The 2022 Candidates Tournament was an eight-player chess tournament to decide the challenger for the World Chess Championship 2023. The tournament took place at the Palacio de Santoña in Madrid, Spain, from 16 June to 5 July, 2022, with the World Championship finishing in April 2023. As with every Candidates tournament since 2013, it was a double round-robin tournament.

The eight qualifiers were Ian Nepomniachtchi, Teimour Radjabov, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Alireza Firouzja, Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura, Richárd Rapport, and Ding Liren. Sergey Karjakin was originally a qualifier, but was disqualified for breaching the FIDE Code of Ethics after publicly expressing approval of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Karjakin was replaced by Ding, the highest-rated player who had not yet qualified.

Nepomniachtchi won the tournament undefeated with a round to spare and the highest score in any Candidates tournament since the modern format was introduced in 2013. This made him one of five players to win consecutive Candidates, the others being Vasily Smyslov, Boris Spassky, Viktor Korchnoi, and Anatoly Karpov. (Of these, only Smyslov and Nepomniachtchi achieved this when the Candidates were organised as a tournament, rather than a series of matches.) Ding ended up in second place, having pulled off a last-round victory against Nakamura who failed to hold the game to a draw that would have seen him finish in second place instead.

Nepomniachtchi was scheduled to play a match against Magnus Carlsen for the World Chess Championship. But after the tournament, Carlsen confirmed that he would not play, which he already had announced as likely after the World Chess Championship 2021. Instead Nepomniachtchi played Ding, the second-place finisher, for the world championship.

The qualifiers for the Candidates Tournament were:

Teimour Radjabov had qualified for the previous Candidates Tournament, which was scheduled to begin on 17 March 2020 in Russia. With the COVID-19 pandemic rapidly spreading around the world in early 2020, Radjabov privately asked FIDE to postpone the tournament. FIDE refused to do so, so Radjabov withdrew on 6 March 2020. The tournament began on time, but after one week of play (half the matches completed) FIDE suspended the tournament anyway, citing public health restrictions imposed by the Russian government due to the pandemic. With his concerns vindicated by the events, Radjabov called for his reinstatement into the 2020 tournament once it was rescheduled. FIDE again refused Radjabov's request, instead offering him a direct entry into the 2022 Candidates, which he accepted. The 2020 Candidates was not completed until April 2021.

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Sergey Karjakin made numerous public statements praising the invasion, and shared Russian-government statements about the military action, which many commentators viewed as propaganda. In March 2022, the FIDE Ethics and Disciplinary Commission ruled that Karjakin had breached the FIDE Code of Ethics with his statements, so banned him from playing FIDE-related tournaments for a period of six months, including the 2022 Candidates Tournament.

Karjakin had 21 days to appeal, though he was unrepentant and said he did not see any point in doing so. Nevertheless, the Chess Federation of Russia filed an appeal on his behalf. On May 6, FIDE's Appeal Chamber upheld the decision. Karjakin had the option of a further appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, but none was submitted before the Candidates Tournament started.