Oktoberfest 2027 runs from Saturday, September 18, to Sunday, October 3, in Munich, 16 days in all. The mayor taps the first keg at noon CEST (6 a.m. EDT) on September 18. It is the 192nd Oktoberfest.
Oktoberfest, which people in Munich call the Wiesn, is the beer festival and funfair held each year on the Theresienwiese in Munich, Bavaria.
The 2027 festival opens on Saturday, September 18, and closes on Sunday, October 3, according to the City of Munich’s 2026 closing report, which calls it “die 192. Wiesn”, and the Oktoberfest Tours 2027 schedule. Despite the name, 13 of the 16 days fall in September.
The 2027 closing day is also German Unity Day, a national holiday. The festival that just ended, Oktoberfest 2026, set a new attendance record of about 7.4 million visitors.
The question “when is Oktoberfest” has a second answer too: hundreds of towns outside Germany hold their own Oktoberfest on dates of their own choosing, from mid-September in Cincinnati to late October in Blumenau, Brazil.
This page gives the Munich dates for 2026 to 2031, the opening weekend schedule with the tapping time in your time zone, the history behind the September start, beer prices, and the dates of the biggest Oktoberfests elsewhere.
Table of Contents
When is Oktoberfest 2027?
Oktoberfest 2027 starts on Saturday, September 18, 2027, and ends on Sunday, October 3, 2027. Munich is on Central European Summer Time (CEST, UTC+2) for the whole festival, because Germany does not move its clocks back until Sunday, October 31, 2027.
| Item | Oktoberfest 2027 |
|---|---|
| First day | Saturday, September 18, 2027 |
| Keg tapping (“O’zapft is!”) | 12:00 noon CEST, Saturday, September 18 |
| Costume and riflemen’s parade | Sunday, September 19, from 10 a.m. CEST |
| Family days | Tuesday, September 21, and Tuesday, September 28 |
| Last day | Sunday, October 3, 2027 (German Unity Day) |
| Length | 16 days |
| Edition | 192nd |
| Location | Theresienwiese, Munich, Germany |
How the Oktoberfest dates are set
The Munich Oktoberfest follows a fixed rule. The festival has used this rule since 1994:
- Start: the first Saturday after September 15.
- End: the first Sunday in October.
- Extension: if that Sunday falls before October 3, German Unity Day, the festival runs on through October 3.
In 2027 the first Sunday in October is October 3 itself, so there is no extension and the festival lasts the standard 16 days. The rule means Oktoberfest can never start earlier than September 16 or later than September 22.
Oktoberfest dates 2026 to 2031
| Year | Opening day | Closing day | Length | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Saturday, September 19 | Sunday, October 4 | 16 days | 191st edition, record 7.4 million visitors |
| 2027 | Saturday, September 18 | Sunday, October 3 | 16 days | 192nd edition, ends on German Unity Day |
| 2028 | Saturday, September 16 | Tuesday, October 3 | 18 days | Extended to German Unity Day |
| 2029 | Saturday, September 22 | Sunday, October 7 | 16 days | Latest possible start |
| 2030 | Saturday, September 21 | Sunday, October 6 | 16 days | Calculated from the rule |
| 2031 | Saturday, September 20 | Sunday, October 5 | 16 days | Calculated from the rule |
The 2028 and 2029 dates come from the Oktoberfest Guide and match the rule. The 2030 and 2031 dates are calculated by Datescal from the same rule; the City of Munich normally confirms each year’s dates about a year ahead.
2028 is the year to watch: the festival opens on September 16, the earliest date the rule allows, and runs 18 days to Tuesday, October 3. The festival also ran 18 days in 2000, 2006, 2017, and 2023.
Oktoberfest 2027 opening weekend schedule
The opening weekend draws the biggest crowds of the festival. The times below are for Munich (CEST) and come from oktoberfest.de, the official site, and the Oktoberfest Tours 2027 schedule.
Saturday, September 18, 2027
- 9 a.m. CEST: the grounds and tents open. No beer is served until the first keg is tapped.
