Carnival of Santa Cruz de Tenerife 2027: when it happens, what is on each day, and what it all means
If you go looking for the date of the Santa Cruz Carnival, you will not find one. You will find five weeks. In 2027 the official programme runs from 22 January to 28 February, and it holds murga contests, coronation galas, night parades, daytime street sessions and a closing firework display.
The usual problem is that all of this sits in dozens of separate listings. This page exists so you do not have to piece it together yourself: first the whole programme, then what each part actually is, and at the end the things that rarely get written down.
The theme of this edition is Roma Eterna: El Imperio del Carnaval.
How to read these dates. This is the official calendar. The city council presented it as final on 25 June 2026, after closing its meetings with the carnival groups, so it is not a preview and not our forecast. We last checked it on 11 August 2026: five events had been added since July and not a single date had moved. Even so, there are months to go and smaller details can still be adjusted, so if you are booking flights or accommodation around a specific day, confirm it on the official Carnival website first.
The 2027 programme, start to finish
January: the contest season opens
22 January, 21:30. Opening ceremony
23 January, 20:00. Musical Groups Contest
24 January, 17:00. Choreographic Groups Contest
29 and 30 January, 18:30. First and second rounds of the Children's Murga Contest
31 January, 17:00. Rondallas Competition
Early February: the murgas and the galas
1 to 4 February, 20:30. The four rounds of the Adult Murga Contest
6 February, 20:00. Adult Murga Contest final
7 February, 18:30. Children's Queen Gala
10 February, 17:30. Senior Queen Gala and Groups Festival
12 February, 20:30. Canción de la Risa contest
13 February, 20:00. Comparsas Contest
14 February. Costume Contest
16 February, 20:30. Concert by Los Fregolinos
17 February, 21:30. Carnival Queen Gala
18 February, 20:30. La Zarzuela del Círculo de Amistad XII de Enero performance
Late February: the carnival moves outdoors
This is where it changes character. Until now the fiesta happened inside a venue. From 19 February it happens on the pavement. And the difference is not which one is more popular, it is what role you get. Local people go to the galas too, but they go to watch. In the street they dress up and dance, and there they are taking part. If you can only come for a few days, make them these ones.
19 February, 19:30. Opening Parade and the Decorated Floats and Cars Contest
19, 20 and 22 February. Carnaval de Noche, the street nights
20 February, 21:00. Ritmo y Armonía competition
21 February. First Carnaval de Día, with the Ni Fu Ni Fa concert at 11:00
22 February, 20:00. Dragnaval Gala
23 February, 16:00. Coso Apoteósico, the great parade, on Avenida de la Constitución
25 February, 11:00. Inclusive Carnival, and at 20:30 the Rondallas Festival
26 February. Viernes de Piñata street night, and at 18:00 the Children's Coso
27 February. Second Carnaval de Día
28 February. Ni Fú Ni Fá y la Zarzuela at 11:00, Senior Carnival at 17:00 and, at 20:00, the closing party and firework display
One useful warning: the programme grows as the date approaches. Between July and August 2026 five events were added to this list, no date moved and nothing disappeared. So what you see here may get longer, but it is unlikely to shift.
Why these dates do not match other calendars
Canarian carnival has no single date. Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria hold theirs in the same five weeks, but they deliberately stagger the big days: in 2027 the Las Palmas grand parade falls on 20 February and the Santa Cruz Coso on the 23rd. Three days apart, which means one trip can cover both if you cross between the islands.
Smaller towns place theirs on other days to avoid clashing, but they publish much later. For those, always check the town hall's own website rather than assuming a date.
And here is the detail that trips up almost every calendar: the two capitals use the phrase martes de Carnaval differently. Las Palmas means the Tuesday of the liturgical calendar; Santa Cruz means the Tuesday of its own big week. In 2027 those are two different days, 9 and 23 February. This is not our reading of it: the city council's own press release describes Monday the 22nd as the eve of martes de carnaval, when the coso apoteosis will make its way through the city. A general carnival calendar will not help you here. You need the programme of the specific city.
Why 2027 falls later than usual
There is a specific reason, and it is worth knowing because it explains almost every date on this page. The Santa Cruz carnival calendar used to begin two days after Epiphany. For 2027 the city council decided to push the celebration back by two weeks for operational and logistical reasons, and that shift leaves the main week sitting after Ash Wednesday, which in 2027 falls on 10 February.
