Steam Winter Sale 2026: the dates, and what to do before it starts
The Steam Winter Sale 2026 runs from 17 December 2026 to 4 January 2027, on Valve's own schedule. It comes just under three weeks after Black Friday and a week after Epic's holiday sale begins, so there are three chances to buy in a month. Here is what each is, and how to get ready so that you know a good price when you see one.
The dates
- Black Friday and Cyber Monday: 27 and 30 November 2026. Valve's schedule has no Steam-wide sale in that week; the shops' own offers, and Steam's discounts on single games, still run.
- Epic Games Store holiday sale: 10 December 2026 to 7 January 2027, from Epic's own promotional guide for developers. It gives days, not hours.
- Steam Winter Sale: 17 December 2026 to 4 January 2027, from Valve's published schedule.
- After it: Steam's themed Fests continue in January, starting with the Desktop Companion Fest on 14 January. A Fest spotlights a kind of game and is not always a sale of everything.
The sales calendar follows these dates as the stores publish or change them, and you can add it to your phone's calendar. The sale dates page shows the same dates with a countdown.
Should you buy at Black Friday or wait?
We cannot tell you which of the two will be cheaper for a particular game: our price record began on 12 October 2026, so it holds no earlier winter sale to compare. What it does show is each game's lowest tracked price so far, on the game's page. A simple way to use it:
- If the price today is at or close to the lowest tracked price, waiting about three weeks risks the game's price going back up for a small chance of a slightly lower one.
- If it is well above the lowest tracked price, note the game, set a price alert, and wait for the sale you can check against.
- If you would play it in the next three weeks, buy it when the price is good. The weeks of play are worth more than the saving from waiting.
Get your wishlist ready
- Make your Steam wishlist public in your Steam privacy settings, so that the checker can read it.
- Paste your profile into the wishlist checker. It lists the games on your wishlist that are on sale now, with the cheapest store for each, and it can plan a budget for them.
- Set price alerts on the games you want most. A game's page has a button for an email, or a browser notification, when its price drops.
- Compare the stores, not only Steam. A Steam key from another shop can cost less for the same game, as in Steam keys or the Steam store, and every game page lists the stores cheapest first.
Check before you pay
A sale label is the store's claim, and the old price it crosses out is not always a price anyone paid. Look at the price over time on the game's page: how to tell if a deal is good explains what to look for. The price in a store can change after we last checked it, so confirm it at the store before you buy.
For the week's best-reviewed deals and the free games to keep, the Sunday email lists them, and nothing else.