Rio Carnival 2027 Tickets: Dates, Prices, and How to Buy

Written by Gui · Reviewed by Gio · Up to date as of August 2026

Rio Carnival 2027 finally has real ticket dates. On July 29, 2026, LIESA, the league that runs the Grupo Especial parades, announced that Sambadrome sales restart in August: a pre-sale for Mercado Pago cardholders from August 7 to 9, 2026, and the general sale from August 10, both opening at 7pm Brasília time on Ticketmaster Brazil.

This is the round most visitors were waiting for. The two early products, the Passaporte and the Ingresso Sambista, sold out months ago and were aimed mostly at Brazilians, but they were never the main event. What goes on sale now is single-night access to the good grandstands, and if you miss it, there is still one more window after this one.

When Do Rio Carnival 2027 Tickets Go on Sale?

Two dates, both starting at 7pm Brasília time, both on Ticketmaster Brazil:

• Pre-sale, August 7 to 9, 2026: open only to Mercado Pago cardholders, limited to two tickets per person.
• General sale, from August 10, 2026: open to everyone, limited to four tickets per CPF.

Across both phases, only one half-price ticket is allowed per CPF.

Brazil scrapped daylight saving in 2019, so Rio's 7pm is a fixed offset from wherever you are. Here is when the general sale opens in your city, so you can set the alarm now rather than doing the maths while the queue moves:

The pre-sale opens at the same hour three days earlier, on Friday, August 7. If you are in Europe, note that the sale lands after midnight for most of the continent, so plan on being awake rather than hoping to catch it in the morning: the first hour is when the best sectors go.

What Is in This Round, and What Does It Cost?

Two categories are on sale in August:

• Arquibancadas especiais (special grandstands) in sectors 2 through 11, with the exception of sector 9. These are bench seating, and you will be standing for a good part of the night.
• Cadeiras individuais numeradas (individual numbered chairs) in sector 12.

Full price is R$250 (about US$48) per parade night. The cheaper meia-entrada tier is Brazil's legally mandated half-price discount for students, people over 60, and a handful of other categories who can document it, so most visitors coming from abroad should budget for the full price.

LIESA also says tickets for the Desfile das Campeãs, the Saturday parade where the top-scoring schools go again, are available in this same round. Press coverage of the announcement focused almost entirely on the grandstand sectors, so if the Campeãs is your priority, check for it directly on the sales page rather than assuming.

Two things worth knowing about the sectors on offer. Our own Carnival in Rio guide rates sectors 4 to 11 as the best visibility in the Sambódromo, so this batch does contain the good ones. Sector 9, the numbered "Setor Star" that always sells out fastest, is not in it. And the sector 12 chairs are the comfortable option, but they sit near the end of the runway, where the schools have already given their best.

This is roughly how the sectors sit along the avenue, with the parade running from the start towards the Praça da Apoteose at the far end:

The sector number also decides your commute, which is easy to miss when you are picking a seat months ahead. Odd and even sectors sit on opposite sides of the avenue, and each side has its own metro station:

• Even sectors (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12): Praça Onze station, which comes out close to the entrances.
• Odd sectors (3, 5, 7, 11): Central do Brasil station, with a walk of around 700 metres to the entrance.

If you have no strong reason to prefer one side, pick an even sector. Praça Onze puts you near your gate; the odd side means that 700 metre walk from Central do Brasil at both ends of the night, in a crowd, in February heat, in whatever you decided to wear. It sounds trivial when you are booking in August. It is not trivial at 4am when the parade ends and everyone leaves at once.

One more thing: the two sides do not connect once you are inside, and you cannot cross the parade track after the gates close. Everyone in your group needs tickets on the same side. Buy sector 4 while your friend buys sector 5 and you will spend the night waving at each other across the avenue.

If you are still deciding whether the parade at the ⁠Sambódromo Marquês de Sapucaí is the right Carnival experience for you at all, that same guide explains what the parade actually feels like and what kind of planning it takes. And if you are not sure Rio is your city yet, our comparison of where to spend Carnival in Brazil walks through Salvador, Belo Horizonte, Recife and Olinda, and São Paulo too.

How Do You Get Ready Before the Sale Opens?

