2026 Super League season

The 2026 Super League season, known as the 2026 Betfred Super League for sponsorship reasons, is the 31st season of the Super League and 132nd season of rugby league in Great Britain.

Hull KR are the defending champions, having beaten Wigan Warriors in the Grand Final, to win their first Super League title.

A 60 second shot clock for conversion and penalty kicks will be introduced from 2026, starting from the confirmation of a try. The shot clock will be stopped and not restarted if the kicking process is 'corrupted', i.e. if the ball falls off the kicking tee, giving a kicker indefinite time.

In July 2025, it was confirmed by the RFL that each Super League team's overseas player quota, limiting a team's maximum amount of registered players not trained by a Rugby League European Federation member club, would increase from seven to ten for the 2026 season.

In January 2026, the RFL announced that the dual registration system, allowing for Super League clubs to register their players with a lower league club to allow them to be loaned on short notice, was to be scrapped in order to "increase players' opportunities of taking the field". As a replacement, Super League clubs were permitted to send players on one-week loans to "partner clubs" with the aim of improving reserve players' match appearances. Clubs that had benefitted from dual registration partnerships included Leeds Rhinos, who had partnered with Featherstone Rovers, and St Helens R.F.C., who had partnered with Halifax Panthers.

On-field try decisions referred to the video referee, which previously stopped the game clock upon a referee's whistle, are to be abolished from 2026 onwards. These will be replaced by a 'live review' system, similar to the one used in the NRL, in which 80 seconds of a video referee's review must pass before the game clock can be stopped. If reason is found for an on-field try decision to be overturned by the video referee, resulting in a 'no try', the game clock is reset to the moment of the blowing of the referee's whistle.

From 2026, the Super League expanded to 14 teams. Teams 1-12 were decided by the current IMG promotion and relegation system, while teams 13 and 14 were chosen from the RFL Championship by an independent panel assessing teams who meet the minimum criteria. At a meeting of all twelve Super League teams at the Headingley Rugby Stadium on 28 July 2025 to vote on the expansion proposal, nine voted to approve expanding the league, with only Hull KR and Hull FC voting against while Wigan Warriors abstained from the vote.

With the expansion from 12 to 14 teams came the removal of the five loop fixtures, which originally included Magic Weekend. This would have reduced the regular season from 27 to 26 rounds. The RFL had planned to use the spare week for an expanded playoff format which would take place over four weeks rather than three. However, a U-turn decision saw Magic Weekend retained for 2026 and played as the season's only loop fixture, and retained a 27 round regular season. A mid-season international between England and Papua New Guinea was also proposed.

BBC Sport are broadcasting matches as well as match highlights in the final year of their three-year deal with the Super League, replacing Channel 4 as the league's free-to-air partner from the 2024 season. Ten games per season will be shown live on television, with a further five shown on iPlayer, the BBC's streaming platform. Australian broadcaster Foxtel is continuing an extended deal signed with the Super League in 2025 to broadcast every match on their Fox League channel and their Kayo Sports streaming service.

Deals were announced by the Super League in February 2026 with French news group La Dépêche's 'Rugbyrama' platform, who will broadcast 51 Catalans Dragons and Toulouse Olympique matches, and with the National Broadcasting Corporation of Papua New Guinea, who will broadcast matches for New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and other Pacific Island nations. These join preexisting deals with Catalan-language broadcaster TV3, German-language broadcaster Sportdigital, and other worldwide broadcasters such as Fox Sports in the United States, Rogers Sports & Media in Canada, Rush Sports in the Caribbean, Premier Sports Asia in South East Asia and Dubai TV.

The league consists of 14 teams, an increase of two from the previous season. The regular season consists of 27 rounds.

Hull KR are the defending champions after winning the 2025 Grand Final. Salford Red Devils, who finished bottom of the Super League table in 2025 following a season marred by financial difficulties, were relegated to the 2026 RFL Championship after not applying to join the Super League for 2026. They were replaced by 2025 RFL Championship semi-finalists Bradford Bulls, who were promoted to the Super League after achieving the highest IMG Grade B rating for 2025. Bradford were joined by fellow Championship teams Toulouse Olympique and York Knights for the 2026 season, each achieving Grade B rankings.

If a match ends in a draw after 80 minutes, then a further 10 minutes of golden point extra time is played, to determine a winner (five minutes each way). The first team to score either a try, penalty goal or drop goal during this period, will win the match. However, if there are no further scores during the additional 10 minutes period, then the match will end in a draw.

The Round 6 fixture between Leigh Leopards and Toulouse Olympique on 28 March finished 20–20 after 80 minutes. The game then went to extra time and Gareth O'Brien kicked the winning drop goal for Leigh, ending the game 21–20.

As of 29 March 2026 (Round 6)

As of 29 March 2026 (Round 6)