The World Cube Association (WCA) is the worldwide non-profit organization that regulates and holds competitions for mechanical puzzles that are operated by twisting groups of pieces, commonly known as twisty puzzles (a subcategory of combination puzzles). The most famous of those puzzles is the Rubik's Cube. The WCA was founded by Ron van Bruchem of the Netherlands and Tyson Mao of the United States in 2004. The goal of the World Cube Association is to have "more competitions in more countries with more people and more fun, under fair and equal conditions." In 2017, they started work to become a non-profit organization and on 20 November 2017, the state of California accepted the initial registration of the World Cube Association.
The organization is run by the board members. It assigns different teams and committees as well as delegates who can organize official competitions. The presence of a delegate is required to make the competition official. , over 282,000 people from around the world have participated in WCA competitions, and over 16,600 competitions have been held.
The WCA Board is responsible for leading the organization as a whole, and fulfilling any duties not fulfilled by other Teams, Committees, and Councils
The WCA Marketing Team (WMT) is responsible for managing WCA relationships with external partners as well as working closely with the WCA Brand. They are currently seeking help with WCA Merchandise, Sponsorships, and Contracts.
The WCA website is an open source project on GitHub.
The Software Team develops new software for various tasks within the WCA whenever needed. Thus, they created an app simplifying translating the website, to engage more people translating into their language. On 21 August 2012 the WCA Workbook assistant was released.
In 1982, an unofficial Rubik's Cube World Championships was hosted in Budapest, Hungary by Ernà  Rubik, which was won by Minh Thai with a time of 22.95 seconds. In 1999, speedcubers gathered on the Internet via Rubik's Games, a computer game with an electronic version of the Rubik's Cube. Chris Hardwick from Raleigh, NC founded the Yahoo! Group "Speedsolvingrubikscube" and the Unofficial World Records, a place where cubers could post their personal best times. Ron van Bruchem started speedcubing.com together with his friend Ton Dennenbroek, an avid puzzle collector.
Because the cubers were living all over the world, they wanted to organize a competition at which they could all meet. In 2001, plans to organise a World Championship in New York were underway but it had to be called off due to safety concerns at the time. In 2003, under the guidance of Dan Gosbee, they successfully organized the Rubik's Cube World Championship in Toronto. This first modern-age Rubik's Cube competition was a success, but there were many issues, largely due to the lack of any regulations. After the World Championship, van Bruchem and Tyson Mao started organizing competitions in the Netherlands and Germany, as well as at Caltech in the United States. In 2004, they started the World Cube Association, which today has held competitions in more than 100 countries.
After the founding of the WCA, most competitions in the United States happened in prestigious colleges, though many happened in smaller high schools, middle schools, hotels, malls, amusement parks and other venues internationally. Some of the first official events included most current ones (see Events). However, 6x6, 7x7, and Skewb weren't events when the organization was founded, whereas Magic, Master Magic, and 3x3 with Feet were but are no longer events.
Currently, the WCA offers competitions in 17 events. Not all of them are offered at every competition, but they are usually all offered at national, continental, and global championships. The events are:
Additionally, some events have had their official WCA event status removed. They are:
The following are the official speedcubing world records approved by the WCA as of 21 March 2026.
Note: For averages of 5 solves, the best time and the worst time are dropped, and the mean of the remaining 3 solves is taken. For events where only 3 solves are done, the mean of all 3 is taken.
Every two years starting from 2003, the WCA holds the Rubik's Cube World Championships, however the 2021 World Championships was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Championship ultimately determines the world champion of the puzzle. Every official event is held at the Championship. The Rubik's Cube World Championship requires extremely careful planning by several volunteers, as well as a large financial commitment to reserve the venue and make necessary preparations. The latest championship was held in Seattle, United States from 3 to 6 July 2025. The next Championship is scheduled to be held in Uppsala, Sweden from 22 to 25 July 2027. The 2021 World Championship was to be held in Almere, Amsterdam from 28 to 31 December 2021, already delayed from its initial July dates due to the COVID-19 pandemic, before being ultimately cancelled by the association in August 2021.