Tour de France introduces key rule changes for 2025

There will be key regulatory changes implemented for the 2025 Tour de France, including the modification of the three-kilometre rule for sprint finishes, the removal of bonus sprints and extended time limits in mountain stages.

As was the case in 2024, the three-kilometre rule will be adapted to four and five kilometres on stages where the finish is expected to end in a bunch sprint. The rule enables riders who are part of a crash involving multiple riders, or suffer a mechanical issue or puncture inside the last three to five kilometres of a road stage (excluding summit finishes) to be given the same time as the group they were in when the incident occurred.

Confirmed in a press release from the UCI on July 3, six stages at the 2025 Tour de France will see the zone extend to five kilometres: stage 1, stage 3, stage 4, stage 9, stage 17, and stage 21, whilst stage 15's finish to Carcassone will see the zone extended to 4 kilometres. 

The 2024 Tour featured bonus sprints which were placed in strategic locations during 4 of the 21 stages, with 8, 5 and 2 seconds awarded to the first three riders to cross the line over these sprints. Whilst these bonus sprints have been removed for 2025, the 10, 6 and 4 bonus seconds awarded to the first three stage finishers remain, with the exception of the two time trials on stage 5 and 13.

These bonus sprints were initially included to incentivise more attacking racing, and there have been many variants in other races such as the Red Bull kilometre in the 2025 Giro d'Italia or the golden kilometre seen annually at the Benelux Tour, though A.S.O have decided against any inclusion of a 'bonus' sprint for the 2025 Tour. 

"The stages where they could have been implemented should already be quite lively without adding more," said Thierry Gouvenou, the lead course designer of the Tour de France. 

An interesting point to add is that whilst the points classification scale remains largely the same, 50 points for the winner on sprint stages, 20 for the winner of the mountain stages and time trials, stage 16's summit finish to Mont Ventoux has been given a difficulty coefficient of 3 out of 5 - which awards the stage winner 30 points for the green jersey classification, which is the same as some of the hilly stages. In terms of the mountains classification, the Col de La Loze, the summit finish of stage 18, will be the only climb where points will be doubled.

Another important change that the race organisers have made for the 2025 edition is the decision to extend the time limits by 1% in the most difficult mountain stages, which should give the sprinters and the riders in the gruppetto slightly more breathing space when it comes to staying ahead of the broomwagon.