Valorant's Season 2026 Act 5 ended on October 13, 2026 in North America, when patch 13.08 started Act 6 (VALORANT Patch Notes 13.08). Europe and Asia-Pacific followed in their own maintenance windows, early on October 14 in Europe. That is exactly eight weeks after Act 5 began, the same length as Act 4. Updated October 14, 2026; this page first ran as a forecast of the date.
The part that's easy to get wrong is what Act 6 does to your rank. It isn't the big reset. You play one placement game and get your rank back. Your Act 5 badge locks, though, and that badge feeds the end-of-season reward. So if you're chasing a rank or a win count, the deadline that matters is the Act 5 close.
Key takeaways
- Act 5 ran from August 18, 2026 (patch 13.04) to October 13–14, 2026, when patch 13.08 started Act 6.
- Act 6 needs one placement game. Only Act 1 and Act 4 need five, per Riot's own support page.
- Your Act Rank badge locks when Act 5 ends. It shows the highest rank you won a game at, and you need at least 9 wins to earn it.
- Immortal and Radiant players keep only 10% of their Rank Rating (RR) at every new Act.
- Riot's July 2026 anti-boosting policy can take back rank and ranked rewards. Anything you earn in Act 5 has to hold up after the Act ends, too.
When Did Valorant Act 5 End?
Act 5 started on August 18, 2026, when patch 13.04 went live (VALORANT Patch Notes 13.04). Act 4 started June 23 with patch 13.00 (VALORANT Patch Notes 13.00). That's 56 days. Another 56 days from August 18 is Tuesday, October 13, the day patch 13.08 went out.
Dot Esports had forecast that date before Riot confirmed it. Its estimate by region, based on how past Act updates rolled out (Dot Esports, updated August 19, 2026):
Riot's own maintenance notices matched it: October 13 at 06:00 PDT in North America, 14:00 PDT for Asia-Pacific and 20:00 PDT for Europe West, which is 03:00 UTC on October 14 (Riot Games Service Status). The same Dot Esports table puts last year's Act 5 close at October 15, 2025, so mid-October is the usual slot.
What Happens to Your Rank When Act 6 Starts?
You play one placement game, and it gives you back roughly the rank you ended Act 5 on. Riot's support page on Act Ranks spells this out. Act 1 and Act 4 of a Season need five placement matches. Acts 2, 3, 5 and 6 need one (Riot Games Support: Act Ranks and Rewards). A brand-new account has to reach account level 20 before it can queue Competitive at all.
That one game isn't a coin flip on your whole rank. Riot brought in the single placement game for players who had already earned a rank in the previous Act (Competitive Changes: 2.02 and what's next). The Riot-supported VALORANT Wiki describes it as earning back your previous Act's rank, which your performance in that game can still shift. Per the same wiki page, placement games also don't count toward your new Act Rank.
The big reset, with five placement games, only happens twice a year. Riot set that rule when it replaced Episodes with year-long Seasons: ranks reset at the start of the Season and again at a midseason point (VALORANT Patch Notes 10.00). This year the midseason reset was Act 4 in June. Valorant's next big reset is Season 2027's first Act, expected in early January 2027. The VALORANT Wiki lists Season 2026's end as January 6, 2027 (VALORANT Wiki: Season 2026). League of Legends works differently, with a single rank reset each January, so don't carry its calendar over.
If you're deciding what to aim for in Act 6, a fixed number of wins and a target rank are different goals. Placements, net wins or a division target compares the three.
What Act 6 Does at Each Rank
For most of the ladder, Act 6 is one placement game and nothing else. The top three ranks are where the Act change actually costs something:
Iron to Diamond
Ascendant
Immortal
RadiantRiot set the RR rule in February 2021: leaderboard players have their RR "reduced to 10% of their current value" at a new Act (Competitive Changes: 2.02 and what's next). The VALORANT Wiki's Act resets section still lists the same 90% cut as the current rule, along with the Radiant demotion, the leaderboard rule and the top-500 threshold. An Immortal player on 300 RR starts Act 6 on 30.
One more rule applies from Ascendant up. To queue Competitive, Ascendant+ accounts must have Riot Mobile multi-factor authentication turned on. Patch 12.00's notes announced it for Europe from patch 12.01 (VALORANT Patch Notes 12.00). The wiki's update history dates it to 11.10 for NA, LATAM, Brazil and Korea, and to 12.03 for APAC. If you're about to cross into Ascendant in the last weeks of Act 5, set up Riot Mobile now. Otherwise your first game at the new rank waits on a phone setup.
What Locks In When Act 5 Ends: Your Act Rank Badge
Your Act Rank is the triangle on your career page. It tracks the wins you get during an Act, sorted by the rank you finished each game at. When the Act ends, it becomes a badge on your player card and in your career history. That badge shows the highest rank you won a game at during Act 5, not the rank you finish on.
Riot's support page sets the numbers (Riot Games Support: Act Ranks and Rewards):
- 9 Competitive wins is the minimum for an Act Rank badge and for ranked rewards.
- The badge border upgrades at 9, 25, 50, 75 and 100 wins.
- Badges are handed out when the Act ends, not during it.
