Steam Autumn Sale 2026: October 1–8 dates, start time and how to shop it
If you’ve been waiting for the Steam Autumn Sale in late November, as it has been for years, change your plans: in 2026 it runs from October 1 to October 8. Valve moved it forward in the event calendar it publishes for developers on Steamworks, so it now lands about eight weeks earlier than usual.
Here’s when it starts in your time zone, what to expect, and what to do in the next few days so you don’t overpay.
Update, October 1: the sale is live. We checked its best-selling deals against Steam’s own price history and the key stores: see the best deals, and the ones to skip.
Exact dates and start time
The sale opens on Thursday, October 1 and ends on Thursday, October 8, at the same time both days: 10:00 Pacific Time, which is when every big Steam sale flips over.
| Where you are | Starts (Oct 1) | Ends (Oct 8) |
|---|---|---|
| US West Coast (PT) | 10:00 | 10:00 |
| US East Coast (ET) | 13:00 | 13:00 |
| UK (BST) | 18:00 | 18:00 |
| Central Europe (CEST) | 19:00 | 19:00 |
It lasts seven days, half the length of the Summer Sale. That matters less than it sounds, because of the next point.
Prices are fixed for the whole week
For years now there have been no flash deals or daily deals in Steam’s big sales. A game’s discount on October 1 is the same discount on October 8, so there is nothing to gain by waiting inside the sale and no reason to refresh the store at midnight.
What does change during the week is what you decide to buy. Seven days is plenty to check prices calmly, so use them.
What to expect from the discounts
- Publishers choose the discounts, not Valve. They can go from 10% to 95%, and each publisher decides whether to take part at all.
- Only games released by September 1, 2026 are eligible. Anything that came out in September won’t be in the sale, so don’t expect this autumn’s new releases to be discounted.
- The Autumn Sale usually matches the Summer Sale prices. The deepest all-time lows tend to arrive in Summer and Winter, but a game that was cheap in July is often back at that price now.
Black Friday is different this year
Because the Autumn Sale has moved to October, there’s no Steam-wide sale during Black Friday week in 2026. Individual publishers can still run their own discounts in late November, and key stores will almost certainly run Black Friday promotions of their own, but the storefront-wide event is now this one.
The next big Steam sale after this is the Winter Sale, December 17, 2026 to January 4, 2027. If a game on your list isn’t discounted enough this week, that’s your next realistic chance. Our Steam sale calendar has every date for the rest of the year.
How to get ready before October 1
1. Fill your wishlist now. Steam emails you when anything on your wishlist goes on sale, so a complete wishlist does the work for you on day one. Our guide on using the wishlist to never pay full price covers the settings that make those alerts useful.
2. Know your target price. A “-50%” badge tells you very little on its own. Check each game’s price history: if its all-time low was lower than the sale price, you’re not looking at a special deal, just its usual discount.
3. Set a budget. A short sale with a lot of noise is exactly when impulse buys pile up in your library. Decide what you’re buying before the store fills with banners.
Compare against key stores too
A Steam sale price is not always the cheapest price for the same game. Key stores run their own promotions around big Steam sales, and on many titles, especially older ones, a Steam key from another store stays below Steam’s sale price.
Two rules if you buy outside Steam:
- Check the key’s region before paying. A cheap key that won’t activate in your country is not a bargain. Our guide to regional keys explains what each label means.
- Follow the basics in how to buy Steam keys safely: established stores, a payment method you can dispute, and a region you’ve checked.
If you’d rather not compare by hand, our free browser extension does it on the Steam page itself: it tells you when a key store is cheaper than the price you’re looking at, and how that price compares with the game’s all-time low. More in how to see cheaper prices while browsing Steam.
What not to do
- Don’t wait for a better price mid-sale. It won’t change until October 8.
- Don’t buy a game because the discount looks big. Look at the final price and the all-time low, not the percentage.
- Don’t expect big discounts on very recent releases. Games out since September aren’t eligible, and games from the last few months rarely get deep cuts in their first sale.
And after the sale
October keeps going after the Autumn Sale ends:
- Steam Next Fest, October 19–26: hundreds of free demos of upcoming games, and launch discounts on some new indies.
- Steam Scream Fest, October 26 to November 2: the horror sale. We picked the cheapest horror worth buying in our Halloween guide.
- Winter Sale, December 17 to January 4: the last big sale of the year.
In short
- Dates: October 1–8, 2026, starting 10:00 PT / 19:00 CEST
- Prices don’t change during the sale, so buy whenever you’ve decided
- Only games released before September 1 are included
- No Steam-wide sale in Black Friday week this year: the next one is Winter, from December 17
- Compare with key stores, and check the region before you pay
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