KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Chiefs finished their 2025 campaign Sunday, and now they know all of their opponents for the 2026 season, a slate featuring a couple of familiar AFC rivals and a two-time Super Bowl foe.
The 17-game slate includes eight home games and road contests, including trips to Buffalo, Miami and Seattle, as well as two road trips to Los Angeles. While the opponents are now set, the date of the contests won’t be known until the NFL releases the league schedule in mid-May.
The schedule also includes nine games against 2025 playoff teams. The Chiefs will face their customary AFC West opponents, along with all teams in the AFC East and the NFC West. For the final three games, the Chiefs will face the third-place teams in the AFC North and South divisions and the NFC South. Those teams are Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Atlanta, respectively.
Marquee games include a familiar regular-season road trip to face the Buffalo Bills and West Coast trips to face the Seattle Seahawks and Los Angeles Rams. The home slate includes a key test against the New England Patriots and a visit from the San Francisco 49ers, a team that the Chiefs have vanquished twice in Super Bowls during the past seven seasons.
AT HOME
- Arizona Cardinals
- Denver Broncos
- Indianapolis Colts
- Las Vegas Raiders
- Los Angeles Chargers
- New England Patriots
- New York Jets
- San Francisco 49ers
ON THE ROAD
- Atlanta Falcons
- Buffalo Bills
- Cincinnati Bengals
- Denver Broncos
- Las Vegas Raiders
- Los Angeles Chargers
- Los Angeles Rams
- Miami Dolphins
- Seattle Seahawks
Will the Chiefs Go International?
The Chiefs play nine games on the road in 2026, opening up the possibility of playing one of those games internationally. The fact that the Chiefs played the Chargers in Brazil to open the 2025 campaign doesn’t diminish the possibility.
What diminishes that possibility, however, is the torn ACL for Patrick Mahomes and the potential retirement for Travis Kelce. A Kansas City team without its two biggest superstars would be less of a draw for the NFL, but the Chiefs remain a marquee team in the NFL.
The Chiefs have been rumored as a potential opponent for the Rams, who are the designated home team for a Week 1 game in Melbourne, Australia. The NFL will likely not know, however, if Mahomes will be available when the schedule is set in May.
The NFL will also host International Series contests in London (two games), Rio de Janeiro, Munich and Mexico City. The league is expected to play up to 10 games internationally in 2026, with Paris and Dublin also potential sites. The Chiefs have expressed interest in accepting an invitation to play internationally, but Madrid, Munich and Dublin are high on their list.
Why Do the Chiefs Play the Same Teams?
The rematch with Buffalo in the regular season will prompt the question once again — why do the Chiefs play the Bills every year? And why in Buffalo?
There are two main reasons: they’re both good teams and (bad) luck.
The NFL scheduling formula employs a rotation designed to ensure that a team like the Chiefs will play every other AFC team at least once every three years and all NFC teams at least once every four years. All but three games on each team’s schedule are set using this formula each year. The final three games are determined by where teams finish in their division. The Broncos, who won the AFC West this year, will face three other divisional winners, while the Chiefs will face three other teams that finished in third place.
The AFC West and AFC East are rotated to play each other in 2026, and the Chiefs will host the Jets and Patriots while playing at the Bills and Dolphins. The Chiefs played at Buffalo in 2025 because both teams won their division, and the formula rotation called for the AFC West champ to play at the AFC East winner. The same was true in 2024.
Of course, the Chiefs hosted Buffalo in 2022 when they played the entire AFC East, and again in 2024 when the AFC West champs played at home against the East division champ.
The Chiefs and Bills are not set to face each other in 2027, unless they finish in the same place in their respective divisions again. In that event, the Bills would visit Kansas City. The Chiefs also host their AFC East counterpart in 2028, so if the Chiefs and Bills finish in the same place in their division the next two seasons, those games would be at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium.
