Shanghai Marathon: Dates, Tickets & Venue (Shanghai)

A Platinum race on December 6, 2026

The date is Sunday, December 6, 2026. The Shanghai Marathon holds World Athletics’ Platinum Label, the top tier for road races. It is also a candidate for the World Marathon Majors, the group that includes Tokyo, Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago and New York.

That puts Shanghai in the small set of races with elite fields, strict course measurement and the kind of logistics a city shuts its centre down for. Thousands of runners fill Puxi’s main roads in the morning. By early afternoon most of the city is moving again.

From the Bund to Shanghai Stadium

The course runs point to point. It starts on the Bund, the strip of granite and neoclassical banks along the Huangpu River’s west bank, and finishes inside Shanghai Stadium in Xuhui District, southwest of the old centre.

Because the start and finish are kilometres apart, the day works in two halves. Runners gather downtown at dawn. Families and friends usually head straight to the stadium end. The nearest metro stops are:

• Start (the Bund): East Nanjing Road station, Lines 2 and 10, then a short walk east down Nanjing Road to the river.
• Finish (Shanghai Stadium): Shanghai Stadium station, Lines 4 and 11. Shanghai Indoor Stadium station on Lines 1 and 4 is also within walking distance.

Shanghai Stadium is the big saddle-shaped bowl built for China’s 1997 National Games. It is now a football ground, so the finish has stands, concourses and a running track. Runners finish to a real stadium crowd rather than a fenced-off car park.

Gun time on the Zhongshan Road waterfront

The start is what makes this race look like Shanghai. Zhongshan East 1st Road is the wide road behind the Bund promenade. On race morning it fills with start corrals, and the 1920s and 1930s bank and customs buildings stand along one side.

The customs house clock tower rises over the runners. Across the river are the towers of Lujiazui in Pudong: the Oriental Pearl Tower, the Jin Mao Tower and the Shanghai Tower. In early December the start is in morning light, so that skyline is often just a grey outline in the haze over the water.

Runners usually reach their corrals well before the gun, so the waterfront fills with people stretching in disposable layers. Those layers get thrown aside once the race starts. The promenade on the river side is the best place to see the start, as long as stewards have it open.

Getting a bib: entry and tickets

Spectators don’t need tickets. Runners need a race entry, and demand far outstrips places at a race this size. Shanghai has long allocated entries through a ballot rather than first come, first served. Elite and charity routes sit outside the main draw.

Entry rules, ballot results and race-day logistics come from the race’s own registration channel. That is also where any overseas entry route is listed. Chinese races generally ask for the same ID document at bib collection that was used to register. For international runners, that means the passport.

Bib collection usually happens at a race expo before race day. Shanghai doesn’t do race-morning pickup at this scale. Runners from abroad usually stay somewhere within easy metro reach of both the expo venue and the Bund.

Cheering from the kerb without getting stuck

Road closures shape the whole morning. The metro keeps running while surface roads close, so locals give up on taxis and ride-hailing until the course clears. Getting from the Bund side of the city to Xuhui by car on race morning is slow at best.

What spectators usually do:

• Pay for the metro by phone. Alipay and WeChat Pay both generate metro QR codes, and many visitors set this up in Alipay before they travel. Card machines are thinner on the ground than in many cities.
• Pick two viewing spots, not five. A spot near the start, then a trip straight to the finish, is easy to do on the metro. Chasing a runner across the course usually means missing them.
• Use the stadium name in Chinese. Shanghai Stadium is 上海体育场 (Shànghǎi Tǐyùchǎng). Show the characters to stewards or drivers to avoid any mix-up with the nearby Indoor Stadium (上海体育馆).
• Cheer with “jiāyóu!” (加油). It literally means “add oil”, and it is the shout you’ll hear along the whole course.

Crowds pack in thickest on the Bund and around the stadium. Quieter stretches of course in the residential streets in between are where runners notice a single voice calling their name.

December weather and what runners wear

Early December in Shanghai is typically cool and damp. Mornings often sit in the single digits Celsius, and the river air feels colder than the reading. Good running weather, then, but a long wait in the start corrals.

Runners usually start in a charity-shop jumper or a bin bag over their race kit. Gloves and arm sleeves are common. Spectators who stand still for hours tend to want a proper coat, and hot soy milk or a paper bag of shengjian bao (pan-fried pork buns) from a breakfast stall.

Around the finish in Xuhui

The finish lands in one of Shanghai’s easier areas to recover in. Xujiahui, one metro stop or a walk north, has big malls with dumpling chains and a lot of seating. That makes it the usual place for runners and supporters to meet up.

Within reach of the stadium:

• Longhua Temple, Shanghai’s largest Buddhist temple complex, with its seven-storey brick pagoda, a short ride south.
• Xujiahui Cathedral (St Ignatius), the red-brick twin-spired church at Xujiahui.
• The West Bund riverside, a long flat promenade on the Huangpu that suits a slow walk to loosen tired legs.

Allow the full morning for spectating, and most of the day for running and recovering. Most people head home on the metro by late afternoon, once the roads have reopened.