WRC confirms 15-round 2027 calendar: USA and UK return as Italy moves to Rome

WRC will feature 15 rounds in 2027. The FIA and WRC announced the World Motor Sport Council-approved calendar on October 8: the USA and UK return to the world championship, while the Italian round is confirmed as an asphalt event in Rome and the Lazio region. The season opens in Monte Carlo on January 21–24 and concludes in Saudi Arabia on November 25–28.

USA returns for the first time since 1988, with Scotland hosting the UK round

Rally USA is scheduled for August 26–29, marking WRC’s first return to the United States since 1988. The FIA explained that a candidate event had been held in June 2026 to assess whether it could meet the world championship’s sporting, safety and operational requirements. Calendar approval now changes its status from seeking inclusion to being officially listed.

The UK last hosted WRC in 2019. Its 2027 round will be Rally Scotland, based in Aberdeen and scheduled for September 30–October 3.

Italy switches to asphalt, with Japan following two European rounds

The Italian round takes place on July 8–11, combining Rome’s city backdrop with stages in Lazio and stepping up from the European Rally Championship to WRC. The official calendar names it Rally Italia Roma Capitale. For fans, the important changes concern both venue and surface: this is an asphalt round, and viewing and competition preparations need to follow the newly announced location.

Croatia, the Canary Islands and Japan will form a sequence of three asphalt rounds before Greece opens the European summer gravel section. Estonia and Finland run back to back, followed by the USA, Scotland, Paraguay and Chile. The table retains the official dates for all 15 rounds, explicitly showing both months where an event spans a month boundary. These are calendar dates at each event location, not start times expressed uniformly in China Standard Time (UTC+8).

INKA SPORTS analysis: What each of the three changes means

The three main adjustments serve different purposes. The USA brings the championship back to North America, Scotland restores a home WRC round for British fans, and Rome changes the competitive environment of the Italian event. That last change goes beyond the host city: gravel and asphalt require different car preparation and driving approaches, so teams need to adjust their preparations accordingly.

Using the official surface classifications, the 15 rounds comprise nine gravel events, four asphalt events, one mixed-surface event in Monte Carlo and one snow event in Sweden. The WRC27 technical regulations will also be introduced that year. This calendar establishes the mix of surfaces that the new generation of cars will face in its first season.

Conclusion

The main features of 2027 are the return of the USA and UK, Italy’s switch to Rome’s asphalt roads, and the introduction of new technical regulations alongside this 15-round schedule. The full list below helps with planning viewing; individual events’ formal documents will provide further details on stage routes and daily times.

Full 2027 WRC calendar