Valorant's Season 2026 Act 5 is expected to end on October 13, 2026 in the Americas. Europe and Asia get it in the early hours of October 14. Riot hasn't printed the date in patch notes yet. Act 4 ran exactly eight weeks, though, and eight weeks from Act 5's start lands on October 13.
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 started August 18, 2026 with patch 13.04. Expect it to close October 13 (NA) or October 14 (EU/APAC). This is an estimate, not a Riot-posted date.
- 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 Does 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. Add another 56 days to August 18 and you get Tuesday, October 13.
That's also the date Dot Esports lists for the close. Its estimate by region, based on how past Act updates rolled out (Dot Esports, updated August 19, 2026):
Treat these as a window, not a promise. Riot takes servers down for maintenance on patch day, and the exact moment depends on how the update goes. The same Dot Esports table puts last year's Act 5 close at October 15, 2025, so mid-October is the usual slot.
For the exact cutoff, check the Battle Pass timer in the client. It counts down to the end of the Act.
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).
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 the weeks you have left, 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). Riot hasn't announced Act 6's pool yet.
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.
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 does Act 5 end?
Expected October 13, 2026 in the Americas and early October 14 in EMEA and APAC. Riot hasn't posted an official timestamp, so check the Battle Pass timer in the client.
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 Before October 13
Plan the Act 5 push for the weeks you have left, not the last night: 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.
