Roland-Garros Tickets: How the Ballot and Sales Actually Work

Quick scan

Roland-Garros 2027 runs from 23 May to 6 June 2027, with qualifying starting 17 May, and most tickets to the main show courts are allocated through the FFT's own ballot (tirage au sort), which opens in autumn 2026 for the following year's tournament, well before general public sale (tickets.rolandgarros.com, "Tout savoir: tirage au sort", retrieved 2026-08-02). The single biggest mistake visitors make is discovering the tournament dates and searching for tickets only a few months out, by which point the official ballot has closed and the only options left are general sale (if any capacity remains) or resale platforms charging well above face value.

• 2027 dates: qualifying 17-21 May, main draw 23 May-6 June
• Register for the ballot in autumn 2026, not closer to the tournament
• The ballot is a lottery: registering doesn't guarantee tickets, and odds for the main show courts are genuinely long
• A Grounds Pass, covering the outer courts but not Philippe-Chatrier, Suzanne-Lenglen, or Simonne-Mathieu, is the easier ticket to get and often the better value for a first visit
• General public sale follows the ballot, roughly December through February, for whatever inventory remains
• Resale sites rank highly in search results and routinely charge multiples of face value while implying an official status they don't have

Roland-Garros is one of the hardest major French sporting events to get right for a first-time visitor, not because attending is complicated once you have a ticket, but because the ticket process itself is opaque, seasonal, and easy to miss if you start planning after the tournament dates are already public.

How does the Roland-Garros ballot actually work?

The FFT (Fédération Française de Tennis) allocates a significant share of Roland-Garros tickets, particularly for the three show courts, through an official ballot that opens in autumn, roughly six to seven months before the following year's tournament (tickets.rolandgarros.com, retrieved 2026-08-02). You register during the ballot window, and allocation works as a lottery rather than first-come-first-served, which means registering early within the window doesn't improve your odds, but missing the window entirely removes you from it altogether. Missing the ballot doesn't necessarily mean missing the tournament: a licensed-member sale window typically follows before the wider general public sale opens, though both mean worse seat choice and higher prices than a successful ballot entry (FFT, "Billetterie Roland-Garros 2026: tirage au sort, licenciés, modalités d'inscriptions", retrieved 2026-08-02).

If you don't win the ballot, general public sale for remaining inventory typically follows in the months after, running roughly December through February ahead of the May tournament. By this point, availability for the show courts (Philippe-Chatrier, Suzanne-Lenglen, Simonne-Mathieu) is limited, and outer-court or Grounds Pass tickets are the more realistic option.

The Grounds Pass: what it covers, and whether it's enough

A Grounds Pass gives access to the outer courts (numbered courts and smaller show courts) but not the three main arenas, and it's a meaningfully easier ticket to secure than a show-court seat. Pricing varies by day and by how far out you buy, so check current Grounds Pass pricing directly at tickets.rolandgarros.com rather than relying on third-party listings. For a first visit, a Grounds Pass is genuinely a good way to experience Roland-Garros: you can walk between courts, catch several matches in a day, and get the atmosphere of the grounds (the food village, the practice courts, the general buzz) without needing to win a show-court ballot slot at all.

Why do resale sites dominate the search results?

Searching "Roland-Garros tickets" surfaces a wall of third-party resale and hospitality sites well before the FFT's own ticketing page, and several of them present themselves with enough polish to look official. They aren't. Pricing on these sites is frequently several multiples of face value, and while some are legitimate resale marketplaces, others carry real risk of invalid, duplicated, or otherwise illegitimate tickets that can get you turned away at the gate (Roland-Garros, "Ticketing sales 2026 edition: vigilance, fraud, illegal resales, black market", retrieved 2026-08-02).

Fitting Roland-Garros into a Paris trip

Roland-Garros is held at the Stade Roland-Garros in the Bois de Boulogne, on the western edge of Paris, reachable by metro. If you're building a trip around the tournament, the wider Paris logistics work the same as any Paris visit: Best Areas to Stay in Paris covers where to base yourself, and Paris Public Transport Guide covers getting around once you're there, including to the stadium itself. Tennis is one of several major ticketed events on the calendar; the Watching Sport in France hub covers the others, including PSG football and rugby at Stade de France.

Ticket demand and hotel prices both rise in Paris during the tournament's two-week window, more so on marquee days (finals weekends, and any day featuring a top seed on Philippe-Chatrier), so booking accommodation as soon as your dates are set is worth doing even before ticket allocation is confirmed. If Roland-Garros is one stop on a longer Paris visit, Eiffel Tower Tickets Strategy covers the same "book official, book early" logic that applies to most high-demand Paris tickets, tennis included.

Roland-Garros in the Bois de Boulogne, western Paris

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Frequently asked questions

Sources

• tickets.rolandgarros.com, "Tout savoir: tirage au sort - Ouverture de ventes Grand Public", retrieved 2026-08-02
• Roland-Garros, "Ticketing sales 2026 edition: vigilance, fraud, illegal resales, black market", retrieved 2026-08-02
• FFT, "Billetterie Roland-Garros 2026: tirage au sort, licenciés, modalités d'inscriptions", retrieved 2026-08-02