New York City Marathon qualifying times

New York Road Runners publishes a single table of time standards for the 2027 TCS New York City Marathon, and then attaches two very different outcomes to it depending on where you ran the time. This is the distinction that decides whether your qualifying time is a ticket or a raffle entry, and it is the part most pages leave out.

NYRR time qualifier. Meet the standard at an eligible in-person NYRR marathon or half marathon inside the qualifying window and you get guaranteed, non-complimentary entry. Times run at NYRR races appear in your NYRR dashboard automatically; you claim the entry during the claim period. The eligible races for 2027 entry are the 2026 United Airlines NYC Half, the 2026 Maybelline Women's Half, the 2026 RBC Brooklyn Half, the 2026 Staten Island Half and the 2026 TCS New York City Marathon.

Non-NYRR time qualifier. Meet the same standard at a certified full marathon elsewhere and you may apply. NYRR offers a limited number of these entries. In its own words, all athletes who meet the standards are invited to apply, but submission of a qualifying time does not guarantee entry. If applications exceed the places available, entry goes to the fastest in each age and gender category, and everyone else is placed into the non-guaranteed general drawing.

Read against Boston, that is a familiar shape with an unfamiliar name: a cut-off, applied per category, that you learn only after you apply. And like Boston, NYRR has published it afterwards. For the 2026 race it accepted only the top 10 percent of non-NYRR time qualifiers, who needed to run at least 22 minutes and 52 seconds faster than their standard; for 2025 it took the top 25 percent, who needed 13 minutes and 20 seconds. Both are wider than any Boston cut-off since 2012 (the largest was 7:47, for 2021), so a non-NYRR time that only just meets the standard is, in practice, an entry into the general drawing. Sources: NYRR's drawing-day release of March 4, 2026 and of March 5, 2025, checked 11 October 2026.

The qualifying window is January 1 to December 31, 2026, times are judged on net (chip) time, and your age group is your age on November 7, 2027. The paces are ours: the standard divided by the race distance, which is the pace you have to average for the whole race.

For full splits at one of these standards, see 3:45 marathon pace, the men's 65 to 69 time.

NYRR publishes one set of times for the women's and nonbinary divisions.

NYRR half marathon standards

These are valid only for times run at an NYRR half marathon. Pace is the standard divided by 13.1 miles.

Source: New York Road Runners: Marathon Time Qualifiers, checked 11 October 2026. NYRR notes that all dates are subject to change.

New York's standards are unusual in shape rather than in severity. For younger men they sit between Chicago's and Boston's; from 60 upward they are markedly the hardest of the three. For women, the pattern inverts completely: New York is tighter than Chicago up to 50, then loosens dramatically, ending 75 minutes more generous at 80 and over. The full tables for the other two are on our Chicago Marathon qualifying times and Boston Marathon qualifying times pages.

Note also that New York uses odd-minute standards (2:53:00, 3:14:00, 3:26:00) where Boston and Chicago round to five-minute steps. That is not cosmetic. It means a New York standard rarely lines up with a round goal pace, and a runner training to a tidy number can land three minutes on the wrong side of it.

Sources: NYRR, Chicago Marathon and Boston Athletic Association, all checked 11 October 2026.

For a non-NYRR qualifying time you submit the race name, the net chip time, and a URL for the results that NYRR can use to verify it. NYRR is explicit that failure to submit correct information results in the application being disregarded, with no follow-up.

• The course must be certified by USA Track and Field, AIMS, World Athletics, or the national governing body for distance running in the country where it is held. NYRR does not maintain a list; contact the event.
• All qualifying times must be verifiable through the race's own results page.
• Not accepted: indoor marathons, virtual marathons, triathlons, and any distance other than a full marathon (or an NYRR half). Personal times from Strava or a GPS watch such as a Garmin or Apple Watch are named and rejected.
• The gender category your result is posted under at the qualifying race determines which standards you must meet. If you were unable to register as a nonbinary athlete at a non-NYRR race, you may still apply as nonbinary against the nonbinary standards. If you change your NYRR profile category after your result is posted, you must meet both sets of standards.

If your non-NYRR application is not selected, or your card is declined, you are not eliminated: you are placed into the non-guaranteed general entry drawing. Our NYC Marathon lottery page explains how that draw is split. Chicago's drawing, by contrast, is one pool with no geographic split (Chicago Marathon lottery).

Separate from entry altogether, NYRR runs a Local Competitive Program for runners who are already registered for the marathon and belong to an NYRR-affiliated club. It does not get you in; it changes your race day, with a heated start tent, private toilets, streamlined corral entry and a Wave 1, Pink Corral A start.

The standards are roughly three to five minutes faster than the entry qualifying times: 2:49:30 for men aged 18-34 against the 2:53:00 entry standard, 3:02 at 45-49 against 3:05:00. Qualifying races must be certified full marathons or NYRR halves, and results are submitted by your club captain inside a short window rather than by you.