- Late morning: the parade of Wiesn landlords and breweries sets off from Josephspitalstraße near Sendlinger Tor and travels along Sonnenstraße and Schwanthalerstraße to the grounds, with horse-drawn brewery wagons and decorated carriages. Oktoberfest Tours lists it at 11 a.m. with about 1,000 participants.
- 12:00 noon CEST: the Mayor of Munich taps the first barrel in the Schottenhamel tent and calls out “O’zapft is!” (“It’s tapped!”). Twelve gunshots are then fired on the steps of the Ruhmeshalle, according to Wikipedia, and the other tents start serving.
Sunday, September 19, 2027
- 10 a.m. CEST: the costume and riflemen’s parade (Trachten- und Schützenzug) leaves the city centre for the Theresienwiese. Oktoberfest Tours describes up to 10,000 participants in traditional dress, and muenchen.de lists the parade on the first Sunday each year.
What time is the Oktoberfest tapping in your time zone?
The tapping is broadcast live and streamed on webcams, so many people outside Germany watch it at home. Noon in Munich on Saturday, September 18, 2027, converts as follows:
| Location | Local time of “O’zapft is!” |
|---|---|
| Munich, Berlin (CEST) | 12:00 noon, Saturday, September 18 |
| UTC | 10:00 a.m., Saturday, September 18 |
| London (BST) | 11:00 a.m., Saturday, September 18 |
| New York, Toronto (EDT) | 6:00 a.m., Saturday, September 18 |
| Chicago (CDT) | 5:00 a.m., Saturday, September 18 |
| Denver (MDT) | 4:00 a.m., Saturday, September 18 |
| Los Angeles (PDT) | 3:00 a.m., Saturday, September 18 |
| São Paulo (BRT) | 7:00 a.m., Saturday, September 18 |
| New Delhi (IST) | 3:30 p.m., Saturday, September 18 |
| Beijing (CST) | 6:00 p.m., Saturday, September 18 |
| Tokyo (JST) | 7:00 p.m., Saturday, September 18 |
| Sydney (AEST) | 8:00 p.m., Saturday, September 18 |
Times are converted with the IANA time zone database. US and Canadian Eastern Time stays six hours behind Munich for the whole festival, because North American clocks change on Sunday, November 7, 2027, after the festival ends.
The rest of the 2027 schedule
According to Oktoberfest Tours, the remaining fixed points in 2027 are:
- Tuesday, September 21, and Tuesday, September 28: family days, with reduced prices on rides until 7 p.m. CEST.
- Thursday, September 23: the annual church service in the Marstall tent at 10 a.m. CEST. The same day is the September equinox, which falls at 8:02 a.m. CEST in Munich, the official start of autumn and of Libra season 2027.
- Saturday and Sunday, September 25 and 26: the “Italian weekend”, when visitors from Italy traditionally fill the grounds.
- Sunday, September 26: the open-air brass band concert on the steps below the Bavaria statue at 11 a.m. CEST.
- Sunday, October 3: the closing gun salute on the steps of the Bavaria statue at noon CEST. That evening, the tents stop serving and the festival ends.
Beer is normally served from 10 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. CEST on weekdays and from 9 a.m. on weekends and holidays. Rides and stalls stay open later, until about midnight CEST on most days.
Why is Oktoberfest in September?
Oktoberfest began in October and moved into September for the weather. The first Oktoberfest was the public celebration of the wedding of Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria, later King Ludwig I, and Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen on Friday, October 12, 1810.
According to Wikipedia, the people of Munich were invited to the fields in front of the city gates, and the festivities closed with a horse race on a course of about 3,400 metres. The meadow was named Theresienwiese, “Therese’s meadow”, in honour of the bride, and the short form Wiesn is still the local name for the festival.
The horse race was repeated the following year, and the event grew into an annual fair. Over the 19th century the opening was moved into late September to take advantage of longer, warmer evenings. Today only the final days fall in October, which is why the festival keeps its October name while starting in mid-September.
Years without an Oktoberfest
The festival has been cancelled many times. According to Wikipedia, there was no Oktoberfest in:
- 1813, during the Napoleonic Wars
- 1854 and 1873, because of cholera epidemics
- 1866 and 1870, during the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian wars
- 1914 to 1918, during World War I
- 1923 and 1924, because of hyperinflation
- 1939 to 1945, during World War II
- 2020 and 2021, because of the COVID-19 pandemic
This is why 2027 is only the 192nd Oktoberfest even though the first was held 217 years earlier.
