Rio Carnival 2027 for groups and travel agencies

Dates for Carnival 2027

The city has given only the start date of the street carnival. The final list of blocos is approved after checks by city services, the police and the fire brigade, with final documents due by January 15, 2027.

The technical rehearsals suit a group that arrives before the parades or wants a night at the Sambadrome without tickets: entry is free, and LIESA uses them for the light and sound tests of the avenue.

Special Group order by night

Unidos do Viradouro won the 2026 competition with 270 points and parades second on Tuesday as the defending champion. União de Maricá won the 2026 Série Ouro, moved up to the Special Group and opens the Sunday night.

How a night runs (2026 timing for reference)

LIESA has not published the 2027 start times. Its schedule page lists only the dates and the schools (checked October 9, 2026). Here is how the nights ran in 2026:

• the Special Group nights started at 21:45;
• each school had 70 to 80 minutes to cross the avenue;
• the last school of the night entered between about 2:30 and 3:00, so a four-school night ran for more than five hours, into the early morning;
• the Champions Parade started at 20:00.

A four-school night is long, so we agree with you in advance whether the group stays to the end or leaves after two schools, and we plan the transport back in two waves if people want different things.

Choosing the night for a group

• Sunday, Monday or Tuesday: each competition night has four Special Group schools, in the order above. The choice depends on which schools the group wants to see and how the night fits the rest of the program.
• Saturday, February 13: the Champions Parade brings back the six best schools of the competition. In 2026 it started earlier than the competition nights, at 20:00, and tickets for it were part of the September 2026 sale. It suits a group that arrives after the competition.
• Friday and Saturday, February 5 and 6: the Série Ouro nights, for a group that arrives before the Special Group parades.
• January rehearsals: free, on the weekends of January 23 and 24, and January 30 and 31.

The Sambadrome

The official name of the Sambadrome is Passarela Professor Darcy Ribeiro. It was designed by Oscar Niemeyer, opened in 1984 and holds more than 70,000 spectators, on Rua Marquês de Sapucaí in the Centro district. The sectors are numbered on two sides of the avenue, odd and even, and each side is reached from a different metro station (see Getting there below). The sector number on the ticket decides where the group gets dropped off.

Ticket types and the official channel

The official sales channel is Ticketmaster Brasil, at ticketmaster.com.br/event/riocarnaval. LIESA, the league of the Special Group schools, asks buyers to use only that channel. It monitors resale above face value and passes those cases to Ticketmaster for cancellation.

What else to know about the 2027 sale:

• Sales opened in phases from March 2026. The first two phases, an all-nights pass (Passaporte Rio Carnaval, R$499) and the Ingresso Sambista, sold out.
• Sector 9 is reserved for tourism packages in 2027 and was not part of the general sale.
• The popular stands in sectors 12 and 13, at the Praça da Apoteose end of the avenue, have no announced sale date or price yet.

CPF, PIX and other buying rules

Sambadrome tickets are sold against a CPF, the Brazilian taxpayer number. The rules for the 2027 sale so far:

• In the September 2026 phase, the limit was two grandstand tickets per CPF per parade day, one pair of numbered chairs per parade day, and one frisa per CPF per parade day.
• Only one half-price ticket (meia-entrada) is allowed per CPF. Under Brazilian law, half price is for students, people with disabilities, people aged 60 and over, and low-income young people.
• The all-nights pass was limited to one per CPF and issued in the buyer’s name.
• Frisas can be paid only by PIX, the Brazilian instant payment system.
• LIESA and Ticketmaster have not published an official answer on whether a foreigner without a CPF can buy tickets (checked October 9, 2026). We check the purchase route for each group before you pay anything.

A new rule for frisas was reported on October 7, 2026: according to Ticketmaster, as quoted by Diário do Rio, all six people on a frisa must collect their wristbands together and register facial biometrics at the pickup. Partial pickup or pickup by someone else is not possible, and the tickets cannot be transferred. For a group, this means all six people in each frisa must be in Rio at the same time before their parade night. The pickup dates and place have not been announced yet.

Getting there

• Metro: odd sectors (1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11) are closest to Central do Brasil station; even sectors (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12) to Praça Onze station.
• In 2026, MetrôRio ran 24 hours a day from 05:00 on Friday, February 13 until midnight on Wednesday, February 18, and again over the Champions Parade weekend.
• Roads: in 2026, CET-Rio, the city traffic authority, closed the central lanes of Avenida Presidente Vargas and nearby streets around the Sambadrome on parade days. Parking around the venue was banned from 06:00 on February 13 to 10:00 on February 18, and there was no dedicated event parking. The city recommended the metro, trains, the VLT light rail and ferries.

The 2027 traffic plan has not been published; the 2026 plan came out on February 5. For groups, we plan either a coach to a drop-off point outside the closures with a guide walking the group to its sector, or the metro with a guide, depending on the hotel and the sector.

What you cannot bring (2026 rules for reference)

The 2027 rules have not been published. In 2026, each person could bring up to two plastic bottles of 500 ml, up to two food items for their own use and a plastic raincoat. Sources differ on coolers, so we tell the group to leave them at the hotel.

Not allowed in 2026: glass and cans, large coolers, aerosols, selfie sticks, umbrellas, drones, lasers, fireworks, weapons, animals and chairs. Children under 16 could not enter without an adult.

Safety and medical care

In 2026, the city set up 6 medical posts with 33 beds, 11 water points and 16 ambulances at the Sambadrome, working from 19:00 to 04:00 on the Special Group nights. The Government of Canada warns that petty crime increases around big events such as Carnival and that incidents of spiked food and drinks are increasing, particularly in Rio de Janeiro. In our group briefing we ask people to carry a copy of the passport, little cash and one card, never to leave a drink unattended, and to keep to the meeting point the guide sets for the return.

Street carnival with a group

Rio’s street carnival is made up of blocos, groups with their own band and songs that parade through neighborhoods across the city. For scale, the 2026 street carnival ran from January 17 to February 22, with 459 bloco parades planned and an estimated 6 million people, according to Riotur. For 2027, the city has set January 16 as the start.

With a group, a bloco needs the same preparation as the Sambadrome: a guide who knows where the bloco starts and how to leave it, a meeting point, small bags and phones kept out of sight. The Government of Canada’s warning about petty crime at festivities applies to blocos too. We pick blocos by size and neighborhood once the official 2027 schedule is out.

Carnival for groups and travel agencies

We work on Carnival for groups and agencies, from a family of ten to a company with several coaches, and we build the night around the seats your group chooses.

For corporate groups, we put together a camarote, a transfer and a guide. The camarote usually includes an open bar and food, the transfer is planned around the closures, and the guide takes the group in and out and keeps the meeting point.

Travel agencies can add the Sambadrome night to a wider Rio program, with net rates or commission on request. See For travel agencies.

What we take care of: choosing the night and the type of seat with you (camarote, frisa or grandstand) by budget and group size; checking the purchase route before you pay; planning the frisa wristband pickup so all six people are there together; transfers from the hotel around the road closures, with the return in waves; a guide with the group on the night; hotels and dinners; and, if you want them, the free technical rehearsals in January and street blocos with a guide.

Our deposit for Carnival is non-refundable after you confirm the booking, because seats and tickets are reserved for your group. The other terms and the payment schedule are set out in the proposal, and you pay nothing before you confirm.

For transfers during Carnival week, see Group transfers in Rio. If your group is also coming for New Year’s Eve, see New Year’s Eve in Rio.