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Tour de France 2027 British Grand Départ
Friday, 2 July 2027
View EventLast updated: 30 July 2026
All six British stages of the 2027 Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift will be shown live and free-to-air on Channel 5. The agreement was announced on 17 June 2026 by Warner Bros. Discovery and TNT Sports and reported the same day by road.cc, Cyclist, Cyclingnews and Cycling Weekly. It runs three years and also brings a nightly 7pm highlights programme fronted by Rebecca Charlton covering the Tour de France, the Tour de France Femmes, the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a España. Watching from the roadside costs nothing and needs no ticket.
Which channel is showing the Tour de France 2027 in the UK?
Channel 5, live and free-to-air, for the six British stages. That is a genuine change: Channel 5 became only the third free-to-air broadcaster ever to carry the Tour in the UK, after ITV and Channel 4. Some articles still name ITV4 and Eurosport as the 2027 broadcasters. Those predate the 17 June 2026 announcement and no longer describe the position.
What the deal covers
Live coverage applies to the six British stages: the men's stages on 2, 3 and 4 July 2027, and the women's stages on 30, 31 July and 1 August 2027. The nightly highlights programme is separate and broader, running across four Grand Tours over three years.
Free-to-air live coverage of a Grand Départ on British roads means the race is available to anyone with a television, which is not how Tour coverage has usually worked in the UK in recent years.
Do you need a ticket to watch the Tour de France at the roadside?
No. Two of the local authorities hosting the race, Cumberland Council and Westmorland and Furness Council, state directly that no ticket is needed and that attending is free of charge. The course is public road.
Where is the best place to stand?
On a climb, if you want to see the race for longer than a few seconds. Riders are slowest going uphill, the road narrows and the field stretches out, so a categorised climb gives you more racing per hour of waiting than a flat section does. The Côte de Melrose in the Eildon Hills on stage 1, the Côte de Rhigos and the Caerphilly ascent on stage 3, and the Snake Pass crossing on the women's Manchester to Sheffield stage are the obvious candidates.
Finish towns are the other option, and they run to a different rhythm. A finish builds all day and peaks in the final hour, whereas a start town is busy in the morning and quiet by lunchtime. The Strand in Liverpool, Deansgate in Manchester, Attercliffe Common in Sheffield and The Mall in London are the named finish locations confirmed so far.
The London stage is different
Sunday 1 August is a team time trial of about 18km on a central London circuit, ridden in seven-rider teams. Teams set off at intervals rather than together, so the racing spreads across the afternoon and a single fixed viewing point sees the whole field pass repeatedly. It is the easiest of the six stages to watch properly from one place, and ASO confirms it as the first team time trial the women's race has held.
What has not been announced yet?
Road closures, fan zone locations and stage timings, for all ten host towns and cities. On 30 July 2026 none of it had been published anywhere. Host authorities typically release closure maps and travel advice in the weeks before a race, so the practical planning detail is still some way off.
The detailed London team time trial course is also outstanding. British Cycling said in April 2026 that it would be revealed later in the year, and it has not appeared. The rest of the men's 2027 route beyond Britain is unannounced too.
How long does the race take to pass?
At a flat roadside point, a bunched field goes by in well under a minute. On a climb it can stretch to several minutes as the group splinters. Ahead of the riders comes the publicity caravan, a convoy of sponsor vehicles that arrives well before the race and is a significant part of the day for families, and behind them come team cars and race officials.
That short window is why people build a day around a stage rather than around the moment the race passes. Somewhere to sit, somewhere to eat, and a screen to watch the rest of the stage on once it has gone through are what turn a few minutes of racing into a full day. Prestige Corporate Events arranges that side of it around the British stages.
Full stage detail, distances and climbing totals are in our 2027 British Grand Départ route and dates guide. Race background and the wider picture sit on the Tour de France hospitality hub, and the two race weekends have their own pages: the men's British Grand Départ and the women's British Grand Départ.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Twice over. At the roadside it costs nothing and requires no ticket, confirmed in writing by both of the councils hosting the Cumbrian stage. On television, Channel 5 carries the six British stages live without a subscription, under the agreement announced on 17 June 2026.
Live free-to-air coverage of the British stages sits with Channel 5 under the TNT Sports agreement announced in June 2026. ITV has carried the Tour in past years, which is why older listings still name it, but it is not the broadcaster named in the 2027 arrangement.
Checked on 30 July 2026, no individual stage timings for the 2027 British stages had been issued by the organisers or by any host authority. They usually appear alongside road closure information a few weeks before the race.
Comfortably, on the women's weekend. Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield are close together and consecutive, so a Friday finish and a Saturday start are realistic from one base. The men's stages travel further, from Edinburgh to Cardiff over three days, so doing all three means moving with the race.
It travels the full course on every stage, ahead of the riders, so anywhere you can watch the race you will also see the caravan pass first. Its exact timing gap varies by stage and has not been published for 2027.
A start gives you team buses, sign-on and the riders at close quarters in a relaxed setting, all before lunch. A finish gives you the racing itself and a much bigger crowd, concentrated into the last hour. The 2027 confirmed finish locations are Carlisle, Liverpool’s Strand, Cardiff, Manchester’s Deansgate, Attercliffe Common in Sheffield and The Mall.
Written by Steve Hill
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