Buy FA Cup tickets for the 2026/27 season and the first thing to accept is that nobody knows who is playing whom, or where, until the balls come out of the bowl. This is the 146th edition of the oldest football tournament in the world. It began with the extra preliminary round on 8 August 2026 and runs through fourteen rounds to the final at Wembley Stadium on Saturday 22 May 2027.
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That uncertainty is exactly why the resale market matters here in a way it does not for a league fixture. A league ticket can be bought months ahead. A cup tie is confirmed by a televised draw with as little as four weeks of notice, and the clubs open their own sales windows to members first. Manchester City enter 2026/27 as holders after beating Chelsea 1-0 at Wembley in May 2026, an eighth win that put them level with three other clubs on the all-time list.
This guide covers what tickets for each round tend to cost on the resale market, how the Wembley allocations work for the semi-finals and the final, where to sit at each stage and what to check before you complete a purchase. Every figure quoted is a range rather than a fixed price, because cup demand moves sharply once a draw is made.
Three things compress the FA Cup ticket market. The first is the notice period. League fixtures are published in June. Cup ties are drawn round by round, so a club has weeks rather than months to distribute an allocation, and the supporters who want it most are already in the queue.
The second is capacity mismatch. When a Premier League side is drawn away at a League Two club, a ground holding 8,000 has to absorb interest from a fanbase of millions. The away allocation is set by the competition rules and is a percentage of the host ground, so a small stadium produces a small allocation regardless of how many people want to travel. Those ties are the tightest tickets in the calendar.
The third is the one-off nature of the occasion. A league meeting between two clubs happens twice a season, every season. A cup tie between the same two clubs might not happen again for twenty years. Neutral buyers who would never pay a premium for a routine league game will pay one for a quarter-final, and Chelsea supporters who watched seven consecutive domestic cup final defeats know exactly how rare a good cup run feels.
Broadcast selection adds a fourth pressure. Since 2024/25 every round is played across a weekend, and the fourth round, fifth round and quarter-finals are scheduled on weekends kept clear of Premier League fixtures. That gives cup ties an exclusive television window, which lifts national interest and pulls in casual buyers who were not tracking the competition earlier.
Yes, through the resale market. Club sales channels almost always work in the same sequence: season ticket holders first, then members by loyalty points, then general sale if anything is left. For a Premier League club drawn away at a lower-league ground, general sale rarely arrives. The allocation is exhausted inside the loyalty tiers.
Membership schemes also carry a lead time problem. Most clubs close membership windows well before the third round is drawn, and loyalty points accumulate over seasons rather than weeks. Someone who decides in January that they want to see a fifth-round tie has no route into the club ballot that season.
A marketplace works differently. Listings come from supporters who already hold tickets and can no longer attend, which means availability appears at every stage rather than only during a club sales window. 1BoxOffice has operated as a verified secondary marketplace since 2006 and covers every order with a 150% money-back guarantee, so a buyer without club history still has a route to a seat.
All fourteen rounds are scheduled across weekends. Fixtures are frequently moved a day either side of the listed date for television, and the draw for each round is made shortly after the previous round finishes. Plan travel around the round rather than the specific day until the fixture is confirmed.
| Round | Date | Who Enters |
|---|---|---|
| Extra Preliminary Round | Saturday 8 August 2026 | Clubs from steps 5 and 6 of the non-league pyramid |
| Preliminary Round | Saturday 22 August 2026 | Step 4 clubs join |
| First Round Qualifying | Saturday 5 September 2026 | Step 3 clubs join |
| Second Round Qualifying | Saturday 19 September 2026 | Winners progress |
| Third Round Qualifying | Saturday 3 October 2026 | Step 2 clubs join |
| Fourth Round Qualifying | Saturday 17 October 2026 | National League clubs join |
| First Round Proper | Saturday 7 November 2026 | League One and League Two clubs join |
| Second Round Proper | Saturday 5 December 2026 | Winners progress |
| Third Round Proper | Saturday 9 January 2027 | Premier League and Championship clubs join |
| Fourth Round Proper | Saturday 13 February 2027 | 32 clubs remain |
| Fifth Round Proper | Saturday 6 March 2027 | 16 clubs remain |
| Quarter-Finals | Saturday 3 April 2027 | 8 clubs remain |
| Semi-Finals | Saturday 24 April 2027 | Both ties at Wembley Stadium |
| Final | Saturday 22 May 2027 | Wembley Stadium |
The third round on 9 January 2027 is the weekend the competition changes character. All twenty Premier League clubs and all twenty-four Championship clubs enter at that stage, and 124 clubs contest the competition proper in total.
