The International 2026 Dates Confirmed for August

For the first time since 2021, The International is returning to its regularly scheduled place in the Dota 2 calendar. Valve has officially announced that The International 2026 dates will be August 13th – 23rd, with the main event taking place at the Oriental Sports Center in Shanghai from August 20th – 23rd.

In the announcement, Valve also confirmed that once again, 16 teams will attend the event through a combination of direct invites and qualifiers. Both the open qualifiers and the regional qualifiers will take place in June, where there is a convenient gap in the tier 1 Dota calendar between BLAST Slam VII and the Esports World Cup.

The International vs. Esports World Cup

The International has always been the biggest event of the year for Dota 2, with teams often using other events in order to earn a coveted invitation directly to the event. It’s interesting to see that the final event before this year’s edition of TI will be the Esports World Cup for Dota, which will take place in July.

I don’t think I’m alone in thinking that the EWC has been attempting to position itself alongside TI in terms of prestige since the very first edition so now The International dates are a lot earlier in the year, teams may merely use this event to practice their strategies for the final time in a LAN environment before heading to China.