Valorant Season Dates 2026: When Every Act Starts and Ends

Valorant season dates in 2026: Season 2026 (also written V26) started on January 6 with patch 12.00 and is split into six Acts of roughly two months each. Act 6, the current one, began on October 13, 2026 with patch 13.08 and runs until Season 2027 opens, which should land in early January 2027.

What Valorant Act is it right now?

Season 2026 Act 6. Riot opened it on October 13, 2026 with patch 13.08, and the patch notes say it plainly: “Act 6 starts now.” It is the last Act of the year, so the next transition is not a new Act but a whole new Season, with the bigger rank reset that comes with it.

If you still think in Episodes, the translation is simple. Riot retired the Episode system in January 2025 and replaced it with a year-long Season broken into six Acts, so “Episode 10” never existed. Season 2025 was the first year on the new calendar, and Season 2026 is the second.

Valorant season dates for 2026 (all six Acts)

Every Act in 2026 started with a numbered patch, and the dates below are the dates on Riot’s patch notes. The patch rolls out region by region over about a day, so EU and Asia servers can be a few hours behind NA.

Count the gaps and you get 70, 42, 56, 56 and 56 days. Act 2 was the short one. Honestly, the eight-week Act is the norm now. Riot does not publish an official calendar in advance, which is why nobody can tell you the exact Act 7 date, sorry, Season 2027 Act 1 date, until the patch notes drop. The Battlepass timer in the client is the closest thing to an official countdown.

When does Valorant Act 6 end?

Most likely in the first full week of January 2027, when Season 2027 starts. Riot has not announced the date. The pattern is consistent though: Season 2025 opened on January 7, 2025, Season 2026 on January 6, 2026, both on a Tuesday with a .00 patch, so a Tuesday around January 5, 2027 fits.

What ends with Act 6? Your Act Rank badge locks in, the Act 6 Battlepass closes, and the Premier stage for V26 Act 6 wraps up. None of your unlocked agents, skins or Battlepass rewards go anywhere (people ask this every single Act). Your competitive rank, on the other hand, gets the Season reset treatment, which we’ll get to.

What resets between Valorant Acts?

Two different things happen, depending on which transition it is. A regular Act change (say Act 5 to Act 6) is light. Your rank carries over almost as it was, you get a new Battlepass and a fresh Act Rank, and the map pool rotates. A Season start, and the midseason point, is the heavy version with a real rank reset.

Riot set this up in patch 10.00: “competitive ranks will reset at the beginning of Season 2025 and again at a midseason moment.” The midseason reset then arrived with patch 11.00 on June 24, 2025, where Riot softened the drop and raised the maximum placement rank from Ascendant 1 to Ascendant 3. In 2026 the pattern held, with Act 1 in January and Act 4 in June as the two reset points.

So, put simply:

• Act 1 (January): Season reset, placement games, ranks pulled down before you climb back.
• Act 4 (June): midseason reset, placements again, but a smaller drop.
• Acts 2, 3, 5 and 6: no reset worth worrying about; your rank shows after your first game or so.

Rank decay? None in Valorant. Riot’s competitive FAQ answers that question with “No rank decay here, my friend”, and only the Immortal and Radiant leaderboard positions move while you’re away. Our Immortal vs Radiant guide explains how those top ranks and the leaderboard work.

What is an Act Rank and why does it matter?

Your Act Rank is the badge that shows your proven skill across a whole Act, and Riot defines it by your highest ranked win in that Act, not your current rank. Win one game at Diamond 1 in week two and drop to Platinum 3 by the end? The triangle still says Diamond 1.

That’s why the Act boundaries in the table above matter more than they look. A rank-up win on October 12 counted toward your Act 5 badge; the same win on October 13 belongs to Act 6. Funny enough, a lot of “I lost my rank” complaints at Act start are just the badge resetting to empty while the actual rank is fine.

How does a new Act change the map pool?

