Open Enrollment for 2027 coverage
November 1, 2026 to January 15, 2027. The December deadline is the one that decides whether you have a gap in January.
For 2027 coverage, Open Enrollment on HealthCare.gov runs from November 1, 2026 to January 15, 2027. Two dates inside that window matter more than the window itself.
The December deadline is the one people miss
Both deadlines are real, and they do different things.
- Enroll by December 15, 2026 and your coverage starts 1 January — no gap.
- Enroll between then and January 15, 2027 and you are still covered, but not until 1 February. January is uninsured.
A month without coverage is a month in which one accident is your whole problem. If you can act in November or early December, do.
These dates are subject to a live court case. A rule that would have shortened Open Enrollment was vacated by a federal court in June 2026. HHS has appealed and oral arguments are scheduled for late October 2026, so these dates could still change. We will update this page if it changes. Anywhere else you read these dates, check when the page was last reviewed — a lot of published guidance still carries the shortened dates that were struck down.
Which calendar applies to you
There is no single answer, and this is the part most national guidance gets wrong. Of the 51 states and DC, 27 enroll through HealthCare.gov on the federal calendar above, 2 run their own marketplace on the federal platform — which changes who administers the exchange but not your dates — and 22 run their own platform entirely and set their own deadlines.
States whose dates are not the federal ones
These marketplaces have published a 2027 window that differs from November 1 to January 15. If your state is here, the federal deadline is not your deadline:
| State | Marketplace | Opens | Closes |
|---|---|---|---|
| California | Covered California | November 1, 2026 | January 31, 2027 |
| Connecticut | Access Health CT | October 23, 2026 | January 15, 2027 |
| Idaho | Your Health Idaho | October 15, 2026 | December 15, 2026 |
| Massachusetts | Massachusetts Health Connector | October 23, 2026 | January 23, 2027 |
| New Jersey | Get Covered New Jersey | November 1, 2026 | January 31, 2027 |
| Virginia | Virginia's Insurance Marketplace | November 1, 2026 | January 29, 2027 |
Marketplaces that have not published 2027 dates yet
10 marketplaces have not confirmed a 2027 closing date. We are not going to print one we cannot source, so their state pages say so and point at the marketplace itself: District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont. This is a consequence of the court ruling above — marketplaces spent the summer reverting and several have not republished.
Marketplace types and dates checked 2026-09-01. Note that CMS's own marketplace-type listing is published for plan year 2026 and does not reflect states that moved for 2027.
If you are already enrolled
Doing nothing is a decision, and usually a bad one. You will generally be auto-re-enrolled into your current plan or something the marketplace judges similar — but your plan's price, its network and its drug list can all change between years, and so can the benchmark that sets your subsidy. Auto-renewal carries none of that forward with your consent; it just happens.
For 2027 in particular there is a reason to look: the subsidy cliff is back, so a household that paid a capped premium last year may face an unsubsidized one now without any change in their own circumstances.
Missed the window entirely?
Then you need a qualifying life event and a Special Enrollment Period. Losing job-based coverage is the most common one, and it opens a 60-day window that starts running immediately.
The rest of this section
- What to have in front of you before you start — the application asks for more than people expect.
- How to enroll, step by step.
- Special Enrollment Periods — enrolling outside the window.