Pricing on the resale market is driven by five factors: which round the tie falls in, the size of the host ground, the profile of the two clubs, the seat location and whether the tie has been selected for live broadcast. A third-round tie at a 60,000-seat Premier League ground behaves nothing like a third-round tie at a 6,000-seat League Two ground, even in the same round.
| Round | Resale Price Range | What Drives the Range |
|---|---|---|
| First and Second Round Proper | £20 – £70 | Small grounds, limited national interest, low prices unless a televised upset is brewing |
| Third Round Proper | £30 – £140 | Top-flight clubs enter; away allocations at small grounds command the highest premiums |
| Fourth and Fifth Round Proper | £45 – £200 | Field halves each round; exclusive weekends lift broadcast profile |
| Quarter-Finals | £70 – £280 | Eight clubs remain, one win from Wembley, neutral demand rises sharply |
| Semi-Finals at Wembley | £90 – £450 | 90,000 capacity absorbs volume but Level 1 halfway seats move fastest |
| Final at Wembley | £180 – £900+ | Highest demand of the season; premium and hospitality tiers extend well beyond the range |
Prices reflect typical resale ranges and may change as demand and availability shift closer to the match.
One pattern is worth planning around. Prices for a cup tie usually spike in the seventy-two hours after the draw, soften through the middle of the window as more listings appear, then rise again in the final week. Buying at the spike is the most expensive moment of the cycle.
The third round on the weekend of 9 January 2027 generates more ticket demand than any other round outside Wembley. It is the only stage where a top-flight club can be drawn at a non-league ground, and those ties sell out within hours of going on sale to members.
Two ticket situations dominate the round. The first is the small-ground away allocation, where a Premier League club receives a percentage of a stadium that might hold fewer than 10,000 people. Demand exceeds supply by an enormous margin and resale listings are scarce and expensive.
The second is the reverse: a lower-league club drawn away at a large Premier League ground. Here the host has 40,000 or more seats to fill for a fixture their own supporters may treat as a rotation match, and prices are frequently softer than for a routine league game at the same stadium. That combination makes the third round the round where patient buyers find the strongest value in the whole competition.
Rotation is the variable to watch. Managers with European commitments in February frequently change eight or nine players for a January cup tie, and when that becomes clear in the build-up, home supporters at the larger grounds sell in numbers. Listings tend to increase in the forty-eight hours before kick-off as a result, which is the opposite of the pattern at every other stage of the competition. If you are buying for a big-ground tie against lower-league opposition, waiting is usually rewarded. If you are buying for the reverse fixture at a small ground, waiting is usually punished.
Both semi-finals are staged at Wembley Stadium on the weekend of 24 April 2027. Playing them at a 90,000-capacity neutral venue rather than at a club ground means the semi-finals produce more available tickets than the quarter-finals did, despite being a later stage of the competition.
The allocation model changes at this point. Instead of a home club and a small away section, both clubs receive large blocks split across the two ends of the stadium, with the remainder distributed through the governing body's own channels. Neutral seats do exist, and buyers who are flexible about which end they sit in have more choice than at any earlier round.
The practical decision is which tier to target. Level 1 puts you closest to the pitch but the halfway blocks are the first to disappear. Level 5 sits high above the corners and behind the goals, offers the widest view of the whole pitch and holds availability longest. Level 2 is the middle tier and is largely allocated to premium and hospitality packages. Listings for both ties appear on the FA Cup semi-final tickets page once the quarter-finals are settled.
The final on Saturday 22 May 2027 is scheduled on the penultimate weekend of the Premier League season, on a Saturday kept clear of league fixtures. It is the only domestic match of the season with an exclusive national window, and the ticket market reflects that.
Wembley Stadium holds roughly 90,000 for the final. The two finalist clubs receive the largest share, distributed to their own supporters by loyalty points, and the remainder goes to county associations, affiliated leagues, grassroots clubs, sponsors and long-term Club Wembley seat licence holders. There is no general public sale for the final. That single fact is why resale is the primary route for a neutral or for a supporter who missed the club ballot.
Because the finalists are only confirmed on the semi-final weekend, roughly four weeks separates the moment you know who is playing from the match itself. Listings appear steadily across that window rather than all at once. Buyers who want a specific tier or a block of seats together are better served early in the window than late.
