The 114th Tour de France will begin in Edinburgh on July 2, 2027, and finish in Paris on July 25, with riders covering 3,479 kilometers across 21 stages, according to Radsport-News.com. The organizers presented the full route at the Palais des Congrès in Paris, confirming a third British Grand Départ this century and a race that mixes two individual time trials with three summit finishes.
According to the official ASO classifications reported by Radsport-News.com, the route contains seven flat stages, six hilly stages and six mountain stages, three of which end uphill, plus the two time trials.
Why it matters
The 2027 route gives both sprinters and time trialists clear opportunities while still stacking the decisive climbing into the final week. A 38-kilometer time trial from Blois to Chambord and a 33-kilometer test around Toulouse bookend the transition toward the mountains, and the Toulouse effort opens the third week. With the queen stage over the Col du Tourmalet and the Col de Portet, the race appears designed to keep the general classification open until late — a point of interest after years of dominance by a single rider, which German outlets have discussed as an "anti-Pogacar" question put to the race director.
Three days in Britain, then an early rest day
The race opens at Edinburgh Castle with the team presentation before the first stage starts in the city center. The route runs mostly flat westward and crosses into England about 40 kilometers before the finish in Carlisle, where a 1,500-meter slightly rising straight is expected to set up the first mass sprint.
Stage 2 from Keswick to Liverpool is also classified flat, though Radsport-News.com notes the official profile lists 3,000 meters of climbing over 223 kilometers, suggesting another sprint on the banks of the Mersey. The British stay closes with a stage in Wales that begins gently but turns hillier in its second half, finishing with the steep Cote de Caerffili (2 kilometers at 8.1 percent). The final kilometer of that ramp is described as especially steep, and only 12 descending kilometers separate the summit from the line — terrain where a puncheur could take the yellow jersey.
The first rest day falls on the opening Monday, allowing the peloton and the full race convoy to relocate from Cardiff to Normandy.
From Normandy to the Alps
Stage 4 is a 171-kilometer loop starting and finishing in Cherbourg-en-Contentin on lightly rolling roads. It looks like another sprinter's day, but a 900-meter climb at 10 percent about 10 kilometers from the finish, combined with a rising final kilometer, could disrupt the fast men.
Stage 5 carries the race into Brittany from Pontorson, passing the island of Mont-Saint-Michel in the opening kilometers. The finale in Plumelec includes two ascents of the Cote de Cadoudal (1.7 kilometers at 6.2 percent) on a closing circuit, with the finish line at the top — no place for pure sprinters.
Stage 6 runs 193 flat kilometers east from Vannes to Angers, likely another sprint, before a longer transfer to Blois for the first time trial on stage 7. That 38-kilometer test to Chambord is described as a high-speed course without major topographical difficulties.
Stage 8 continues the westward-to-east transfer, starting in Bourges — the only city hosting both the men's and women's Tours in 2027 — and finishing 224.5 kilometers later in Le Creusot. The second half grows harder, with two medium mountains in the last 45 kilometers: the Croix de la Libération (4.6 kilometers at 5.3 percent) and the Signal d'Uchon (5.7 kilometers at 5.7 percent), followed by 18 kilometers and one smaller climb to the line. Radsport-News.com notes those final 45 kilometers mirror the 2021 stage where Primoz Roglic crashed on the Signal d'Uchon climb and lost his Tour hopes.
Stage 9 closes the first week with one of the hardest days of the race, heading from the bird park at Villars-les-Dombes toward the Alps and the Grand Colombier, a 17.4-kilometer climb at 7.1 percent that provides the first summit finish.
The decisive final week
The second summit finish comes on stage 11 at Les Saisies, ending at 1,650 meters. The race then moves south to Montpellier for the finish of stage 13 and the start of stage 14, which ends in Mende with a demanding hilly finish at the town's airfield.
After Albi and Toulouse, the route reaches the Pyrenees. Stage 18 finishes at the Col de Portet at 2,215 meters and, with 5,400 meters of climbing including the Col du Tourmalet, is billed as the queen stage of the 2027 Tour. The following day brings another 4,300 meters of ascent on the way to Laruns, though the finish is downhill.
Stage 20 to Libourne should suit the sprinters, after which the race transfers to Paris. The final stage on the Champs-Élysées will cross Montmartre three times, meaning the 2027 Tour is again unlikely to close with a straightforward bunch sprint.
What to watch: the full stage-by-stage profiles and the exact placement of the second time trial around Toulouse as the third week takes shape.
