2026 Commonwealth Games

The 2026 Commonwealth Games, officially known as the XXIII Commonwealth Games and Glasgow 2026, is a planned multi-sport event scheduled from 23 July to 2 August 2026, to be hosted in Glasgow, the largest city in Scotland, for members of the Commonwealth of Nations. This will be the fourth Commonwealth Games to be hosted in Scotland, following the 1970 and 1986 games in Edinburgh, and the 2014 Games in Glasgow.

For some time, the Games were without a host after the Australian state of Victoria withdrew, having initially been announced as the host in April 2022. On 18 July 2023, the Victorian state government cancelled its plans due to escalating cost projections. The city of Gold Coast, Queensland, briefly offered to co-host the event but later withdrew for similar reasons. With no host, there was a risk that the Games might be postponed to 2027 or cancelled entirely.

On 11 August 2024, reports surfaced that Glasgow had reached an agreement to take over the hosting rights, but the next day it was clarified that talks were ongoing with no final agreement or imminent announcement. Commonwealth Games Scotland proposed a scaled-back version of the event, featuring 10 to 13 sports and using existing infrastructure, with £100 million in funding from the Commonwealth Games Federation and an additional £30 to 50 million from commercial sources, ensuring no significant public funds would be required.

A further update on 30 August 2024 confirmed that the Games would be primarily funded by AU$200 million, secured as compensation from the Victorian government following their withdrawal. On 17 September 2024, it was announced that the Scottish government had agreed to host the games with financial backing from Commonwealth Games Australia. The scaled-down and low-cost Games will feature 11 sports taking place over four venues and no athletes' village.

The 2026 Commonwealth Games will be the first to be held since the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the accession of King Charles III as Head of the Commonwealth.

During the CGF General Assembly on 31 March 2017 in Gold Coast, after the troubled 2022 Commonwealth Games host city bid process, the executive board announced that it had planned to award both 2026 and 2030 Commonwealth Games simultaneously at the CGF General Assembly scheduled for Kigali, Rwanda in September 2019. A new model called CGF Partnerships (CGFP) was implemented which aimed to give stronger support to the associations and cities that show interests in hosting future Games and enhance the overall value of the event. This is similar to the process used by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) since 2017.

In 2015, the South African city of Durban originally won the rights to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games, but was stripped of this right in 2017 due to financial concerns. As a result, Birmingham moved up its planned Games from 2026 to 2022. This left the 2026 Games without a host and bids from Kuala Lumpur, Cardiff, Calgary, Edmonton and Adelaide were all withdrawn due to concerns over costs, with a hosting decision not made by the Commonwealth Games Federation between 2019 and 2022.

In January 2022, the Victorian State Government announced it was giving serious consideration to a late request from the CGF to host the Games. On 16 February 2022, Premier of Victoria Daniel Andrews confirmed that the state was in exclusive negotiations with the CGF to host the Games. It was stated that if successful in hosting the Games a second time, a Victorian bid would aim to emphasise the state's regional centres—such as Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo—as opposed to being predominantly Melbourne-based, such as in 2006. Bendigo had previously hosted the 2004 Commonwealth Youth Games. Acceptance of the bid would likely also be conditional upon agreement on ways to control costs, such as housing athletes and officials in hotels rather than a dedicated village. This bid was confirmed as successful on 12 April 2022.