That's why the last two weeks of an Act get busy. A player sitting on 7 wins has a badge to finish. A player one win from the next border has a border to finish. A player who hit Platinum 1 for a single win and then dropped back still gets a Platinum badge, because only the peak win counts.
Ranked Rewards: What Act 5 Counts Toward
Ranked rewards in Valorant are gun buddies, and Riot gives them out twice a Season. Per Riot, "you'll earn a gun buddy that represents the highest Act Rank badge you received Mid-Season and at the end of the Season" (Riot Games Support: Act Ranks and Rewards).
Riot doesn't list which Acts feed which buddy. The midseason reset happens at Act 4, though, so Act 5 should count toward the end-of-season buddy, alongside Acts 4 and 6. Read that way, the rules have two practical effects:
- A better Act 5 badge should still count even if you play less in Act 6.
- You still have Act 6 to beat it. If Act 5 goes badly, the rest of the year isn't lost, because Act 6 runs until the Season ends.
Either way, the 9-win minimum is what makes a badge eligible for a reward.
RR and Map Changes That Affect Your Act 5 Push
Two changes from the start of Act 4 still shape the climb. Patch 13.00 adjusted RR "so you feel a little less stuck if you are consistently winning matches". It also keeps each team's average rank within one sub-tier on PC (VALORANT Patch Notes 13.00).
The map pool changed at the start of Act 5: Abyss is back in Competitive and Breeze is out (VALORANT Patch Notes 13.04). Act 6 swapped the pool again with patch 13.08: Bind and Corrode in, Ascent and Split out. The full list of what changed is in what Valorant Act 6 and patch 13.08 changed.
Patch 13.06 then replaced ACS with Performance Score and added Rank Legacy. Riot's notes don't tie either to RR. See what Valorant patch 13.06 changed for ranked.
Riot's 2026 Rules: What Can Be Taken Back
On July 14, 2026, Riot published its updated position on boosting and smurfing (Playing Fair: anti-boosting and other smurfing countermeasures). The same day, patch 13.01 started issuing penalties for confirmed rank manipulation (VALORANT Patch Notes 13.01). The penalties Riot lists:
- account suspensions
- rank reversions, where RR and MMR (matchmaking rating, the hidden number that sets who you're matched against) go back to where they were before
- reward reversions, where rewards tied to the manipulated rank are removed
- permanent bans for repeated, severe abuse
Riot's rules name account sharing as not allowed, and apply penalties to "any accounts involved". The same post lists what's fine: five-stacking with friends of different ranks, helping a newer friend learn, and playing on an alternate account you created and leveled yourself.
This matters for the Act 5 deadline more than for any other point in the year. Rewards are exactly what reward reversions remove. A badge or a buddy is only worth chasing if it's still on your card after Act 6 starts. Any service where someone else logs into your account is account sharing under these rules, and it carries the reversion risk above. Read Riot's post before you pay anyone for anything. Your account is the one on the line.
How to Use the Weeks Before Act 5 Ends
Work backwards from what the badge needs:
- Count your wins. Open the Act Rank page. Under 9 wins, there's no badge and no reward eligibility, so that's the first goal.
- Find your next border. If you're past 9, the next upgrade is at 25, 50, 75 or 100 wins.
- Get one win at your peak. The badge takes your highest winning rank. One win at a new rank is enough to put it on the badge.
- Set up Riot Mobile MFA if you're close to Ascendant, so a rank-up doesn't lock you out of the queue.
- Don't push on the last evening. Maintenance windows eat into the final hours, and the cutoff time differs by region.
If wins are what's missing, the fix that doesn't involve anyone else's hands on your account is getting better at the games you're losing. Coaching works on exactly that. The guide to Valorant coaching for aim and game sense covers what it fixes. Duo Games puts a higher-ranked player in your party while you stay on your own account. The Valorant services page lists every format, including which ones need your login: Valorant Placements has your placement matches played for you, and Unrated Wins covers battle pass progress in Unrated and Swiftplay.
Act 6 Reset Questions
Does my rank reset when Valorant Act 6 starts?
Barely. You play one placement game and get back roughly the rank you ended Act 5 on. The big reset, with five placements, only happens at Act 1 and Act 4.
When exactly did Act 5 end?
It ended when patch 13.08 started Act 6: October 13, 2026 in North America (Riot's notes are timestamped 13:00 UTC), and in the following maintenance windows for Asia-Pacific and Europe, early October 14 in Europe (VALORANT Patch Notes 13.08).
Does my Act 5 badge count for the season-end gun buddy?
Most likely. Riot says buddies go out at mid-season and at season end, and the midseason reset falls at Act 4. That puts Act 5 in the second reward period. A higher badge in Act 6 would still beat it.
I'm Radiant. What happens when Act 6 starts?
Your RR drops to 10% of what it was and you're moved to Immortal. You need your placement game to show on the leaderboard again, and a top-500 place above your region's RR threshold to get Radiant back.
What to Do Now That Act 6 Has Started
Act 5 is closed, so the same plan now applies to Act 6: play your one placement match, then 9 wins first, then your next border, then one win at your peak rank. Whatever you earn only counts if it's still yours after the Act closes. What else 13.08 changed, from the map pool to Map Rating, is in what Valorant Act 6 and patch 13.08 changed.
