Boston Marathon Qualifying Time Calculator
Check whether your marathon time meets the Boston Marathon (BQ) standard and how much buffer you have.
Uses the tightened 2026 BAA standards by age and gender.
The Boston Marathon Qualifying Standard The Boston Marathon, organized by the Boston Athletic Association (BAA), is one of the oldest and most prestigious marathons in the world, first held in 1897. To enter, most runners must meet an age- and gender-based qualifying time at a certified marathon held within the previous year. The qualifying standards are tiered by 5-year age groups, with the requirements becoming progressively more lenient as runners get older.
The Qualifying Time vs. The Acceptance Cutoff Meeting the qualifying time does not guarantee entry. The Boston Marathon receives far more qualifying applications than it has bibs to offer. In the years when that happens, the BAA accepts only the runners who finished FASTEST relative to their standard, and the margin that ends up being required is called the “cutoff.” It is not announced in advance. It falls out of who applied, so it moves a lot: there have been years with no cutoff at all, where every qualifier got in, and years where it exceeded seven minutes. The 2024 race needed 5 minutes and 29 seconds. Plan on needing a real buffer rather than a bare qualifier, and treat anything under five minutes as a coin toss.
The 2026 Standards Are Five Minutes Faster The BAA tightened the qualifying times beginning with the 2026 race, cutting five minutes from every age group up to 59 while leaving 60 and over unchanged. The reasoning was that the field had grown far faster than the number of bibs, and a tighter standard is more honest than a large unpredictable cutoff on top of a soft one.
| Age group | Men | Women |
|---|---|---|
| 18–34 | 2:55:00 | 3:25:00 |
| 35–39 | 3:00:00 | 3:30:00 |
| 40–44 | 3:05:00 | 3:35:00 |
| 45–49 | 3:15:00 | 3:45:00 |
| 50–54 | 3:25:00 | 3:55:00 |
| 55–59 | 3:35:00 | 4:05:00 |
| 60–64 | 3:50:00 | 4:20:00 |
| 65–69 | 4:05:00 | 4:35:00 |
| 70–74 | 4:20:00 | 4:50:00 |
| 75–79 | 4:35:00 | 5:05:00 |
| 80+ | 4:50:00 | 5:20:00 |
Your age group is the age you will be on race day, not on the day you ran the qualifier. That works in your favour if your birthday falls between the two.
Check before you plan around this. Standards change, and this table changed recently. The BAA publishes the current ones at baa.org, and that page is the only version that counts when you enter.
Non-Binary Category The BAA accepts non-binary entries, and non-binary runners use the women’s qualifying standard for their age group.
What “BQ” Means to Runners Achieving a BQ is a major milestone for amateur runners, representing years of dedicated training. Many runners structure their entire training and racing year around achieving or improving their BQ time. Beyond the standard itself, a BQ time is a meaningful benchmark of marathon fitness, typically requiring consistent weekly mileage of 40–60+ miles and real speed work. One practical detail that catches people out: the qualifier has to be run on a certified course at a race the BAA recognises, within the qualifying window for that year’s race. A fast time on a downhill or uncertified course does not count, however hard it was.
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This calculator runs entirely in your browser, so the numbers you enter stay on your device. The math behind it is written by hand and tested against worked examples and standard references before the page goes live.
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