What Are Rio's Carnival Blocos? How the Official Calendar Works

Carnival Monday and Tuesday fall on February 8 and 9, 2027, and neither is a national holiday. In 2026 the street parades ran from January 17 to February 22.

What a bloco is, and what it is not

A bloco is not one event but hundreds: Riotur planned 460 parades for 2026, 135 of them downtown and 99 in the South Zone (January 15, 2026). Each bloco has its own organizer, and a legal representative registers it with the city. Riotur's January 22, 2026 text makes the organizer responsible for portable toilets, crowd control and the sound truck's technical compliance.

It is not the samba-school parade at the Sambadrome, which is a separate event. It is not a camarote, a paid VIP box, either: the city bans roped-off areas at street parades, called área VIP or áreas privadas in the act, paid or not. The only exception is space around the sound truck for the band and the organizers (Portaria 331, August 21, 2026).

Nothing in Riotur's registration acts or 2026 plans sets an admission price. No official page we opened says in so many words that every bloco is free.

How a bloco becomes official

The base rule is Decree 32,664 of August 11, 2010, still cited in Riotur's notices of January and August 2026. Riotur grants the authorization, after an opinion from CET-Rio, the city traffic company, and a no-objection from the local planning-area office (the subprefecture). As published in 2010, it lets a bloco gather for at most two hours and parade for at most four.

For 2027 the order is Portaria 331 (a portaria is an agency's administrative order), signed on August 21, 2026 and printed in the city's Official Gazette (Diário Oficial) on August 24. The representative registers the bloco online and the city reviews the request. Riotur then issues a preliminary registration document. Only after that does the representative collect a fire-department authorization and a nada a opor (no objection) from the military and civil police of its area. Parading without the final document can bring administrative, civil and criminal penalties.

Riotur also puts the shared structures out to bid: a 2023 call sought sponsors for medical posts, ambulances and portable toilets, and on September 18, 2026 it named Dream Factory winner of the Carnaval de Rua do Rio selection (Gazette, September 21).

When the calendar appears, and what exists today

The decree makes Riotur responsible for publicizing the parade calendar, especially on its official site. It has not come early: in 2026 Riotur published the lineup of its megablocos (the largest blocos, over 100,000 people by Riotur's 2025 definition) on January 12 and its app on January 14. The plan and the Gazette list followed on January 15, two days before the first parade.

The Gazette list, of blocos holding the preliminary authorization, is names only: 460 numbered lines in 2026, some names on two lines, with no date, hour or route. Registrations ran 613 in 2023, 698 in 2024, 685 in 2025 and 803 in 2026, against 433, 453, 482 and 460 parades in each year's January figure. Registering does not put a bloco on the list.

On October 9, 2026 the program site still carried the 2026 edition's name and listed no parade, and the Gazette's search showed no 2027 list.

How to read an entry, and where changes show up

Riotur's January 15, 2026 list for the opening weekend gave each bloco's name, the address of its meeting point and three times: concentração (gathering), start and scheduled end. One read 4:00, 6:00 and 10:00 p.m., which fits the decree's two-hour and four-hour caps. Riotur said its app shows full routes, and the program site, which has an English version, filtered by name, place, date and category: megabloco, children's, traditional, religious or LGBTQIAPN+.

Size is harder to read. The program site's pop-up for each bloco has a line for Público estimado (estimated audience), but its 2026 list was empty on October 9, so we could not see how often it is filled in; the January 15 list gave no sizes. In 2025 Riotur defined megablocos as groups that draw more than 100,000 people on Rua Primeiro de Março. In 2026 ten took turns on the Circuito Preta Gil, a route the city created by decree in July 2025. Riotur's reports put SeráQAbre? at more than 500,000 people on February 1, Fervo da Lud at about 600,000 on February 17 and Bloco da Anitta at about 700,000 on February 21.

Counts differ by page. On January 15, 2026 Riotur said 460 parades and the city portal 458, while carnaval.rio's page, updated January 28, said 451 blocos. Riotur's February 13 Carnival guide said 431 parades and 430 blocos. Riotur's 2024 plan warned that its figure pode mudar (can change) with agency approvals and the blocos' own confirmation. Street closures and sidewalk use become official in traffic-regulation acts printed in the Gazette, typically citing a CET-Rio opinion and Riotur's parade spreadsheet: Portaria 7,099 of January 28, 2026 let a bloco parado (stationary bloco) use a sidewalk on February 17, from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m.