Oktoberfest beer, tents and prices
Only beer brewed within Munich’s city limits under the Reinheitsgebot, the Bavarian purity law, may be sold at Oktoberfest. That limits the festival to six breweries: Augustiner, Hacker-Pschorr, Hofbräu, Löwenbräu, Paulaner and Spaten, according to muenchen.de’s 2026 beer price page and Wikipedia. Each brewery makes a stronger seasonal Oktoberfestbier for the event, served in a Maß, a one-litre stein.
In 2026 a Maß cost between €14.80 and €15.90. The cheapest beer was at the Familienplatzl and the Museumszelt, and the most expensive at the Armbrustschützen-Festzelt, the Bräurosl and the Löwenbräu-Festzelt, according to muenchen.de and oktoberfest.de.
In 2025 the range was €14.50 to €15.80. The City of Munich normally publishes the new prices in the summer before the festival, so the 2027 prices are not yet known.
The festival has 14 large beer tents and about 20 smaller ones, among them the Schottenhamel, where the tapping takes place, the Hofbräu-Festzelt, the Augustiner-Festhalle and the Paulaner-Festzelt.
Entry to the grounds and the tents is free. Tables inside the large tents can be reserved through each tent directly, and walk-in visitors can still find seats on weekday mornings.
Oktoberfest attendance and records
| Year | Visitors | Beer served |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | about 7.2 million | about 7.4 million litres |
| 2024 | about 6.7 million | about 7.0 million litres |
| 2025 | about 6.5 million | about 6.5 million litres |
| 2026 | about 7.4 million (record) | about 6.7 million litres |
Oktoberfest 2026 was the best-attended Wiesn in its history, according to the City of Munich, beating the 2023 record of about 7.2 million. Visitors also handed in about 4,000 lost items, including 700 wallets and 450 identity documents. The festival used about 34.5 hectares of the Theresienwiese in 2026, including the 3.5-hectare Oide Wiesn, the historic section with older rides and brass music.
Other Oktoberfests and their dates
When most people in the United States, Canada or Brazil search “when is Oktoberfest”, they often mean a local event, and those follow their own calendars. The largest ones are much smaller than Munich’s but still draw hundreds of thousands of people. The 2026 dates below show how widely they vary; check each organiser’s site for 2027 dates once announced.
| Oktoberfest | 2026 dates | Timing rule | Attendance (Wikipedia) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Munich, Germany | Saturday, September 19, to Sunday, October 4 | First Saturday after September 15 | about 7.4 million (2026) |
| Oktoberfest Zinzinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio | Thursday, September 17, to Sunday, September 20 (official site, 365 Cincinnati) | Thursday to Sunday in mid-September | over 500,000 |
| Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, Canada | Friday, September 25, to Saturday, October 17, with the Thanksgiving Day Parade on Monday, October 12 (oktoberfest.ca) | Built around Canadian Thanksgiving | about 700,000 |
| Blumenau, Santa Catarina, Brazil | Wednesday, October 7, to Sunday, October 25, the 41st edition (NSC Total, CVC) | 19 days in October | about 600,000 |
Blumenau’s festival began in 1984, when the city created it to recover from a major flood by celebrating its German heritage, according to CVC. It is one of the few large Oktoberfests that is actually held in October.
The Kitchener-Waterloo festival in Canada likewise centres on October because it is tied to Canadian Thanksgiving, the second Monday in October. Qingdao in China holds an international beer festival that Wikipedia puts at about 3 million visitors a year, though it is a separate event with its own name.
