Scripps National Spelling Bee Rules and How to Qualify

To compete in the 2027 Scripps National Spelling Bee, a speller must not have finished eighth grade, must not have turned 15 on or before August 31, 2026, must represent a school enrolled in the Bee’s program, and must win an SNSB-sanctioned regional bee on or after February 1, 2027, or be named a national competitor by a regional partner (2027 eligibility requirements). Under the most recent national rulebook, from 2026, one miss in an onstage round puts a speller out, each word gets a 90-second clock, and spelling rounds alternate with multiple-choice vocabulary rounds (2026 Contest Rules). The Bee says the 2027 Contest Rules will come out in late fall of 2026 (Scripps rules page), so the national details below could change.

Key dates for the 2026-27 program year

Date	What happens
August 18, 2026	School enrollment opened (enrollment FAQ)
November 1, 2026	Regional partners get the 2027 online qualifying tests and can share the 2027 Regional Qualifier Competition List with local officials (Scripps FAQs)
Through November 30, 2026	$199 per school, rising to $225 on December 1 (enrollment FAQ)
January 29, 2027	School enrollment closes, earlier in some areas (enrollment FAQ)
February and March 2027	Regional qualifier and regional bees (Scripps home page)
May 1, 2027	Full competition schedule posted (national dates FAQ)
June 1 to 3, 2027	2027 Scripps National Spelling Bee (national dates FAQ)

The Bee’s own pages disagree on the month. Its FAQ gives June 1, 2 and 3, 2027 (national dates FAQ). Its home page, rules page and enrollment page say May (home page; rules page; enrollment). None of these pages carries an update date, so we can’t tell which is newer. The FAQ is the only one that gives specific 2027 dates. Plan on June, and check the schedule once it’s posted.

Who can compete in 2027

Under the 2027 eligibility requirements, a speller (eligibility):

• hasn’t completed eighth grade (or the international equivalent) and didn’t turn 15 on or before August 31, 2026
• has never won the national competition
• represents a school enrolled in a Bee program for the year
• hasn’t repeated a grade to extend eligibility. A speller who repeated any grade must tell the Bee by March 31, 2027, and the Bee decides by April 30, 2027.
• hasn’t declared a grade higher than eighth for any purpose, including tests such as the PSAT, SAT or ACT, and hasn’t earned the legal equivalent of a high school diploma
• keeps up “normal school activity,” which the Bee defines as at least four courses other than language arts, spelling, Latin, Greek, vocabulary and etymology, for at least four hours per weekday, for 34 weeks between August 17, 2026, and May 28, 2027
• has no first-, second- or third-degree relatives working for The E.W. Scripps Company as of February 1, 2027, and isn’t that closely related to anyone running the regional partner’s program
• competes in only one Bee-affiliated pathway this program year. Once eliminated, a speller can’t seek another route through a different regional partner, school or pathway.

The Bee alone makes eligibility decisions, and they can’t be appealed (eligibility). After qualifying, a speller submits a champion registration, an appearance consent and release, a certification of eligibility, a liability waiver and a photo, with access provided by their regional partner (eligibility).

From school bee to Bee Week

1. Educators enroll their elementary or middle school at spellingbee.com (enrollment).
2. Schools hold classroom and school bees through the fall (enrollment).
3. School champions move on to regional qualifier and regional bees run by regional partners (enrollment). A regional partner is a business, community organization, college or university that organizes and pays for an area’s spelling bee program and sends its champion to nationals (Scripps FAQs). Look yours up by school zip code on the enrollment page (enrollment).
4. Regional champions register for Bee Week, a week of events around the national competition (enrollment).

For every bee except nationals, the Bee publishes Suggested Rules, but local officials are encouraged rather than required to use them, and the Bee has no authority over local bees (2027 Suggested Rules). Under those rules, a bee can be oral, written, online or a mix, and a round can be spelling or vocabulary (2027 Suggested Rules). Some regional partners narrow the field with the Bee’s online tests, which can mix spelling and vocabulary questions, use multiple-choice or type-in spelling, and include unstudied words and a time limit (Scripps FAQs).

