Hitting your Boston qualifying standard only lets you apply. When more qualifiers apply than the field can hold, the B.A.A. accepts the fastest first, and the cutoff is how far under your standard the last accepted runner was. For the 2026 race every accepted qualifier was at least 4 minutes 34 seconds under their standard.
4 minutes 34 seconds under standard. 33,249 qualifiers applied, the B.A.A. accepted 24,362, and 8,887 were turned away. It was the first cycle under the tightened standards, which cut five minutes from every age band through 55 to 59.
7 minutes 47 seconds under, for the 2021 race, when a pandemic-reduced field accepted 14,609 of 23,824 applicants. The largest full-field cutoffs are 6:51 for 2025 and 5:29 for 2024.
Yes. For the 2022 and 2023 races every qualifier who applied was accepted, so the cutoff was zero. Those are the only two no-cutoff years since 2021.
Because the standards moved. The bar for the 2026 race is five minutes tougher than 2025 in most age bands, and 2013 ran on different times again. Scoring your buffer against each year's own standard plus that year's real cutoff is the honest replay; the tracker applies your current age group to every year.
Registration for the 2027 race runs September 8 to 12, 2026, with race day on Patriots' Day, April 19, 2027. The B.A.A. announces the cutoff after the window closes, typically later in September.