are where the race is decided, and the last six miles are a long descent into a city crowd that has been standing there for hours.
Boston is the oldest annual marathon in the world and the only Abbott World Marathon Major that most of its field reaches through a qualifying time rather than a lottery, which makes a Boston qualifying standard the benchmark club runners train towards for years. It is also the race that invented spectator marathoning: the course runs through town centres and past college campuses, so the crowd is continuous for twenty miles rather than gathered at the finish. Winning it is treated as a career achievement even by athletes who have won Olympic medals.
The first Boston Marathon was run in 1897, a year after the Athens Olympic marathon, and the Boston Athletic Association has organised every edition since — including through both world wars. The course moved several times before 1924, when the current Hopkinton-to-Boston route was fixed, and it has kept that shape ever since. Qualifying standards were introduced in 1970 and turned an open race into a championship field; women were officially admitted in 1972, six years after Bobbi Gibb ran it unofficially. Entry is now roughly 30,000 runners, with charity places running alongside the qualifying field.
| First held | 1897 — the world's oldest annual marathon |
|---|---|
| Series | Abbott World Marathon Majors |
| Entry | Qualifying time, charity place or invitational entry |
| Course | Point-to-point, Hopkinton to Back Bay, net downhill |
| Race day | Patriots' Day, the third Monday in April |
05 · Research & credits
Evidence and event information reviewed 2026-10-31. Published edition facts are separated from typical timing and historical context.
No affiliate links. This guide is for travel planning, not a guarantee of entry or event conditions.
Related guides