How nationals works

Under the 2026 rules, the competition has four segments: Preliminaries, Quarterfinals, Semifinals and Finals (2026 Contest Rules).

• Preliminaries: Round One is spelling and Round Two is multiple-choice vocabulary. Spellers who get both right take the Round Three Test, with 24 spelling words and 6 vocabulary questions worth one point each. Nobody is eliminated on the spot. The Bee picks a cutoff score that sends as close to 100 spellers as possible to the Quarterfinals.
• Quarterfinals, Semifinals and Finals: each opens with a spelling round, then a vocabulary round, then more spelling rounds until officials end the segment.

Words for Rounds One and Two came from the 2026 Words of the Champions (2026 Contest Rules). After that, any word in Merriam-Webster Unabridged, the Bee’s official dictionary, was fair game unless it was marked archaic or obsolete (2026 Contest Rules). For tips on preparing, see how to study for a spelling bee.

What spellers can ask

Request	Local bees (2027 Suggested Rules)	Nationals (2026 Contest Rules)
Say the word again	Yes	Yes
Definition	Yes	Yes
Use in a sentence	Yes	Yes
Part of speech	Yes	Yes
Language(s) of origin	Yes	Yes
Alternate pronunciations	Yes	Yes
Root word questions	No	Yes, in a set format
Slower pronunciation	No	No

Sources: 2027 Suggested Rules, Rules 4 and 6; 2026 Contest Rules, Rules 6 to 8.

At nationals, a root question has to give the root’s pronunciation, its form and its meaning in the language it ultimately comes from, as listed in Merriam-Webster Unabridged, and the associate pronouncer answers it (2026 Contest Rules). In vocabulary rounds, spellers can ask to hear the word, question or answer choices again, and the pronouncer may spell the word (2026 Contest Rules). National vocabulary questions in 2026 had three answer choices, while the Suggested Rules describe two (2026 Contest Rules; 2027 Suggested Rules).

Time limits

In 2026, national spellers had 90 seconds per word, starting when the pronouncer first said it, with a countdown clock on a monitor. The judges and pronouncer stopped talking with the speller for the final 15 seconds, and anyone who hadn’t given a correct, complete spelling when time ran out was disqualified. Vocabulary questions had a 30-second limit (2026 Contest Rules). The 2027 Suggested Rules don’t set a time limit (2027 Suggested Rules), so ask your local officials.

Misspellings and disqualifications

Both rulebooks use single elimination. One wrong spelling or vocabulary answer and the speller is out, except under the end-of-bee rules below, and everyone eliminated in the same round ties for that place (2027 Suggested Rules; 2026 Contest Rules).

At nationals, judges disqualify a speller who changes letters or their order while retracing a spelling, doesn’t come to the microphone when called, or spells so unclearly that the answer can’t be understood. Judges can’t disqualify a speller for not pronouncing the word first, for asking a question, or for noting or not noting capitals, accent marks, spaces or hyphens (2026 Contest Rules).

How a champion is decided

At a local bee using the Suggested Rules, if every speller in a round misses, they all stay in and a new round starts. If only one speller in a round gets it right, that speller is declared champion right away (2027 Suggested Rules). The Bee’s quick how-to guide on its rules page says something different: name the champion only after the last speller standing also spells correctly in a one-speller, one-word round (rules page). The Suggested Rules are the dated 2027 document, and the quick guide has no date. Local officials can adapt their end-of-bee procedures (2027 Suggested Rules), so ask which one your bee uses.

Nationals uses the one-word round. Under the 2026 rules, if only one speller in a Finals round is right, they get the next word from a Championship Word List, always a spelling word. Spell it and they win. Miss it and everyone from the previous round comes back (2026 Contest Rules).

Because the Finals air live, officials can call a Spell-off to finish on time. Each remaining speller gets 90 seconds to spell as many words as possible from the same list, in the same order, while the other spellers are sequestered. Questions eat into the clock, skipping isn’t allowed, and a word left unfinished doesn’t count. The speller with the most correct words wins. A tie goes to the highest percentage correct, and if that’s tied too, the judges declare co-champions (2026 Contest Rules). In 2026, Shrey Parikh set the Spell-off record with 32 of 35 words correct in 90 seconds (competition page).