The FIDE Women's Candidates Tournament 2026 is an eight-player chess tournament that will determine the challenger for the Women's World Chess Championship 2026. The tournament will take place at the Cap St Georges Hotel and Resort in Pegeia, Cyprus, between 28 March and 16 April 2026. It is held alongside the Candidates Tournament 2026.
It will be a double round-robin tournament. The winner of the tournament will earn the right to play the Women's World Chess Championship 2026 against the reigning Women's World Chess Champion Ju Wenjun.
The eight players to qualify will be:
Humpy Koneru withdrew a week before the tournament began, citing safety concerns in Cyprus due to the 2026 Iran war. Anna Muzychuk, the next highest scoring player in the FIDE Women's Events Series, was brought on as a replacement.
In conjunction with the Open Candidates Tournament 2026, the runner-up of the previous championship match no longer automatically qualifies, unlike any previous Women's Candidates Tournament. Instead, the 2025 match is part of the FIDE Women's Events 2024âÂÂ25, a new qualification path which is a circuit that includes the 2024 and 2025 World Rapid and Blitz Championships, the Grand Prix series, the World Cup and the Grand Swiss. A player's score is the sum of her highest scores in up to 5 qualifying events.
The table is collapsed by default and can be sorted on any column.
The tournament is an eight-player, double round-robin tournament, meaning there will be 14 rounds with each player facing each of the others twice: once with the white pieces and once with the black pieces. The tournament winner will qualify to play Ju Wenjun for the World Championship in 2026.
The time control is 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, then 30 minutes for the rest of the game, plus a 30-second increment per move starting from move 1. Players will get 1 point for a win, ý point for a draw and 0 points for a loss.
Tiebreaks for the first place are addressed as follows:
Ties for places other than first will be broken by, in order: (1) SonnebornâÂÂBerger score; (2) total number of wins; (3) head-to-head score among tied players; (4) drawing of lots.
The minimum prize money will be â¬28,000 for first place, â¬17,000 for second place, and â¬8,600 for third place (with players on the same number of points sharing prize money, irrespective of tie-breaks), plus â¬2,200 per half-point for every player, for a minimum total prize pool of â¬300,000, according to the regulations.
The Chief arbiter for the event is Takis Nikolopoulos of Greece with Ana Srebrnicv (Slovakia) and Andrew Howie (Scotland) acting as both Deputy Chief Arbiter and Fair Play Officer
<onlyinclude>
<small>Tie-breakers for first place: results in tie-break games.
Tie-breakers for subsequent spots: (1) results in tie-break games for first place, if any; (2) SonnebornâÂÂBerger score (SB); (3) total number of wins; (4) head-to-head score among tied players; (5) drawing of lots.
Note: Numbers in the crosstable in a white background indicate the result playing the respective opponent with the white pieces (black pieces if on a black background). This does not give information which of the two games was played in the First half of the tournament, and which in the second.</small></onlyinclude>
This table shows the total number of wins minus the total number of losses each player has after each round. '=' indicates the player has won and lost the same number of games after that round. Green backgrounds indicate the player(s) with the highest score after each round. Red backgrounds indicate player(s) who could no longer win the tournament after each round.
In February 2026, FIDE announced pairings for the tournament.