2026 Giro d'Italia route revealed with 40km time trial and reduction in climbing

• From Friday, May 8 to Sunday, May 31
• From Nessebar to Rome over 3,459 kilometres
• 1 individual time trial of 40.2km
• 8 sprint stages, 6 hilly stages, 6 mountain stages
• 50,000 metres of elevation gain in total

The 2026 Giro d’Italia will feature a 40km time trial on stage 10 and a route that seems designed expressly to give riders a chance of tackling both the corsa rosa and the Tour de France in the same year.

Although the third week is perhaps less daunting than in years past, it still features a tough trek through the Dolomites and a double ascent of Piancavallo. The route, the last to be designed by outgoing race director Mauro Vegni, was presented on Monday afternoon at the Parco della Musica Ennio Morricone in Rome.

As had been widely reported, the Giro will start in Bulgaria on Friday, May 8 with a road stage along the Black Sea coast from Nesebar to Burgas. The race will transfer to Italy ahead of stage 4 on the first of its three rest days.

The first summit finish of the Giro will come at the Blockhaus on stage 7, while the 40km time trial along the Tuscan coast to Massa on stage 10 looks set to be a pivotal moment in the race. 

In keeping with tradition, the toughest stages are shoehorned into the final week of racing, with a summit finish at Carì in Switzerland, a tough run to Andalo, and a Dolomite tappone to Piani di Pezzè. The penultimate stage in Friuli will see a double ascent of Piancavallo before the Giro transfers south to Rome for the finale.

With a total altitude gain of 50,000m across the three weeks, the Giro is slightly lighter on climbing than it was in 2025. RCS Sport will hope that detail will tempt Jonas Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel into attempting the Giro-Tour double last achieved by Tadej Pogacar in 2024.

Both Vingegaard and Evenepoel have signalled an interest in riding the Giro, but they were delaying any commitment until after the route announcement. It remains to be seen if the Giro’s lone individual time trial will be enough to convince Evenepoel to return, but RCS Sport will be optimistic that they have done enough to secure the presence of at least one of the two riders.

Pogacar is not expected to race the 2026 Giro, though the four-time Tour winner will not reveal his race programme until the UAE Team Emirates-XRG media day on December 13.

The Grande Partenza in Bulgaria has been one of the worst-kept secrets in cycling, but the full details of the opening trio of stages have finally been revealed. It marks the Giro’s third Eastern European start in recent years after excursions to Budapest in 2022 and to Albania in 2025. As had been anticipated, the UCI granted RCS dispensation to include an extra rest day to facilitate the transfer to Italy.

The Giro begins with a flat road stage along the Black Sea coast, and it will be a surprise if a sprinter doesn’t claim the first maglia rosa of the race in Burgas. Stage 2 to Veliko Tarnovo features some more rugged terrain at the midpoint, while the third stage from the striking second city of Plovdiv to the capital Sofia, looks destined to produce a bunch sprint.

After a long transfer to Calabria, the Giro resumes with a short and relatively gentle stage from Catanzaro to Cosenza, and the small climb in the finale is unlikely to trouble the sprinters. The terrain is more rugged on stage 5 from Praia a Mare to Potenza, where the hills in the finale might serve to burn off some of the fast men. There is a familiar look to stage 6, which brings the Giro to Naples for the fourth year in succession, with the category 4 climb of Fuorigrotta coming just under 8km from the finish.

The general classification contenders will finally come to the fore on stage 7 to the Blockhaus, which comes slightly earlier than it did on its last appearances in 2017 and 2022. The climb is among the toughest in the southern half of the country, and the Roccamorice approach averages 8.4% across its 13.6km. It also comes after the climbs of Roccaraso and the Passo San Leonardo.

On stage 8, the race could be split apart by the succession of short, sharp muri around the finish town Fermo. The climb of Capodarco precedes the steep climb to the finish, which has featured at Tirreno-Adriatico in years past..

The opening week ends with a trek into the Apennines to the ski resort of Corno alle Scale (5.8km at 7.7%). Gilberto Simoni won on the Giro's last visit in 2004, and the 14% slopes in the finale are sure to create separation among the GC contenders.

The moment of truth for many GC contenders will come immediately after the second rest day when they take on the 40.2km time trial from Viareggio to Massa di Carrara. The flat test along the Tyrrhenian coast looks an obvious opportunity for Evenepoel to stamp his authority on the Giro, if he chooses to line out.

The gruppo hits the shallow hills and headlands of the Via Aureliana on stage 11 to Chiavari, where the sprinters might not withstand the San Bartolomeo in the finale. Stage 12 to Novi Ligure takes in the Bric Berton, but the flat run-in should offer a chance for regrouping and a bunch sprint. Stage 13 from Alessandria to Verbania also features a late climb to Ungiasca that could provide a springboard for attackers.

The lie of the land shifts rapidly with the Giro’s visit to Val d’Aosta on stage 14. The four mountain passes between Aosta and Pila add up to just under 5,000m of climbing, and this stage is sure to provoke some movement among the maglia rosa contenders. 

The climbs of Saint-Barthélémy (14.7km at 7.1%), Doues, Lin Noir and Verrogne (13.8km at 7.1%) precede a summit finish at Pila (16.6km at 7.1%), where Philippa York, then known as Robert Millar, was the stage winner in 1987.

The second week concludes with a flat run to Milan, where the sprinters should once again be the fore.

Although the Giro has finished in Rome for the past four years, the race has not shifted from its tradition of traversing the Alps in the final week of the race. After a relatively benign second week, the Giro shifts gear in its last six stages, though the final act of this Giro is not quite as mammoth of some of those in years past. 

The race resumes after the third rest day with a short but tough leg that takes place entirely in Switzerland, from Bellinzona to a summit finish at Carì. The stage was initially expected to have a five-star difficulty rating, but it has been scaled back considerably. Still, the gruppo will climb both Torre (category 3) and Leontico (category 2) twice before tackling the ascent to Carì (9km at 8.9%).

The Giro remains in the uplands on stage 16, which brings the race into Trentino for a leg from Cassano d’Adda to Andalo. Madonna di Campiglio had previously been expected to host the finish, but the local authorities pushed for Andalo, with its relatively shallow, three-part ascent to the finish. It's a medium mountain stage, but the terrain is still tougher than it looks – a flagging Vincenzo Nibali appeared to have lost all hopes of overall victory here back in 2016 before his dramatic late fightback.

The sprinters get a chance on stage 18 to Pieve di Soligo before the hardship begins all over again with the Dolomite tappone from Feltre to Alleghe on stage 19. The Giro’s third five-star stage is also its toughest, with 5,000m of altitude gain on a day that includes the Passo Duran, Forcella Staulanza, Passo Giau and Passo Falzarego ahead of the short but sharp summit finish at Piani di Pezzè (4.9km at 9.8%). Mammoth time gaps look guaranteed on one of the toughest days in recent Giro history.

Vegni opted for relative restraint on the final mountain stage in Friuli, resisting the temptation to route the Giro over the Zoncolan. When the Giro last visited Friuli on the final weekend in 2023, the sheer difficulty of the Monte Lussari time trial seemed to lead to conservative racing in the preceding stages, and so Vegni has fallen up a less arduous option. 

Instead of tackling the Zoncolan, the Giro will take in two climbs of the gentler – but still difficult – ascent of Piancavallo (14.5km at 7.8%). Marco Pantani won here en route to overall victory in 1998, while Tao Geoghegan Hart did as much in 2020. The rider in pink at the summit here, meanwhile, will win the Giro, with only the final circuit race in Rome to come.