The International Automobile Federation (FIA) has unveiled a 15-round 2027 World Rally Championship calendar with Kenya retaining its place as one of the hosts. The World Motor Sport Council approved a season that starts with Rallye Monte-Carlo on 21–24 January with the Kenyan circuit falling on 18–21 March, the third round, on the gravel roads around Naivasha.
President William Ruto celebrated the confirmation by expressing delight at Kenya’s retaining of the now famous championship. It will be a second major sporting event to be held in Kenya with the already-confirmed AFCON also coming in mid-2027.
“I am delighted to confirm that Kenya will host the WRC Safari Rally in 2027. Once again, the world’s finest drivers will take on our plains, our valleys and the legendary roads of Naivasha. The Safari was born on Kenyan soil. It belongs on Kenyan soil. Every edition fills our hotels, energises our businesses and carries the beauty of our country to screens across the world. I thank the Ministry of Sports, the WRC Safari Rally Project, our private-sector partners, the FIA and the WRC Promoter for making this possible,” said president Ruto
Kenya returned to the championship in 2021 after a 19-year absence and held a deal through 2026. In March 2026, at the close of that year’s event, Ruto said the 2026 Safari would be the last one backed by public money and that private sponsors would fund it from 2027. Reports through September still treated the slot as conditional on that private package.
The FIA’s published calendar now put the round on the schedule.
Full 2027 World Rally Championship Calendar
The official WRC list runs as follows. Monte-Carlo opens on mixed roads from 21–24 January. Rally Sweden follows on snow from 18–21 February. Safari Rally Kenya is third, 18–21 March. Croatia Rally (8–11 April), Rally Islas Canarias (6–9 May) and Rally Japan (3–6 June) then form three asphalt rounds in a row. EKO Acropolis Rally Greece (24–27 June) starts the summer gravel run. New asphalt Rally d’Italia, based in the Lazio region with a Rome setting, sits on 8–11 July. Rally Estonia (22–25 July) and Secto Rally Finland (29 July–1 August) run a week apart to cut freight costs.
Rally US, a gravel event, lands on 26–29 August. It is the championship’s first visit to the United States since 1988, after a candidate event earlier in 2026. Rally Scotland, based around Aberdeen, returns the UK to the calendar for the first time since 2019, on 30 September–3 October. The season then moves to South America for Rally del Paraguay (21–24 October) and Rally Chile Biobío (4–7 November) before closing on Rally Saudi Arabia from 25–28 November.
Nine of the 15 rounds are gravel, five are asphalt and one is snow, according to the surface breakdown published with the calendar. The mix is deliberate. Monte-Carlo still throws ice and tarmac at crews in January. Sweden remains the only full snow round. Safari keeps its long, rough, high-speed gravel character. The new Italian round and the Canaries–Japan asphalt block give tyre and setup crews a different problem before the cars return to dirt in Greece, Finland, the United States and Scotland.
The FIA and the promoter framed the calendar as the bridge into the WRC27 technical rules. Those regulations arrive with the new season, and the series is also bringing Ford back as a manufacturer through M-Sport. Adding the United States, the largest automotive market the championship has missed for nearly four decades, and a capital-city asphalt round in Rome, gives promoters new commercial ground while the cars change. Scotland restores a British round that teams and fans had lost. Paraguay and Chile stay, but later in the year than the previous South American block.
For Kenya the sporting date is only half the story. Ruto’s March comments and his October post both put private money at the centre of the 2027 event. He has argued that shifting the bill off the exchequer frees government funds for school and grassroots sport. Hotels, fuel suppliers, local contractors and broadcasters still take the visitor spend he highlighted.
Crews, meanwhile, get a clear map. They open on the mountains above Monaco, cross Swedish snow, then fly to Naivasha for the Safari’s heat, dust and wildlife fences. By August they will be on American gravel for the first time in a generation, and by early October on Scottish stages. The 2027 championship asks them to solve all of it under a new set of technical rules.
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