Marathon qualifier checker
Enter one marathon to see how it measures up against the current standards for Boston, New York, Chicago, London and Berlin, using each race’s own age rules, qualifying window and cutoff.
Every race
A qualifier, 1:47 short of 2027's 5:17 cutoff. Those runners went into a draw for about 1,000 places.
The drawing took about 1% of applicants for 2026.
Applications for 2027 closed October 29, 2026.
Outside the 2027 Good for Age window, October 1, 2025 to September 30, 2026.
Registration for 2027 closed November 12, 2026.
How each race sets your standard
All five races grade a marathon by age and gender, but they don’t agree on which age counts. Boston, New York and Chicago use your age on their own race day: April 17, 2028 for Boston (B.A.A.), November 7, 2027 for New York (NYRR) and October 10, 2027 for Chicago (Chicago Marathon). London’s Good for Age entry goes by your age on the day you ran the qualifying time (London Marathon Events), and Berlin sorts runners by birth year alone (Berlin Marathon). A birthday between your qualifier and race day can move you into an older group at one race and not at another, so the checker works out each one separately.
The standards sit close together without matching. For men aged 18 to 34, Berlin asks for 2:45, Chicago 2:50, London 2:52, New York 2:53 and Boston 2:55. For women in the same group, it’s Berlin 3:10, New York 3:13, Chicago 3:20, Boston 3:25 and London 3:38.
Boston, New York and Chicago publish non-binary standards, and at all three they match the women’s times (B.A.A., NYRR, Chicago Marathon). London’s Good for Age table and Berlin’s qualifying table list men’s and women’s times only, so the checker shows no standard for non-binary runners at those two.
Meeting the standard isn’t the same as getting in
Of the five, only Chicago turned a qualifying time straight into a place for 2027 (Chicago Marathon). Boston takes the qualifiers furthest under their standards until the field fills. For 2027, 33,649 qualifiers applied and getting in on time took a result 5:17 under your standard, and another 1,000 who missed the cutoff were picked in a random draw (B.A.A.). The Boston qualifying guide covers how the cutoff has moved.
New York depends on where you ran. A qualifying time at an NYRR race, which for a full marathon means the NYC Marathon itself, earns guaranteed entry, while times from every other marathon compete for a limited number of places that go to the fastest in each age and gender group (NYRR). For 2026, NYRR took only the top 10 percent of those applicants (Marathon Ballot), which meant beating the standard by 22:52, up from 13:20 the year before (Runner’s World).
London’s Good for Age places are open to UK residents only, capped at 6,000 split evenly between men and women, and handed out fastest first relative to age and standard (London Marathon Events). Berlin’s qualifying time lets you register outside the lottery, but the race says plainly that it doesn’t guarantee a place (Berlin Marathon). The entry guides for New York, Chicago, London and Berlin cover the other ways in.
When your time counts
Each race also sets a window for the marathon you’re submitting. Boston’s for 2028 opened September 19, 2026 and runs through the end of registration week in September 2027, so a fall 2026 or spring 2027 marathon counts (B.A.A.). New York’s for 2027 is calendar year 2026 (NYRR). Chicago, London and Berlin have already closed entry for 2027, after windows of January 1, 2025 to October 29, 2026, October 1, 2025 to September 30, 2026, and marathons from 2025 or 2026. Their 2027 tables stay in the checker until each race publishes its next one.
Boston also adjusts times from courses with a big net drop. A course that falls 1,500 to 2,999 feet adds five minutes to your result, 3,000 to 5,999 feet adds ten, and a drop of 6,000 feet or more doesn’t count at all (B.A.A.). The checker can’t see your course, so take the adjustment off your margin yourself if it applies. Boston and New York both go by net (chip) time, and New York won’t accept a time from a GPS watch or Strava (NYRR).
If you’re chasing one of these, the marathon pace chart turns a target time into splits, and the Race Calendar tracks when each race opens entry.