Wembley is a three-tier bowl with continuous seating on every side. Blocks are numbered clockwise, with the lower tier in the 100s, the middle tier in the 200s and the upper tier in the 500s. Nothing at Wembley is a restricted view in the traditional sense, so the choice is about distance from the pitch and the price you want to pay for it.
| Area | What It Suits | Pricing Bracket | General Guidance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Level 1 halfway (blocks 101 to 104, 129 to 132) | Buyers who want the closest view of play | Upper | First to sell out at both the semi-finals and the final |
| Level 1 behind the goal | Supporters who want to sit inside the club singing sections | Mid to upper | Loudest areas of the ground; sightlines are flatter than the halfway blocks |
| Level 2 (Club Wembley) | Buyers wanting padded seats and lounge access | Premium | Largely tied to seat licences and hospitality packages rather than match sales |
| Level 5 halfway | Buyers who want tactical perspective at a lower price | Mid | Best value tier at Wembley for reading the shape of a game |
| Level 5 corners and behind the goal | Buyers prioritising price and availability | Lower | Steepest rake in the stadium; holds availability longest into the final week |
Two practical points. Wembley's upper tier is genuinely high, so anyone uncomfortable with heights should target Level 1. And if you are buying more than four seats, check the listing notes carefully, because large groups are often split across adjacent rows rather than seated in a single line. The Wembley Stadium seating plan shows how the block numbering maps onto each tier before you commit.
Hospitality is a larger part of the FA Cup market than of a league fixture, because Wembley was built with a middle tier dedicated to it. At club grounds in the earlier rounds, cup hospitality is usually the same product the club sells for league matches, repriced for the occasion.
| Hospitality Option | Typical Buyer | Main Appeal |
|---|---|---|
| Lounge and bar packages | Groups of friends and small business parties | Padded seat, pre-match bar, in-seat service, informal dress code |
| Restaurant packages | Couples and corporate pairs | Three-course dining before the match and a Level 2 seat on the halfway line |
| Fine dining and chef packages | Corporate entertaining | Premium menu, complimentary bar, former players in attendance |
| Private boxes | Companies hosting eight to twenty guests | Enclosed viewing, dedicated host, flexible catering, no queueing |
The trade-off is straightforward. Hospitality at the final can cost several times a standard seat, and the seat itself is not always closer to the pitch than a well-chosen Level 1 ticket. What you are buying is the surrounding experience, the guaranteed availability and the absence of concourse queues at half-time.
Delivery method matters more in cup football than anywhere else, because the gap between confirmation and kick-off can be short. Always read the listing notes before purchase and confirm the delivery route matches your travel plans.
| Delivery Type | What to Check |
|---|---|
| Mobile transfer | Which app or wallet the transfer arrives in, and whether you need an account set up in advance |
| Instant download | That the file is available immediately, which suits late buyers and short cup windows |
| Courier delivery | The dispatch date against your travel date, and whether the address can receive a signed parcel |
| Collection near the ground | The collection point, opening hours and what identification you need to bring |
Charge your phone before you travel. Wembley and most Premier League grounds now operate digital entry as standard, and a flat battery at the turnstile is the single most common avoidable problem on a matchday. Carry photo identification as well, since it is requested for some collection and hospitality routes.
Step1
Find your fixture
Search for the tie by round or by club. Cup fixtures appear as soon as the draw is confirmed, so check back after each round's draw rather than months ahead.
Step2
Create or log in to your account
Register at 1BoxOffice register before the draw if you expect to buy quickly. Cup windows are short and a pre-existing account saves time at checkout.
Step3
Select your seat
Filter by price, quantity and area. For Wembley ties, decide on your tier before you filter, since Level 1 and Level 5 behave very differently on both price and availability.
Step4
Review before checkout
Read the seller notes in full. Check the delivery method, whether the seats are together and any restrictions attached to the ticket type. Cup kick-off times move for broadcast selection, so confirm the date against your travel plans.
Step5
Complete payment
Pay through the secured checkout. Every order placed with 1BoxOffice, a verified marketplace operating since 2006, is covered by the 150% money-back guarantee if the ticket fails to grant entry on matchday.
Step6
Track your order
Follow delivery status and manage your booking through track order. Digital tickets arrive ahead of the match.
Travelling from abroad for a cup tie carries a scheduling risk that a league fixture does not. Rounds are confirmed weeks rather than months in advance, and broadcast selection can move a fixture from Saturday to Sunday or Monday after flights are booked. Build a buffer day into any trip planned around a cup weekend.
On delivery, instant download and mobile transfer are the most reliable routes for international buyers, since courier delivery to an overseas address risks arriving after you have already left home. If you are travelling and want the tickets waiting for you, choose a collection option near the ground and confirm the opening hours against your arrival time. For groups wanting to sit together, buy earlier in the window rather than later, because consecutive seats are the first thing to disappear as a fixture approaches.
The competition is a single-elimination knockout across fourteen rounds. Six qualifying rounds run from August to October and produce thirty-two places in the first round proper. Clubs from League One and League Two join at the first round proper in November. Premier League and Championship clubs enter at the third round in January.
Replays were abolished throughout the competition proper from 2024/25 onwards. Any tie level after ninety minutes goes to extra time and, if still level, to penalties on the day. That change matters for ticket buyers in a practical way: there is no second fixture to fall back on if you miss the first, and the value of any given ticket is higher as a result.
