ICPC North America Regionals 2026: Deadlines and Eligibility

The ICPC North America regionals all contest on the same day, Saturday 7 November 2026 — and all three registration deadlines land in late October or the first of November. What differs is cost, which regions you must live in, and one fee that has now passed. If you want to compete competitively in ICPC, this is the window.

The constraints that catch people are not the deadlines. They are that teams must be exactly three students at the same degree-granting institution plus a registered faculty coach, and the 2026/27 eligibility rule, which requires you to have begun post-secondary study in 2022 or later, or to have been born in 2003 or later. A coach is not optional, and the Southeast regional has not published its site fees or schedule yet.

Table of Contents

The eligibility rules, precisely

All three regionals follow the ICPC Regional Rules for Regionals 2026/27, final version 25 June 2026, and judging runs on Kattis.

Team size: exactly three students, all enrolled at the same degree-granting institution.
A registered faculty coach is required. Coach registration must be complete before your team competes. If your institution has no coach, that is a conversation to start this month, not in October.
Student eligibility for 2026/27: you qualify if you first began post-secondary studies in 2022 or later, or were born in 2003 or later. This is measured at the first qualifying contest you enter, or on 1 October 2026.
No solo entry. Solo entrants cannot compete in ICPC regionals, whatever the event’s marketing implies.

That third bullet is the one that ends careers quietly. If you started university in 2021, or you were born in 2002, this cycle’s regionals are closed to you. Check it before you register anything.

Mid-Atlantic — early payment deadline has passed

Contest	Saturday 7 November 2026
Open to teams in	Eastern PA, southern NJ, DE, MD, DC, VA, WV, NC
Modify-teams deadline	29 October 2026 — the page states 29 October in one block and 30 October in another, so confirm with your coach
Payment deadlines	Early 6 October, regular 23 October, late 31 October 2026
Fee	$175 per team including one coach; $50 per additional co-coach or guest
Seats	First come first served, with a waiting list
Host sites	CNU, Johns Hopkins, JMU, Millersville, NC State, Swarthmore, Virginia Tech, Washington College
Official site	ma.na.icpc.global

Two practical points. The early payment deadline has already passed, so you are now on the regular or late fee. And seats go first come, first served with a waiting list. This is not a regional where you can register in October and relax.

Worth knowing if you are a beginner: Mid-Atlantic runs a Division 1 and Division 2 split, and Division 2 teams get live debugging help from the judges. You do not need a full algorithms background to enter and place respectably.

South Central — fee waived for one team per new school

Contest	Saturday 7 November 2026, 1:00–6:00pm
Registration ends	1 November 2026
Early bird ends	17 October 2026, with a higher fee after
Open to teams in	LA, OK, TX
Fee	$180 early / $200 late per team including one coach; $50 per additional person
Concession	Fee waived for one team from any school that did not compete in the 2025 regional
Host sites	UT Austin, UT Dallas, Rice, Houston, Tulsa, UTEP, Southeastern Louisiana
Official site	sc.na.icpc.global

The fee waiver for schools new to the regional is genuinely worth checking, and this is one of the few ICPC regionals that publishes its full rules and fees up front. It is a bring-your-own-laptop contest with a published contest image, and MacBooks are explicitly excluded. If you are the sort of team that plans to work on a Mac, read that line now.

Southeast — deadline known, costs unknown

Registration closes	31 October 2026 (opened 7 September 2026)
Contest	Saturday 7 November 2026
Open to teams in	AL, FL, GA, MS, SC
Fees and sites	Not yet published — the site says these will appear when confirmed
Official site	se.na.icpc.global

Registration is open and the deadline is firm, but the cost is unknown. If Southeast is your region, budget for a figure you have not seen and watch the site for the fee publication rather than assuming it matches the other two regionals.

There is a free, optional North America Qualifier online contest that ran on 3 October 2026 as a warm-up. It is not a prerequisite for regional registration, but it is the cheapest way to find out whether you want to do this.

Regions with no published dates

ICPC East Central, Southern California and Pacific Northwest all list registration as “to be announced”. We are not publishing dates for them, because third-party posts routinely invent them. Check the regional sites directly as they update.

What to do now

Verify your eligibility today. 2022-or-later enrolment, or born 2003 or later. Everything else is wasted effort if this fails.
Find your coach this week. Coach registration must be complete before you compete, and this is the most common reason a team fails to register.
Assemble exactly three students from one institution. Cross-institution teams are not permitted.
Watch seating, not just deadlines. Mid-Atlantic is first-come with a waiting list, so late registration is not really registration.
Register now if you are in Southeast and re-confirm the regional you actually qualify for, since teams are assigned by where your institution sits.

ICPC is team- and coach-gated, which puts it in a different category from the events where you can enter alone. If you want something you can start without assembling three people and a faculty member, the round-up of student events open right now covers six where solo entry is genuinely possible, and the Southern Hemisphere round-up covers what is open in Australia and New Zealand, which is a shorter list than you would expect.