Carabao Cup Fixtures 2026/27: Full Schedule, Kick-Off Times and Results

English football’s early-season cup competition is back, and the questions are already piling up. Can Manchester City hold on to the trophy they’ve now won nine times? Which lower-league side is going to knock out a Premier League name in round two or three? And when do the big clubs actually enter the competition?

Here’s the full lowdown on the Carabao Cup fixtures for 2026/27, round dates, kick-off windows, who’s playing who, where to watch, and how the road to Wembley is shaping up.

Quick Facts: 2026/27 Carabao Cup

Manchester City go into this season as holders after beating Arsenal 2-0 at Wembley in March, with a Nico O’Reilly brace doing the damage. That was City’s ninth League Cup title, only Liverpool have won it more, with ten. Pep Guardiola’s side won it four years running between 2018 and 2021, so nobody’s ruling out a tenth this time either. Manchester United sit third on the all-time list with six, and Aston Villa and Chelsea have five apiece.

How the Competition Is Structured

Unlike the FA Cup, which drops straight into the Premier League calendar with all the big names from round three onward, the Carabao Cup staggers its entries depending on how busy a club’s European schedule is. It works roughly like this:

That staggered entry is why you won’t see Arsenal or Liverpool involved until September; their Champions League commitments mean the EFL holds them back until the third round.

Full Round-by-Round Schedule

*The EFL usually confirms exact quarter-final dates once the fourth round has been drawn, so treat that window as provisional until it’s locked in.

Round One: The Curtain-Raiser With a Twist

The EFL moved things around a little this season. Instead of the usual midweek opener, round one was pushed to a weekend, 7-9 August, to give clubs a bit more recovery time before their league campaigns got going. The very first tie actually kicked off a couple of days earlier than that, on 6 August, when League Two’s Walsall pulled off an upset against Championship side Bristol City. A further batch of ties followed over the following days, with 70 teams involved across the Championship, League One and League Two.

Three relegated Premier League clubs, West Ham, Wolves and Burnley, made it through round one, along with a trio of League Two sides who’ll fancy their chances of causing more chaos further down the line.

Round Two: Premier League Sides Not in Europe Join In

Round two, played across 25-27 August, brought in the 11 Premier League clubs who don’t have continental football to worry about this season. That includes clubs like Tottenham, Chelsea, Newcastle and Fulham, who entered the competition fresh and away from midweek European fixtures. Draws for this round were made on 10 August, and the ties threw up some interesting storylines: Everton making a first return to Deepdale under new management, Chelsea hosting Luton, and Tottenham looking to bounce back from a rough result in the league against newly promoted Charlton.

Round Three: The Champions League Clubs Arrive

This is where the competition really opens up. Nine Premier League clubs involved in Europe this season — Arsenal, Manchester City, Manchester United, Aston Villa, Liverpool, Bournemouth, Brighton, Sunderland and Crystal Palace, enter for the first time. Because so many of these clubs are juggling continental fixtures, round three is split across two midweeks: the weeks commencing 7 and 14 September. The draw itself took place on 26 August, straight after the final round-two tie between Preston and Everton.

With 32 clubs involved and 16 ties on the board, this round always tends to throw up at least one shock. Lower-league sides that have battled through two rounds already get their reward: a home tie against one of English football’s biggest names.

Round Four Onward: Into the Business End

Round four is scheduled for Wednesday, 28 October 2026, cutting the field down to the last eight. From here, things get serious. The quarter-final draw typically happens straight after the final round-four tie, with matches expected in mid-December, though the EFL hadn’t locked in exact dates at the time of writing.

The semi-finals switch to a two-legged format for the first time in the competition, first legs in the week of 11 January 2027, second legs in the week of 1 February 2027. Whoever comes out on top on aggregate books their place in the final at Wembley on 21 March 2027.

Where to Watch the Carabao Cup

Sky Sports holds the bulk of the UK rights again this season, and with the addition of the Sky Sports+ channel, every single match in the competition is available somewhere on the platform. ITV picks up one game from each round for viewers without a Sky subscription.

Beyond the trophy itself, there’s real incentive to go the distance. The winners collect £100,000 in prize money and a spot in next season’s UEFA Conference League play-off round, provided they haven’t already qualified for the Champions League or Europa League through their league finish. If the winner has already secured Champions League football (as happened last season, when City’s win meant their Conference League spot rolled down to Brighton, who’d finished eighth in the Premier League), that European place passes to the next-best-placed club.

Who’s Won It Most?

Manchester City’s win in March closed the gap on Liverpool to one, and with Pep Guardiola’s squad still deep enough to rotate through the early rounds without weakening the first team, plenty of neutrals expect City to at least reach the quarter-finals again this year.

Fixture dates for the later rounds tend to shift slightly once European draws are made and broadcasters lock in their picks, so it’s worth checking back once round three wraps up in mid-September; that’s usually when the shape of the rest of the competition, right through to the final in March, becomes much clearer.