The 2025 FIDE Circuit is a system comprising the top chess tournaments in 2025, which serves as a qualification path for the Candidates Tournament 2026. Players receive points based on their performance and the strength of the tournament. A player's final Circuit score is the sum of their seven best results of the year. The winner of the Circuit qualifies for the Candidates Tournament 2026.[1]
Tournament eligibility
A FIDE-rated individual standard tournament is eligible for the Circuit if it meets the following criteria:[1]
Finish between 1 January 2025 and for National Championships, zonal and continental tournaments as well as traditional open tournaments (with 50 or more players), 21 December 2025. For other tournaments, 15 December 2025.
Has at least 8 players (6 for Double Round Robin tournaments with TAR of at least 2700).
Has at least 7 rounds (4 rounds for knockout events).
The 8 highest-rated players have an average standard rating of at least 2550 at the start of tournament. This average is referred to as TAR (tournament average rating).
Players represent at least 3 national federations.
Not more than 50% of the 20 highest-rated players (or all players if fewer than 20) represent one federation.
The Circuit also includes the following tournaments:
National Championships that meet points 1 to 4 in above criteria.
World Rapid Championship.
World Blitz Championship.
Continental Rapid Championships.
Continental Blitz Championships.
Other Rapid and Blitz tournaments that meet the above criteria, except that the TAR must be at least 2700.
Double Round Robin Tournaments with 6 or more players where the TAR is at least 2700
Points system
Event points
Circuit points obtained by a player from a tournament are calculated as follows:
where:
- Points obtained by player from the tournament
- Basic points
- Tournament strength factor, calculated as
- Tournament weighting
2.0 - FIDE World Championship 2024
1.0 - Standard classical tournaments
0.9 - Double Round Robin Tournaments with 6 players
0.8 - World Rapid Championships and for Knockout Tournaments with fewer than 6 rounds
0.6 - World Blitz Championships and other Rapid tournaments
0.5 - Mixed Rapid & Blitz tournaments
0.4 - Blitz tournaments
Basic points
Basic points for a tournament are awarded depending on the tournament format:
Swiss-system: Top 8 (within top half of ranking), ties included.
Double round-robins 6-7 players: Top 2 with ties.
Round-robins 8-10 players: Top 3 with ties.
Round-robins 11-13 players: Top 4 with ties.
Round-robins 14 players: Top 5 with ties.
Knockout: Third round or later, up to 8 players.
Points are awarded as follows:
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th
8th
11/10
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
11 points for an outright winner with no tie-break criteria applied (in Knockout tournaments, victory in the Final after only the games with the longest time control have been played). Otherwise, 10 basic points will be used for calculation.
For tied positions, basic points are calculated as 50% of points for final ranking as determined by tournament's tie-break rules, plus 50% of the sum of basic points assigned for the tied places divided by the number of tied players. If no tie-break rule is applied, basic points are 100% shared equally among all tied players.
FIDE World Championship 2024 points
For the World Chess Championship 2024, the runner-up Ding Liren received points in the 2025 Circuit equal to the basic points for 2nd place multiplied by the k-factor and multiplied by 2. The TPR for this event will be calculated as the player's performance rating.
FIDE World Cup 2025 points
For the Chess World Cup 2025, the event points will be equal to the normal number of event points plus the difference between the number of games won and lost(if positive, not more than 2). Anyone who is eliminated in the quarter finals of the event will be deemed to have finished in 5th points for basic points, and as such will all gain 5 basic points.
Player's total and ranking
A player's point total for the ranking is the sum of their best 7 tournaments with the following criteria:
Tournaments
Standard events with under 50 players allowed
Rapid/Blitz allowed
1–5
4
1
6
4
2
7
5
2
If player has 6 or 7 tournaments to count:
No more than 4 or 5 respectively standard tournaments with the participation of less than 50 players can be counted.
No more than 2 rapid/blitz tournaments can be counted.
If player has 5 tournaments or less:
No more than 4 standard tournaments with participation of less than 50 players can be counted.
No more than 1 rapid/blitz tournament can be counted.
Tournaments that could be included in player's results are as follows:
Official FIDE tournaments.
National Championships.
Other eligible tournaments, counting all tournaments with minimum TAR of 2650 and up to two lower tournaments per host country.
At the end of 2025, the best player in the Circuit will qualify for the Candidates Tournament 2026, provided that they played in at least 5 tournaments (including at least 4 in standard time controls). Among these tournaments, there shall be at least 2 standard tournaments with participations of more than 50 players (if they played in 6 or 7 tournaments) or at least 1 standard tournament with participations of more than 50 players (if they played in 5 tournaments). Tournament results which can't be counted for qualification for the Candidates Tournament 2026 are marked in pink. "(M)" denotes the Masters section of tournaments while "(Ch)" – Challenger section.