This is an unusual move. The fiesta had been postponed once before, in 2022, but that was down to pandemic restrictions and the programme was reorganised around them. This time the entire calendar shifts. If you have ever seen a guide claiming that Canarian carnival always happens before Lent, this is precisely the edition that breaks the rule.
What each thing actually is
If you have never been, half the names on the programme mean nothing. These are the ones that matter.
The groups. Carnival in Santa Cruz is built around collectives, and each type sounds different. Rondallas perform lyrical singing with soloists, a choir and string instruments, and they work hard on vocal technique. Murgas came out of the city's neighbourhoods and took shape in the second and third decades of the twentieth century: their lyrics are satirical and socially critical, and that is the whole point, because they comment on the year's politics. Comparsas bring the rhythm and the colour, with Brazilian and Caribbean influence. When the programme gives four consecutive nights to murga rounds, it is because half the city knows the lyrics.
The queen galas. Each year a queen and her court are chosen in three categories: children, adult and senior. The costumes are enormous structures, and the adult gala is the single most watched event of the whole fiesta, on the islands and beyond. Locally it is treated as the starting gun for carnival in the street.
The Cabalgata Anunciadora. The night parade that opens carnival outdoors, along the main streets of Santa Cruz, led by the groups taking part that year, with individuals joining in along the way. After it, the street dances begin and run for more than a week.
The Coso Apoteósico. The big parade, the culmination of the fiesta. In 2027 it is on 23 February at 16:00 along Avenida de la Constitución. One thing to watch: the route is not the same every year, so check the current year's listing rather than trusting what you read about a previous edition.
Carnaval de Día. Carnival is not only nocturnal. The daytime sessions draw hundreds of thousands of people to stages set up across the city, with a more family friendly feel. It is the easiest way in if you have children or would rather not be out until dawn.
El Entierro de la Sardina. The symbolic ending: a parade of widows and mourners who, with a great deal of humour, refuse to say goodbye to carnival. Here we should be straight with you: the final 2027 calendar does not include it. The preview published in March listed it for 24 February, but it no longer appears in the official June programme, neither in the text nor in the list of events. If this particular event is what you care about, check the official site closer to the time rather than trusting the March date.
Things almost nobody knows
For eleven years the carnival was not called carnival. The first figurehead of the fiesta was Onagra Díaz Lorenzo, who won the Miss del Carnaval contest in 1935. When the contest was revived in 1965, it came back under a different name: Reina del Carnaval en las Fiestas de Invierno, the winter festivals. That was the official name of the celebration until 1976. The name is what allowed it to exist at all.
A Guinness record standing since 1987. Santa Cruz entered the book for the largest attendance at an open air dance: a Celia Cruz concert with more than 200,000 people.
The poster is an art collection. Each edition's announcing poster is signed by an artist, and the accumulated list is remarkable: César Manrique, Javier Mariscal, Mel Ramos, Pepe Dámaso, Maribel Nazco, Jiri G. Dokoupil, Modest Cuixart and Pedro González, alongside newer names from around the world. It is not advertising, it is a body of work that has been growing for decades.
There are characters the public recognises year after year. Behind the masks are residents who have spent half their lives playing the same figure, and the crowd waits for them: Charlot, la Lecherita, Miss Peggy, Cantinflas, Doña Croqueta, Don Ciruelo, el Caballero de la Palmatoria, El Cura del Carnaval and Chiquito. The local tradition of the mascarita rests on them.
Nearly 10,000 people make it happen. This is not a contracted production. An associative movement of that size builds every edition, which is why the fiesta was declared of International Tourist Interest in 1980.
Before you go
Two things that will not let you down. First, if you are heading to the indoor events, look into tickets early, because the galas and contests are the main draw for the local audience. Second, in carnival a costume is not really optional. People here take it seriously, and without one you will be the one standing out.
And a method rather than a tip: check the official programme before you travel. This page gets updated, but the city council and the organisers publish the final details of each event, and in a fiesta that runs five weeks it is worth going to the source.
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Sources. Official programme of the Carnival of Santa Cruz de Tenerife (`carnavaldetenerife.com`), consulted on 11 August 2026. Historical details: the Historia del Carnaval section of the same site. City council press release of 25 June 2026 on the final calendar.
Photo: Santa Cruz de Tenerife, February 2025.