Semi-finals and the final are both staged at Wembley. The winners qualify for the following season's UEFA Europa League and for the FA Community Shield.
Forty-five clubs have won the competition since it began in the 1871/72 season. The concentration at the top has tightened considerably in the modern era, but the list of winners still includes clubs from outside the top flight and, in Cardiff City's case in 1927, from outside England.
| Club | Titles | Most Recent |
|---|---|---|
| Arsenal | 14 | 2020 |
| Manchester United | 13 | 2024 |
| Manchester City | 8 | 2026 |
| Chelsea | 8 | 2018 |
| Liverpool | 8 | 2022 |
| Tottenham Hotspur | 8 | 1991 |
| Year | Winner | Score | Runner-Up |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Manchester City | 1-0 | Chelsea |
| 2025 | Crystal Palace | 1-0 | Manchester City |
| 2024 | Manchester United | 2-1 | Manchester City |
| 2023 | Manchester City | 2-1 | Manchester United |
| 2022 | Liverpool | 0-0 (6-5 pens) | Chelsea |
| 2021 | Leicester City | 1-0 | Chelsea |
| 2020 | Arsenal | 2-1 | Chelsea |
| 2019 | Manchester City | 6-0 | Watford |
Manchester City became the first club to reach four consecutive finals when they qualified in 2026. Chelsea's run of seven straight domestic cup final defeats is the counterweight, and it is the kind of record that keeps neutral interest high whenever they reach Wembley again.
Ticket pressure in the cup does not map neatly onto league position. Clubs with large travelling supports produce the tightest away allocations, and clubs with recent Wembley history draw the strongest neutral interest. These are the top-flight clubs whose cup ties consistently move fastest on the resale market.
The competition's reputation rests on the clubs below the top division, and their ticket markets behave differently. A Championship or League One club on a cup run sells out its own allocation quickly because the occasion is rarer, while its away allocation at a big-six ground is often the easiest ticket of the round to obtain.
Non-league clubs reaching the third round change the picture again. Their grounds hold a few thousand at most, the tie is usually moved to a Friday or Sunday for television, and the whole allocation clears through club channels before any public window opens. Those are the fixtures where the resale market is the only realistic route in, and where the earliest listings after the draw are frequently the only ones that appear.
You can buy through a resale marketplace, where listings come from supporters who already hold tickets rather than from club ballots that require membership and loyalty points.
The final is scheduled for Saturday 22 May 2027 at Wembley Stadium, on the penultimate weekend of the Premier League season.
Resale prices typically start around £20 for early rounds and rise past £900 for premium seats at the final, with the round and the seat location driving most of the variation.
The third round proper is scheduled for the weekend of Saturday 9 January 2027, when Premier League and Championship clubs enter the competition.
Manchester City beat Chelsea 1-0 at Wembley on 16 May 2026 through an Antoine Semenyo finish, claiming an eighth title.
Both semi-finals are staged at Wembley Stadium, which is why more tickets are available at that stage than at the quarter-finals.
No. The allocation is divided between the two finalist clubs, county associations, affiliated leagues, grassroots clubs, sponsors and Club Wembley seat licence holders.
The middle of the window between the draw and the fixture usually offers better value than the first three days after the draw or the final week before kick-off.
No. Replays were removed throughout the competition proper from 2024/25, so any level tie goes to extra time and then penalties on the day.
The away club receives a percentage of the host ground's capacity set by the competition rules, which means allocations at small stadiums are correspondingly small.
Yes, but do not wear away colours in a home area. Stewards remove supporters displaying opposition kit from home sections at every ground.
Level 5 on the halfway line usually offers the strongest combination of price and sightline, giving a full view of the pitch shape well below Level 1 prices.
Delivery is by mobile transfer, instant download, courier or local collection, and the method is stated in each listing before you buy.
Yes, where a listing is marked as instant download the file is available immediately after payment, which suits short cup windows and late travel decisions.
Listings state whether seats are consecutive, and buying earlier in the window gives a much better chance of finding blocks of three or more together.
Packages typically combine a padded seat with lounge or restaurant access, pre-match catering, a bar and in-seat service, with private boxes at the upper end.
Yes, the winners enter the following season's UEFA Europa League and also contest the FA Community Shield.
Only small bags are admitted and larger items are refused at the gates, so check the stadium's published matchday guidance for the current dimensions before you travel.
Yes, and children are welcome at every round, though age policies and accompanying-adult requirements vary by host club so check the listing and the ground's guidance.
Wembley Park on the Metropolitan and Jubilee lines is the closest station, with Wembley Stadium and Wembley Central serving overground and mainline routes.
Sources: Football Association's published 2026-27 competition round dates, Manchester City's published match reports, Opta Analyst records and Wembley Stadium matchday guidance.
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