How Long is League of Legends Maintenance
League of Legends maintenance on patch day usually takes a few hours per server. Riot’s status notices for recent patches follow one pattern: ranked queues close about 90 minutes before shutdown, then the game is offline for an estimated 3 hours. Emergency maintenance is unplanned and its length varies. The exact window for your server is always posted on Riot’s status page.
How long is League of Legends maintenance?
Plan for about three hours of downtime on a normal patch day, and a little more if you count the ranked shutdown before it. That figure is Riot’s own estimate, not a guess: the NA notice for patch 14.13 (June 26, 2024), for example, disabled ranked at 01:30 PDT, took servers down at 03:00 PDT and listed an expected unavailability of 3 hours. Older notices, back to patch 12.21 in 2022, used the same 01:30 and 03:00 times.
Three hours is an estimate. Sometimes servers come back early, and sometimes a problem found during deployment stretches the window, which Riot then updates on the status page as it goes. Long story short, the posted end time is a target, not a promise.
Each server patches on its own schedule, early morning in its own time zone, so EUW, NA and OCE are never down at the same moment. If you play on EUW from Europe, the maintenance mostly happens while you sleep (which is the whole point).
When does League of Legends maintenance happen in 2026?
On patch days. Riot ships League patches roughly every two weeks, usually on a Wednesday Pacific time, and the maintenance comes with them. The rest of the 2026 schedule, from Riot’s official patch schedule page:
| Patch | Release date |
|---|---|
| 26.21 | October 21, 2026 |
| 26.22 | November 4, 2026 |
| 26.23 | November 18, 2026 |
| 26.24 | December 9, 2026 |
Riot says patch dates can move at any time, and that if a patch is delayed within 48 hours of its date, an alert goes at the top of that page. So check it a day or two before you plan a late-night ranked session around a patch.
A few dates break the Wednesday rhythm. In 2026, patches 26.01, 26.02, 26.04 and 26.18 landed on a Thursday, and the gap around midsummer and the end of the year is longer than two weeks. Small things, but they catch people out.
What happens during League of Legends maintenance?
It goes in stages, and knowing them saves you from losing LP.
- A banner appears in the client a while before maintenance starts, giving the times for your server.
- Ranked queues close first. In the notices quoted above that is 90 minutes before shutdown, long enough for most started games to finish.
- Servers go offline. Any game still running when the shutdown hits ends, and you can’t log in or start a new match.
- The patch deploys and Riot tests it.
- Servers return, often with ranked queues opening a little after normal games.
Then comes the download. The Riot Client has to pull the new patch before you can play, so the first minutes after maintenance are spent watching a progress bar. That’s normal.
Why does ranked close so early? Because a ranked game cut off by a shutdown is a mess for LP, and 90 minutes covers almost every game that started before the cutoff. Normals and ARAM keep running until the servers actually go down, so there is often time for one more ARAM (just don’t start it at 02:55).
How long does emergency maintenance take?
There’s no standard length. Emergency maintenance happens when something breaks badly enough that Riot has to act right away: a game-breaking bug, an exploit, a login problem, a store issue. Some fixes need a short restart, others take hours.
The catch is that you get little or no warning. Sometimes only one system goes down, ranked or the store, while the rest of the game keeps working, which can make it look like your own client is broken. Honestly, the fastest way to tell the difference is the status page: if Riot lists an incident for your server, nothing on your side needs fixing.
Is it maintenance or an outage?
From the login screen they look the same, but Riot treats them differently, and so should you. Maintenance is planned: it has a banner in the client hours ahead, a start time and an expected end time. An outage (Riot calls it an incident) is unplanned, shows up on the status page with a short description such as login or matchmaking problems, and gets updates as Riot works on it.
Then there is the third case, the one nobody likes to hear. If there is no maintenance and no incident listed for your server, but you still can’t connect, the fault is somewhere between your PC and Riot: the client, your router, your provider. In that situation waiting doesn’t help. Restarting the Riot Client and the router fixes more of these cases than people expect, and if your games load but feel laggy, our LoL ping test shows whether the connection to your server is the weak spot.
