Valorant Act 5 2026: Season Rolls Over Around August 17-19 as Act 4 Wraps

Valorant’s current stretch of Season 2026, Act 4, is on track to roll over into Act 5 sometime between August 17 and 19, based on the in-game Battle Pass countdown and independent community tracking of Riot Games’ update cadence. The exact hour hasn’t been locked in publicly by Riot, but the transition is expected within days, bringing a new Battle Pass, a refreshed competitive map rotation and likely Agent balance tweaks.

Act 4’s Summit Map and Blackspyre Collection Are on the Clock

Act 4 of Season 2026 went live with Patch 13.00 on June 23, 2026, ushering in Riot’s newest 5v5 map, Summit, alongside the permanent Retake mode and the Blackspyre Collection skin line. Season 2026 Act 4 launched June 24, 2026, introducing the Summit map: set at Sage’s mountain training academy in China, and the permanent Retake game mode (3v3, spike pre-planted, randomized loadouts) debuted as a bomb-site practice tool. The cosmetic side of the update wasn’t left out either, with the Blackspyre Collection skin line covering the Phantom, Sheriff, Spectre, Ares, and the Divide melee.

Riot’s own Valorant Wiki confirms the act’s official window, noting that Season 2026 // Act 4 is the 37th and current Act in VALORANT, running from June 24 to August 19, 2026. That makes Act 4 one of the longer stretches of the year, clocking in at roughly eight weeks.

When Exactly Does Act 5 Begin: August 17 or August 19?

There’s a small but notable gap between trackers on the precise switchover date. Shacknews reported that Valorant Season 2026 Act 5 will begin on August 17, 2026, based on the scheduled ending of Act 4, which can be found on Valorant’s Battle Pass screen, while cautioning that when we take potential downtime and server maintenance into consideration, it’s possible that Act 5 could start a little later than expected.

Other season-tracking outlets peg the rollover two days later. Turbosmurfs states plainly that Act 5 should start around August 19, 2026, straight after Act 4 ends, a figure that lines up with SeasonTimer.live’s tracking, which notes Valorant Season 2026 Act 4 ends on August 19, 2026 and that the transition happens during a scheduled maintenance window, servers go offline briefly before Act 5 goes live with fresh ranked placement matches and a new Battle Pass. Riot typically confirms the exact patch timing only in the notes that ship a day or so ahead, so players should treat both dates as a tight window rather than a locked promise.

What Act 5 Is Expected to Bring

Based on the pattern set by every prior Act rollover this season, Act 5 should follow a familiar recipe rather than introduce a brand-new Agent. Shacknews’ baseline expectation is that Valorant Season 2026 Act 5 will introduce a new Battle Pass, a refresh of the game’s competitive map rotation, and likely balance changes for existing Agents.

Act 5 also carries some calendar weight within the season’s structure. As Shacknews notes, Act 5 will be the penultimate Act before Act 6 closes out the year, meaning Valorant’s 2026 calendar is now entering its home stretch, with only one further Act reset expected before Season 2026 wraps up entirely around early January 2027.

How Season 2026’s Six-Act Structure Has Played Out So Far

Season 2026 opened on January 7, 2026, and has been broken into a full run of Acts since: Season 2026 opened on January 7, ran Act 2 to April 29, Act 3 to June 24, and Act 4 has been live since. Act lengths haven’t been perfectly uniform, either: Act 1 ran ten weeks, Act 2 only six, and Acts 3 and 4 have both landed on eight, which is part of why community trackers rely on the in-game Battle Pass timer rather than a fixed calendar formula to call each rollover.

Each Act reset also triggers a ranked placement requirement, rather than a full competitive reset every time. As Turbosmurfs explains, a gun buddy tied to the highest act rank you reached, awarded at the end of the season rather than the end of each act… there’s a catch people miss: you need nine wins in an act within that season to qualify, meaning players sitting on the fence about their Act 4 grind should look to finish their placement wins and claim outstanding Battle Pass tiers before the servers flip.

Regional Timing Matters for Australian and New Zealand Players

As with every past Act rollover, the exact go-live moment for Act 5 will stagger by region rather than land everywhere at once. Riot’s update pattern has consistently rolled out to North America first, with APAC and EMEA servers, which cover Australian and New Zealand players, typically seeing the patch several hours later once regional maintenance windows are cleared. Local ranked players should expect a short server downtime window and a fresh single placement match to lock in their Act 5 rank once the update lands on Oceania-facing servers.