The MLS Cup Playoffs might have your immediate attention, but the league is already fast-forwarding to 2026 with the full MLS schedule for next season just revealed.
We now know the details, or most of them, for all 34 matches to be played by New York City FC in their 12th Major League Soccer season. The 2026 season will be the last full 34-game slate played before MLS begins the process of flipping its calendar in 2027, and it will be the last calendar year New York City FC will spend without a soccer-specific stadium of its own.
Before we zoom in on some notable matches and generally notable things about NYCFC's 2026 MLS schedule, let's recap some of the MLS-wide things of note coming out of the new schedule. First, the fact that we're doing this here in mid-November: The league is nearly one full month earlier with their 2026 schedule drop than they were with the 2025 schedule, which came out on December 19, 2024, or the 2024 schedule, which came out on December 20, 2023.
The 2026 season kicks off at 2:30 pm ET on Saturday, February 21, and the season ends on the night of November 7, which will be 2026 Decision Day across the league. In between, there will be a 52-day pause in MLS play while the 2026 FIFA World Cup unfolds across the United States, Mexico, and Canada, with the league halting from late-May through mid-July.
The long midseason hiatus means Decision Day falls in early November, which also means the 2026 MLS Cup Playoffs will not be interrupted by a two-week international break like the one the league just took during the 2025 MLS Cup Playoffs. MLS will observe the November 2026 international break, then hold the entirety of the playoffs – a lucky break for those 2026 playoff teams who won't lose their star strikers to serious knee injuries suffered while they're away on international duty, not that we're speaking bitterly from experience.
Now that you have the gist of what the 2026 MLS season will look like, let's drill down on the big games and the big takeaways we've got from our first glances at New York City FC's 2026 schedule.
1. Road bookends
The 2026 regular season begins and ends on the road for New York City FC.
First, let's talk about the season opener, which will be New York City's first official appearance on Sunday Night Soccer, the primetime showpiece fixture MLS and its Apple broadcast partners introduced in 2025, which will return in 2026 despite all the many changes happening with the MLS-Apple broadcast arrangement.
On Sunday, February 22, New York City heads to Carson, California, to open their season against LA Galaxy at 7:00 pm ET at Dignity Sports Health Park, what should be a warm and pleasant late-afternoon setting in Southern California. New York City plays the home opener on Matchday 3 when Orlando City SC visits for an afternoon kickoff at Yankee Stadium on March 7, when it should be much colder in The Bronx than it is in either California or Central Florida.
To play Matchday 34/34 and close out the regular season, New York City will head south on I-95 to Audi Field to face DC United on November 7. This will only be the fifth time in club history NYCFC will play Decision Day away from home, though their Decision Day away record stands at an impressive 3W-0D-1L, with the lone loss coming in 2024 at Stade Saputo against CF Montréal.
The road schedule is relatively reasonable or New York City in 2026. Their longest streak of consecutive road matches is four — it will be the seventh four-game road trip in club history. But that run of games is broken up by the seven-week World Cup pause, with three away matches – in Charlotte, New Jersey, and Nashville – prior to the World Cup break, then with NYCFC's return to action coming in Columbus on the night of Wednesday, July 22.
They travel deep into the Western Conference twice early in the season when they're away to the Galaxy in February and to Vancouver Whitecaps FC in early April, but then only cross into the Mountain Time Zone once more in 2026 way later on Saturday, September 12 when they play at Real Salt Lake.
Oliver Strand
2. Star sightings in the city
In terms of marquee home matches, Inter Miami CF come to town early this year after two seasons of trips to New York City put off until mid-to-late September. Lionel Messi (pending availability) and whatever his latest collection of famous teammates looks like next season will visit Yankee Soccer Stadium for a 1:00 pm ET kickoff on Sunday, March 22, the first of four Sunday home games for NYCFC in 2026.
Another star-heavy squad, LAFC, will make only their second-ever visit to New York City next season. It will be their first trip since March 17, 2019, a 2-2 draw at Yankee Stadium when LAFC had Carlos Vela, who scored both goals for the visitors in that 2019 match.
This time, LAFC will (likely/hopefully) feature Son Heung-min when they face NYCFC at 7:30 pm ET on Saturday, October 17, at a venue still to be determined pending baseball. If it's back to Sports Illustrated Stadium due to baseball, that might be good news for Son, as he turned the Harrison, New Jersey stadium into his home when he scored for South Korea as they comfortably beat the United States men's national team 2-0 in a friendly in September.
3. Friday Night Lights
It's significant that 10 matches are scheduled for Yankee Stadium, but it's also eye-catching that there will be three Friday night games played in The Bronx, and that the trio includes the Hudson River Derby against the Red Bulls on September 18.
This is the first time the Red Bulls will play at Yankee Stadium since the Hudson River Derby's one and only goalless installment, a 0-0 between the rivals on September 19, 2023. Next season's Friday night match at Yankee Stadium will mark the second time the Derby has been played on a Friday, following a 1-1 draw at Red Bull Arena on August 25, 2017.
Toronto FC on July 31 and Nashville SC on September 4 also come to Yankee Stadium on Friday nights, the trendy new Matchday of next season. The dominance of "Saturday night at 7:30 pm" start times certainly looks to have dissipated, as 19 of New York City's 34 matches are scheduled to take place at times other than 7:30 pm local time on Saturday nights.
Afternoon starts are somewhat common in 2026, with four afternoon kickoffs already on the home schedule and with three of those day games coming on Sundays, a rare treat for families looking to attend more matches next season.
4. Yankees over Mets
Only four trips planned to Citi Field next season after there were six scheduled – and five played – at Citi in 2025, and eight matches held at the Queens home of the Mets in 2024.
The first Citi Field match of the year is also the venue's most notable of 2026, as on Saturday, April 4, St. Louis City SC will make their first-ever away trip to face New York City FC. The teams have only played once since St. Louis joined MLS in 2023, so thankfully the newish Missouri club gets a chance to experience the converted baseball field life once before it's over in 2027.
Speaking of the baseball fields, it seemed like 2024's more even split of home matches between Yankee Stadium and Citi Field would be the new normal until the permanent soccer stadium home in Queens was ready, but instead, the number of Citi Field games shrinks.
Is this just a quirk of the way the stadium availabilities worked out in tandem with the MLS schedule, or a conscious move by NYCFC to shift more home games to Yankee Stadium next year? A question that might not be easy to get an answer to, but one that's hard to avoid considering when you see the 10-to-4 split of home matches, though with those three in October still with TBD listed for venues.
5. One final uncertain October
Mercifully, 2026 should be the final season in which New York City FC has to worry about where to play its October home matches, or where to play any of its home matches to be the most accurate.
The final three home matches of the 2026 regular season are in limbo and listed with their locations as To Be Determined because they fall in October when the Major League Baseball Postseason takes over.
If both the New York Mets and New York Yankees are in the playoffs, expect a few visits to Sports Illustrated Stadium in Harrison, New Jersey for "home" games with sparse attendance and odd vibes. The end of this dance is rapidly approaching, as Etihad Park construction is progressing steadily.
There might still be some stadium uncertainty to come in 2027, as it's still unclear whether NYCFC will open Etihad Park during the weird 14-match mini-season in early 2027, or whether that will wait until later that summer when the reformatted, summer-to-spring 2027-28 season kicks off. The team said the exact timing of the new stadium opening is still To Be Determined and is contingent on how construction progresses in Willets Point.
Someday very soon, the MLS calendar drop will be free of TBD for New York City FC. That day was not today, but it will arrive before you know it, somewhere between early-spring and late-summer 2027 whenever The Valley of Ashes is ready for its close-up.