What the city rules out

• VIP areas. Banned, paid or not, with the sound-truck exception (Portaria 331).
• Glass. The city's January 15, 2026 plan called glass bottles prohibited and told patrols to seize them. In one 2024 weekend patrols seized 260 bottles (January 29, 2024).
• Vendors. The 2026 plan sent patrols after comércio ambulante irregular (irregular street vending). A 2024 city page said its production company, Dream Factory, accredits the drink vendors.
• Brands and trucks. Decree 57,488 of January 14, 2026, the latest for the street Carnival, gave the organizer chosen by Riotur the exclusive right, with exceptions, to advertise along a corridor of streets until February 23, 2026. A 2027 equivalent was not out on October 9. Portaria 332 (August 21, 2026) bans ambush marketing and betting-company ads, and Portaria 331 sends sound trucks to a 2014 state decree.
• The rules may change. Portaria 331 says normative changes and updates are atualmente em análise para sua revisão (under analysis for revision).

Getting there without a car

For 2026 the city told people to plan ahead and use public transport, said patrols would inspect taxis and ride-app cars, pointed visitors to the operations center's COR.Rio app, which shows road blockages and has an English version, and said bloco closures would appear in Waze (January 15, 2026). How ride apps are regulated is in the Uber guide.

MetrôRio, the metro operator, posted a notice for each bloco weekend (January 23 and 29 for the first two megabloco weekends) and one on February 10 for the Carnival days. They named Carioca station for the megablocos, Glória for the Aterro do Flamengo park and General Osório for Ipanema. Some stations admitted only prepaid cards or contactless payment, and some accesses were shut. The system ran 24 hours from 5 a.m. on February 13 to midnight on February 18 (notices of February 10 and 19). The January 29 notice listed what is banned aboard: glass on pre-Carnival days, loads over 25 liters, bicycles, surfboards, and swimwear or no shirt. On October 9, 2026 we found no 2027 plan for the blocos from the metro or from Riotur.

Riotur's tips of January 21, 2026 say to agree a meeting point and carry small change for vendors. Payment is in the payments guide, PIX for visitors and the cash guide. Crime data by neighborhood is in the Rio data guide and the Brazil overview. For emergencies, see the emergency numbers.

Sources

Accessed October 9, 2026.

• Official Gazette of Rio (Diário Oficial do Município) — August 24, 2026, pp. 80 to 82, Portarias 331 and 332; September 21, 2026; January 29, 2026; January 15, 2026; January 31, 2025; July 22, 2025, Decree 56,446; August 12, 2010, Decree 32,664
• Riotur — 2027 registration; 2026 megabloco lineup; app launch; opening weekend and counts; 2026 plan; 2025 megabloco lineup; tips; organizers and vendors; crowd reports for SeráQAbre?, Fervo da Lud and Bloco da Anitta
• Carnival sites — carnaval.rio street parades, Riotur's Carnival guide, February 13, 2026 and the program site carnavalderua.rio
• Rio city portal — plans of 2026, 2025 and 2024; the 2023 list, the 2023 tender and the glass seizures
• MetrôRio — notices of January 23, January 29, February 10 and February 19, 2026

Method on how we research; Jeff Bruno writes from Curitiba. Next door: all guides.

What we could not verify

• Whether every bloco is free. The acts and plans set no price, and no official page we opened says it outright, not even Riotur's February 2026 Carnival guide. The nearest wording is Portaria 332's natureza cultural e pública (cultural and public nature) of the Carnival and the bloco.
• Sound limits and vendor licensing. We could not open the 2014 state decree (44,617) that Portaria 331 cites for sound trucks; Riotur's 2024 portaria notes a 2016 amendment. We found no Gazette act on vendor accreditation at blocos.
• Which rules apply in 2027. We read Decree 32,664 as printed in 2010. The Gazette's search from 2010 to October 2026 finds only citations of it, no amending act; the city's legislation database stops at August 2022, and Portaria 331 says revisions are under analysis.
• Crowd figures and counts. Riotur does not say how it counted crowds, or why counts for one year run from 430 to 460.
• Earlier editions. The table has only 2025 and 2026: the Gazette's search returned no 2024 list.