Arirang (stylized in all caps) is the sixth Korean-language and tenth overall studio album by South Korean boy band BTS. It was released on March 20, 2026, by Big Hit Music. The album is the group's first release since they went on hiatus for each member to complete their military service. It follows their live album Permission to Dance on Stage â Live (2025) and marks their first studio album in nearly six years, following Be (2020). Arirang was written and composed with a variety of notable musicians, including Diplo, Ryan Tedder, Jasper Harris, Kevin Parker, Mike Will Made-It, Artemas, and JPEGMafia, among others.
To promote the album, BTS is set to embark on the Arirang World Tour, scheduled from April 2026 to March 2027.
On June 14, 2022, BTS announced that they would be temporarily suspending their group activities to focus more on solo projects. All members would later enlist in South Korea's mandatory military service from December 2022 to June 2025. In the interim, each member released a solo project: J-Hope released his album Jack in the Box (2022) and EP Hope on the Street Vol. 1 (2024), RM released his albums Indigo (2022) and Right Place, Wrong Person (2024), Jimin released his albums Face (2023) and Muse (2024), Suga released his album D-Day (2023), V released his EP Layover (2023), Jung Kook released his album Golden (2023), and Jin released his EPs Happy (2024) and Echo (2025).
BTS shared that they had begun to work together in July 2025, and on August 22, RM shared through Weverse that the band was "working diligently" on their new album. On November 1, Jimin told fans that the album was finished and ready for release.
On New Year's Eve 2025, fans in South Korea with "Gold Member" status received a postcard teasing the date of the group's comeback. On January 4, 2026, Big Hit Music announced the group would come back with an album accompanied by a world tour. The title was later revealed on January 15, referencing the Korean folk song of the same name. Big Hit Music stated Arirang "captures BTS' identity as a group that began in Korea". On March 3, BTS revealed the album's track listing and production credits, with the seventh track "Swim" highlighted in black.
Arirang is primarily a hip-hop and pop record, with "No. 29" marking the transition between the two genres.
The album opens with "Body to Body", which samples the traditional Korean folk song "Arirang". "Hooligan" features a "chopped-up string arrangement against clashing swords" and "soaring" vocals from V and Jimin. "Fya" contains elements of pop rap and Jersey club. "No. 29" is a field recording of the Bell of King Seongdeok, the 29th national treasure of Korea. "Merry Go Round" is a psychedelic rock song. "Like Animals" is a pop rock ballad. "One More Night" has a '90s house instrumental with a "plinking Korg M1 synth melody". The vocals of "Into the Sun" are "vocoder-drenched".
On February 14, thousands of roses were distributed throughout major cities like Seoul, London, and Los Angeles. The installations included QR codes, and signs that asked, "What is your love song?". They partnered with Google Search to launch a scavenger hunt feature on March 4, with additional sealed quests being unlocked on March 9 and 16. Searching for "BTS" gave rise to a graphic of a blue ship in a bottle, which, upon being clicked, launched a series of trivia questions themed around the group to earn parchment cards with handwritten song titles by the members. On March 10, BTS and Spotify announced their "Swimside" partnership campaign, which includes pop-up events worldwide, in-app experiences and exclusive material from the group. The group drop hints about the album through "Decoding Arirang". Fans explored Spotify for surprises from the members themselves as part of the in-app Easter egg hunt. BTS: The Return, a documentary on the making of the album, premiered on March 27, 2026.
The group held a concert, entitled BTS The Comeback Live | Arirang, at Gwanghwamun Square on March 21, 2026. The concert was exclusively streamed on Netflix, marking the first time on the platform where a concert was streamed live as opposed to being taped as a concert film. The livestream drew 18.4 million global viewers, reaching the weekly Netflix top 10 in 80 countries and the number-one spot in 24 countries. BTS performed "2.0", "Normal", and "Swim" at Pier 17 in New York for their Spotify x BTS: Swimside event. On March 25 and 26, they performed "Swim" and "2.0" at the Guggenheim Museum on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
The review aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave the album a weighted average score of 7.7 out of 10 from seven critic scores.