How do you check if the servers are back up?
Use Riot’s official service status page. Pick League of Legends and your server, and it shows active maintenance with start and expected end times, plus any open incidents. The same notices appear in the Riot Client.
Our own LoL server status checker reads Riot’s status data for every region on one page, which is handy if you play on two servers or want to see whether a problem is everywhere or only on yours.
If the status page says everything is up and you still can’t get in, the problem is probably on your side. Our guide on LoL login issues covers the usual suspects, and if the client won’t launch at all, go through League not opening fixes instead.
What time is NA maintenance in other time zones?
NA times confuse a lot of players outside America, because “03:00” in a Riot notice means Pacific time. During summer time that is UTC-7, so the times from the notices above convert like this:
| Event | Pacific (PDT) | UTC | Central Europe (CEST) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ranked queues close | 01:30 | 08:30 | 10:30 |
| Servers go offline | 03:00 | 10:00 | 12:00 |
| Expected return (about 3 hours) | 06:00 | 13:00 | 15:00 |
In winter, Pacific time moves to UTC-8, so add one hour to the UTC column and adjust your local time the same way. Put simply: if you live in Europe and play on NA with friends, patch-day maintenance falls in your late morning and early afternoon, not at night. Always take the actual hours from the notice for that patch, because Riot can shift them.
Does League of Legends maintenance affect TFT and Valorant?
TFT, yes. Teamfight Tactics lives inside the League client and patches on the same days, so when League goes down for a patch, TFT goes down with it.
Valorant is separate. It runs on its own servers with its own patch schedule, so League maintenance does not stop you from playing Valorant, and the reverse is true too. Check our Valorant server status page if both games seem to be failing at once; that usually points to the Riot Client or your connection rather than to any game’s maintenance.
Small hotfixes are a different story. Riot often pushes a mid-patch balance change without taking servers offline, so you just see a short download the next time you open the client (no downtime, no warning banner).
What should you do before patch day?
Not much, to be fair. A few habits help on patch days:
- Finish ranked before the queue closes rather than gambling on the last 15 minutes.
- Leave the Riot Client open overnight if your PC stays on; it can start downloading the patch as soon as it’s live.
- Free some disk space, since big patches need room to unpack.
- If you play in the hours right after a patch, expect a busy queue and the odd hotfix in the following days.
Patch day also changes the game itself: new balance, sometimes new items or a new champion, so your favourite build may not be the same after the downtime. Is it worth playing ranked the first evening after a big patch? Some people love the chaos. Others wait a day for the hotfix, and they’re not wrong.
For what it’s worth, maintenance downtime is also the best time to check what changed, because the patch notes go up on the League site before servers return. Then, once League of Legends maintenance ends on your server, check the status page once more and queue up.
FAQ
How long does League of Legends maintenance usually last?
Patch-day maintenance usually lasts about 3 hours per server, based on Riot’s own estimates in status notices, with ranked queues closing about 90 minutes before servers go down.
Why are ranked queues disabled before maintenance?
So that ranked games can finish before servers shut down. A ranked game cut off by maintenance would be unfair for LP, so Riot closes ranked first while normals keep running.
How often does League of Legends have maintenance?
Planned maintenance comes with each patch, roughly every two weeks, usually on a Wednesday Pacific time. Emergency maintenance happens only when something breaks.
When is the next League of Legends patch?
Patch 26.21 is scheduled for October 21, 2026, followed by 26.22 on November 4, 26.23 on November 18 and 26.24 on December 9, per Riot’s patch schedule.
Are all servers down for maintenance at the same time?
No. Each server patches separately, usually early in the morning in its own time zone, so EUW, NA and OCE have different maintenance windows.
Where can I see if League of Legends is down?
On Riot’s service status page at status.riotgames.com, or in the Riot Client, which shows the same maintenance and incident notices.