Every new Act swaps maps. Riot said so when it launched the Season format (“maps will rotate every Act”) and it has kept to that in every one of the twelve Acts since. Usually two maps leave and two arrive, with the odd Act that moves only one.

Act 6 brought Bind and Corrode back and benched Ascent and Split. Thing is, the swap lands on patch day with no warm-up period, so the first week of every Act is full of people walking into Bind teleporters for the first time in months. The full current pool, with what each map plays like, lives on our Valorant maps in rotation page, which we update at every Act start. To be fair, the rotation is the Act change most players actually feel, long before they notice a Battlepass tab.

Valorant season dates for 2025, for comparison

Season 2025 was the first year without Episodes. Its six Acts also started with numbered patches, and the dates below are again Riot’s patch dates.

Line the two years up and the rhythm is obvious: early January, early March, late April, late June, mid August, mid October. Act 2 of 2026 ran two weeks later than its 2025 counterpart, otherwise the calendar barely moved. For what it’s worth, that makes 2027 fairly predictable even before Riot says a word, and the one thing that did shift (Act 2 sliding from March 4 to March 17) came with a new agent, which is the usual reason an Act waits.

What else follows the Valorant season dates?

Three things ride on the same dates: the Battlepass, Premier and Agent recruitment. The Battlepass is strictly one per Act and closes when the Act does, so the Act end date is the Battlepass end date. Premier runs in stages that follow the Acts too. Patch 12.08 opened Premier Stage V26A3 with matches from May 6, 2026, a week after Act 3 began, so if you play Premier you get a short buffer after each Act start before the stage goes live. In practice that buffer is when teams re-form.

Agent recruitment events are the loose one. Miks arrived on the first day of Act 2 and Tejo on the first day of Season 2025, but Act 4 of 2026 shipped a map (Summit) rather than an agent, and Act 5 shipped neither. The catch is that Riot announces new agents only a couple of weeks ahead, so the Act calendar tells you when something might drop, not what.

Look, if you only remember one rule, make it this: the date on the patch notes is the Act date. Everything else, from the Battlepass to Premier to the map pool, hangs off it.

How do you prepare for a new Valorant Act or Season?

Finish the Battlepass first. It is the one thing with a hard deadline. Then, if you’re sitting one game from a promotion, get that Act Rank win in before the switch, because the badge locks the moment the Act ends and no amount of asking support will reopen it.

Starting on a new account? Competitive needs account level 20, and a Season start in January is the worst week to be level 12. Our guide to the fastest way to level up in Valorant covers the AP math, and if you’d rather skip the grind, our ready-made level 20+ accounts page lists what is in stock. Either way, know the Valorant season dates before you plan a climb: a push that starts two weeks before a reset is mostly wasted RR.

The full details of the current Act are in Riot’s patch 13.08 notes. Long story short, the Valorant season dates above cover everything Riot has confirmed so far, and when Season 2027 is announced, the date goes to the top of this page.

FAQ

When did Valorant Season 2026 Act 6 start?

On October 13, 2026, with patch 13.08. Riot’s notes for that patch state “Act 6 starts now.”

When does Valorant Act 6 end?

Riot has not announced the date. Season 2027 should begin in early January 2027, following the January 7, 2025 and January 6, 2026 Season starts.

How long is a Valorant Act?

About two months. In 2026 the Acts lasted 70, 42, 56, 56 and 56 days, with Act 6 expected to run close to 12 weeks.

Does your rank reset every Act in Valorant?

No. Ranks reset at the start of the Season in January and at the midseason point in June. Other Act changes keep your rank and only reset the Act Rank badge and Battlepass.

Do Valorant season dates still use Episodes?

No. Riot retired Episodes in January 2025. Each year is now one Season with six Acts, named Season 2025, Season 2026 and so on.

Do maps change with Valorant season dates?

Yes, the competitive map pool rotates at every Act start. Act 6 of 2026 added Bind and Corrode and removed Ascent and Split.