In a positive review for NPR, Sheldon Pearce called Arirang a "triumphant homecoming", writing that BTS "has never felt more connected, inwardly or to its calling", while Jon Caramanica of The New York Times awarded Arirang a "Critic's Pick" label, writing that "Arirang doesn't pander, and it doesn't overwhelm. Rather, it feels borderline experimental, as close to risky as a project engineered for minimal risk can be." Maria Sherman's four-star review for the Associated Press stated that Arirang showcases "a band atop the music world, returning to their throne on their own terms: with bilingual bangers and avant-garde ambitions", while in a positive review for the BBC, Mark Savage applauded Arirang for helping BTS "rekindle their fire" and said that the album represents "a genuine return to form".
Michael Cragg from The Guardian wrote in his four-star review: "On Arirang, [BTS has] made an album that makes good on their status as the planet's biggest pop phenomenon, and that's more than enough." In his four-star review for The Telegraph, Ed Power wrote that "[BTS] are back to reassert their dominance with a maximalist record brimming with monster-truck grooves and choruses so vast and glittering you could probably detect them from outer space." In The Korea Times, Pyo Kyung-min wrote in a positive review that "the album does not merely revisit familiar formulas, but instead, it demonstrates how the membersâ individual artistic growth during their solo era and military hiatus has deepened the group's collective voice."
In Rolling Stone, Rob Sheffield awarded the album 4.5 stars and wrote that "Arirang shows off [BTS's] collective bravado, ready to take over where they left off as world-beating pop studs", while Joseph Kocharian, in a five-star review for the UK edition, called Arirang "K-pop perfection" that is "curated with the utmost care". In an 8 out of 10 review, Clash Maria LetÃÂcia L. Gomes wrote: "The fourteen tracks make for a more mature body of work â one that trades the glossy, slightly on-the-nose singles of 'Butter' or 'Dynamite' for something more layered."
Wren Graves from Consequence gave the album a B+score, writing that "the solo years gave each member a sharper creative identity, and RM's instincts hold the whole thing together â his collaborator list...reads like the playlist of someone who listens to everything and thinks about it after." In a four-star review, Rhian Daly wrote in NME that "after nearly four years, BTS are back doing what they do best â serving as both ambassadors and explorers, fuelled by curiosity and creativity." Colette Balmain, in a five-star review for View of the Arts, praised the album for being "BTS's most accomplished album to date".
In a mixed review for Pitchfork, Joshua Minsoo Kim wrote that "[Arirangs] generic songs ring hollow and lack the vim and vigor of the bands best work." In Vulture, Craig Jenkins wrote in a mixed review that Arirang "is a work of both delicate and unsubtle tensions" that "manages an accomplished if intermittently absurd balancing act". Han Seong-hyeon of IZM criticized a lack of teamwork and storytelling in the album, and noted that the large amount of international producers, along with the low proportion of Korean lyrics, makes the title Arirang feel like "a MacGuffin".
Arirang fourteen tracks filled the top fourteen spots of Spotify's global top fifty chart on its first day. On the service's United States chart, twelve of the album's tracks appeared in the top twenty-six spots. The album received a total of 110million streams on the service, making for the most first-day Spotify streams for any 2026 album so far. On Apple Music, the album broke the record for most first-day streams for a pop group's album. In South Korea, the album sold 4.2 million copies in its first week, immediately making it the ninth best-selling album in the history of the country.
Arirang debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, earning 641,000 album-equivalent units in its first week, of which 532,000 were pure album sales. It is the largest week by units for a group since the chart began calculating units in December 2014, BTS's best US sales week, and their seventh US number-one album.
Arirang debuted at number one on the GfK charts in Germany, while lead single "Swim" debuted at number one on the singles chart, making BTS the first group in German chart history to simultaneously chart at number one on both the album and singles charts with two new entries.
In its first eligible week on the US Billboard Hot 100, all but one song ("No. 29") from Arirang charted, with "Swim" topping the chart.
Credits adapted from Tidal.