What Oktoberfest is not
| Term | What it is | How it relates to Oktoberfest |
|---|---|---|
| Wiesn | The Munich name for Oktoberfest, short for Theresienwiese | Same festival, same dates |
| Cannstatter Volksfest (Cannstatter Wasen) | Stuttgart’s autumn beer festival, Friday, September 25, to Sunday, October 11, in 2026, with about 4.2 million visitors in 2025, according to stuttgart.de and Tageskarte | A different festival in a different city, starting about a week after Oktoberfest |
| German Unity Day (October 3) | Germany’s national holiday marking reunification in 1990 | Can extend Oktoberfest; in 2027 it is the closing day |
| Oktoberfestbier | The festival beer brewed by the six Munich breweries | The beer, not the event; it is also sold in shops |
| Local Oktoberfests | Independent events in the US, Canada, Brazil and elsewhere | Same name, own dates, not linked to Munich |
| Oide Wiesn | The historic section of the festival grounds | Part of Oktoberfest, with its own tents and older rides |
The two Bavarian-style festivals are easy to mix up when planning a trip. If your dates fall in early October, the Cannstatter Volksfest in Stuttgart usually overlaps with the final days of Oktoberfest and continues for about a week after it closes.
Planning around the 2027 dates
Three things shape the 2027 festival. First, the weather: mid-September in Munich is often still warm, which is the reason the festival moved out of October in the first place. Second, the calendar: because October 3 is a Sunday in 2027, German Unity Day adds no extra day, unlike 2028. Third, the sky: the Harvest Moon 2027 is full at 1:03 a.m. CEST on Thursday, September 16, two days before the opening, so the first nights of the festival have a bright, nearly full moon rising after sunset.
The quietest times are weekday mornings in the first week, especially Monday, September 20, and Wednesday, September 22. The busiest are the two opening days, the Italian weekend of September 25 and 26, and the final weekend of October 2 and 3.
Frequently asked questions
When is Oktoberfest 2027?
Oktoberfest 2027 runs from Saturday, September 18, to Sunday, October 3, 2027, in Munich, according to the City of Munich and Oktoberfest Tours. It lasts 16 days and is the 192nd Oktoberfest.
What time does Oktoberfest 2027 open?
The grounds open at 9 a.m. CEST on Saturday, September 18, 2027. The mayor taps the first keg in the Schottenhamel tent at 12:00 noon CEST, which is 11 a.m. BST, 6 a.m. EDT and 3 a.m. PDT. No beer is served before the tapping.
Why is Oktoberfest in September and not October?
The first Oktoberfest was held in October 1810 to celebrate a royal wedding. During the 19th century the start was moved into late September for warmer evenings, so today only the last few days fall in October.
How long is Oktoberfest?
Oktoberfest normally lasts 16 days, from the first Saturday after September 15 to the first Sunday in October. When that Sunday comes before October 3, it is extended to German Unity Day, so 2028 runs 18 days, from Saturday, September 16, to Tuesday, October 3.
Is Oktoberfest free to attend?
Entry to the Munich Oktoberfest grounds and beer tents is free. You pay for beer, food and rides. A Maß of beer cost €14.80 to €15.90 in 2026, according to the City of Munich.
How many people go to Oktoberfest?
About 7.4 million people attended Oktoberfest 2026, a record, according to the City of Munich and ZDFheute. The previous record was about 7.2 million in 2023.
When was Oktoberfest 2026, and when is it in 2028?
Oktoberfest 2026 ran from Saturday, September 19, to Sunday, October 4, 2026. Oktoberfest 2028 runs from Saturday, September 16, to Tuesday, October 3, 2028, according to Oktoberfest Guide and the date rule.
Is the Wiesn the same as Oktoberfest?
Yes. Wiesn is the Munich name for Oktoberfest, taken from the Theresienwiese, the meadow where it is held. The Oide Wiesn is the historic section inside the same festival grounds.
Sources:
- muenchen.de: Oktoberfest Bilanz 2026
- muenchen.de: Wiesn Zahlen und Rekorde
- muenchen.de: Bierpreise 2026
- ZDFheute: Oktoberfest 2026 Bilanz
- Oktoberfest Tours: 2027 schedule
- Oktoberfest Guide: When does Oktoberfest take place?
- Wikipedia: Oktoberfest
- Oktoberfest Zinzinnati
- 365 Cincinnati: Cincinnati Oktoberfests
- K-W Oktoberfest
- NSC Total: Oktoberfest Blumenau 2026
- CVC: Oktoberfest em Blumenau
- stuttgart.de: Cannstatter Volksfest
- Tageskarte: Cannstatter Wasen
- Tageskarte: Bilanz der Wiesn 2025