High-demand sales on Ticketmaster Brazil run through a virtual queue, and the people who lose their place are almost always the ones still filling in forms when their turn arrives. Everything below can be done days in advance, and Ticketmaster publishes most of it as its own guidance:

• Create your account now, not at 6:55pm. Sign-up needs an emailed confirmation code, so it is not a two-minute job on the night. If you already have an account, check that your email, phone, and password still work, and reset the password ahead of time if you are unsure. No CPF? See below.
• Be logged in before 7pm. Log in early and stay logged in.
• Have a credit card ready. Ticketmaster Brazil accepts credit cards (prepaid ones included) and Pix, but not debit cards, boleto, or bank transfer. Pix needs a Brazilian bank account, so if you are coming from abroad, a credit card is realistically your only route. Check the limit covers the full order before the sale, and warn your bank you are about to make a Brazilian charge so it does not get blocked as fraud.
• Turn off your VPN. Ticketmaster explicitly asks you to disable VPNs and anything else that masks your IP address. This one catches a lot of travelers who leave a VPN running by default.
• One device, one browser, one tab. Queueing in several tabs to improve your odds does the opposite and can throw errors.
• Do not refresh. Refreshing while you wait can send you to the back of the queue, and refreshing after you have picked your tickets releases them back into the pool.
• Decide your day and sector beforehand. Tickets are sold per parade night, and the running order was drawn back in April 2026, so you can already see which schools go on which night. Our Carnival in Rio guide breaks down what each ticket category is actually like and which sectors have the best view.
• Use a stable connection. A wired or reliable home connection beats public wifi.

Are Camarotes Still Available?

Yes. Camarotes, the premium all-inclusive lounges, went on sale in May 2026, ahead of the standard grandstand releases, and several were still listed as available at the start of August 2026.

This is not a category to treat casually. Availability at the better ones thins out well before the standard tickets are fully rolled out, and prices are in a completely different league from a R$250 (about US$48) grandstand seat. If a premium Carnival night is what you are after, acting early is genuinely worth it here.

If you are mainly trying to get into the Sambadrome at a sensible price, though, the August round is your answer, not a panic-bought camarote.

What Still Has No Date?

One window is still unscheduled. LIESA has said the next releases will include:

• Frisas, the low boxes right at track level
• Popular grandstands, the cheaper sectors at the far end of the runway

Dates and prices for both are still to be announced. That is the honest state of it: the organizers have committed to another round without saying when, and Carnival calendars do slip. If neither the August grandstands nor a camarote works for you, this is the release to watch, and it is usually the cheapest way into the Sambadrome.

If you are planning the whole trip already, this is also the right moment to think about where you will sleep. Our guide on where to stay in Rio de Janeiro can help you pick a neighborhood before Carnival pricing takes hold.

How to Buy Safely

For Sambadrome tickets, stay inside the official channels:

• the official Rio Carnaval ticket page on Ticketmaster Brazil
• the official Rio Carnaval information page, where LIESA publishes each release

Be careful with:

• links sent by DM or WhatsApp
• "agents" who say they have guaranteed inventory
• social media profiles offering instant payment deals
• anyone trying to sell you a personal, non-transferable ticket

That last one is worth spelling out, because it is the classic Carnival resale trap. LIESA states that the Passaporte is personal and non-transferable. A resold one is not a bargain, it is a problem waiting at the gate.

If you do not have a CPF

Ticketmaster Brazil asks for a CPF, the Brazilian taxpayer number, when you register, and counts the purchase limits per CPF. That stops a lot of people from abroad before they start, but it is not actually a wall: Ticketmaster's own sign-up form asks for "CPF ou Documento de identificação (para estrangeiros)", so put your passport number in that field.

Two things to get right, because the form is unforgiving:

• The document cannot be changed later. Ticketmaster states the number is permanent and the account details must belong to the person named on the document, so type it carefully and make sure the name matches your passport exactly.
• Never invent a CPF. Generated numbers circulate on travel forums, and Ticketmaster's own terms point at Brazil's falsidade ideológica statute for false registration data. It is also a good way to lose tickets you have paid for.

Register a few days ahead either way. Sign-up needs an emailed confirmation code before the account works, and Ticketmaster warns that corporate and student email providers often block those messages, so use a personal address.

This is one of those situations where the pressure to be fast is exactly what makes people easy to scam. Better to be slightly slower and stay in the official flow.

How to Get Updates First

We will update this page when the frisa and popular grandstand dates are announced, or if anything changes in the August round.

If you want the easy version, subscribe to our newsletter below. We will send an email when the next ticket dates go live, so you do not have to keep checking the official pages yourself.