WEF 2027 Davos: The Complete Guide
The World Economic Forum Annual Meeting takes place 18 to 22 January 2027 in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland. It is the 57th edition of the meeting, the most concentrated convergence of decision-makers in the global calendar, and the event around which a great deal of the year's most consequential conversations happen. This guide explains what the meeting actually is, who attends, how access works, and what to expect from the 2027 edition.
When and where
The 57th Annual Meeting runs Monday 18 January through Friday 22 January 2027. The principal venue is the Kongresszentrum Davos at Talstrasse 49A, in Davos Platz. The broader Davos-Klosters area, which stretches from Davos Dorf at the northern end through Davos Platz in the centre to the Promenade venues lining the main road, becomes the working footprint of the week.
Davos sits roughly 150 kilometres east of Zurich at 1,560 metres of elevation. Zurich Airport is the closest international gateway. Travel from Zurich to Davos takes 2.5 hours by private car, slightly longer by train. Helicopter transfers operate from Zurich and a small number of regional airports, subject to alpine weather. Travel logistics are not incidental to a Davos week. The window into and out of the town tightens substantially in the days surrounding the Annual Meeting.
The week itself is structured. Sunday is the unofficial arrival day for delegates and the night the cabinet briefs you before the first morning. Monday through Thursday are the working days of the meeting. Friday closes the official programme and accommodates onward travel.
The 57th Annual Meeting
The World Economic Forum was founded in 1971 by Klaus Schwab, then a professor at the University of Geneva, originally as the European Management Forum. The first meeting drew roughly 450 European executives to Davos. The framing widened over the following decade. By 1987 the meeting had taken its current name, and by the early 1990s it had become the recurring January gathering of senior leaders across government, finance, and industry that defines it today.
The numbers around the modern Annual Meeting are broadly stable. Approximately 3,000 officially accredited delegates attend each year. The composition typically includes around 50 heads of state and government, around 1,000 senior business leaders, and the balance drawn from civil society, multilateral institutions, academia, and media. Inside the Kongresszentrum, the official programme runs around 200 sessions across five days. Outside the official footprint, the side programme produces several thousand additional events.
The Forum frames its purpose around what it calls the "Spirit of Davos," a commitment to multistakeholder dialogue. The phrase covers a great deal of ground. In practice, the meeting is the year's most concentrated working venue for the conversations that move quietly across borders, sectors, and institutional lines.
The Annual Meeting is best understood not as a conference but as a weeklong working session that happens to have panels attached to it.
The 2027 themes
The Forum confirms the official thematic framing for each Annual Meeting six to eight weeks before the meeting itself. Based on the trajectory of the prior two years and the public direction of WEF programming, the 2027 themes are expected to continue the framing established at the 2026 meeting around the Spirit of Dialogue and Collaboration in a Contested World.
The thematic pillars that have carried weight across recent meetings, and that we expect to remain in scope for 2027, span four broad domains.
First, geopolitics in a multipolar settlement. The post-2025 geopolitical context shapes the Annual Meeting more than any single policy debate. Expect closed-door bilateral and trilateral sessions, less open panel statement-making, and a continued centring of conversations around Ukraine, the Middle East, and US-China dynamics.
Second, the governance of artificial intelligence. The dominant technology conversation of 2024 and 2025 evolves in 2027 from an adoption framing to a governance framing. Sovereign compute, model evaluation, and the question of who sets the rules become central.
Third, the energy transition and its costs. The honest conversation around what decarbonisation actually requires from capital, governments, and consumers continues to dominate the climate sessions. Expect a sharper, more action-oriented framing than the panel debate of prior years.
Fourth, institutional trust and the future of multilateralism. The structural conversation that underlies most of the others. Less visible on the panel stage, more visible in the closed dinners.
The Forum's published themes will refine and extend this framing. Read them carefully when they publish in late November or early December 2026.
Who attends WEF
The Annual Meeting hosts roughly 3,000 officially accredited delegates. The composition is consistent year to year, with the relative weight of each constituency shifting modestly depending on the moment.
Heads of state and government
Around 50 heads of state and government attend each meeting, alongside several hundred cabinet ministers, central bank governors, and senior officials. Their presence anchors the bilateral programme that runs alongside the public sessions. Most government delegations bring substantial staff and advisor cohorts.
Business leaders
The largest constituency. Roughly 1,000 senior business leaders attend each meeting, drawn from the Forum's strategic partners and members, partner organisations, and individually accredited principals. CEOs of the largest multinationals make up a significant share. The remainder are heads of major financial institutions, technology platforms, and consumer brands.
Civil society, academia, and media
A meaningful presence of civil society leaders, NGO heads, academics, scientists, and senior journalists. The Forum has worked deliberately over the last decade to widen the meeting beyond its founding business-centric framing.
Strategic partners and members
The Forum operates a tiered partnership system. Strategic Partners hold the highest tier and pay the largest annual fees. Industry Partners and Associate Partners sit below. Each tier provides defined access to the meeting and the Forum's year-round programming. Membership is the primary institutional pathway into the meeting for organisations that intend to attend regularly.
How access actually works
Davos access is one of the most poorly understood subjects in business media. The actual structure resolves to four distinct tiers, each with its own logic. We have written a full piece on this at the four tiers of Davos access. The shorter version sits below.
The first tier is the official WEF Annual Meeting Badge, issued by the Forum to members, strategic partners, and invited public figures. It provides access to the Annual Meeting inside the Kongresszentrum. This is the most prestigious credential and the rarest. There is no individual application process.
The second tier is the Secure Hotel Badge. Issued by Swiss federal authorities through a small number of designated Single Points of Contact, the Hotel Badge provides access to a network of hotel-zone events, lounges, and dinners running in parallel to the official Annual Meeting. It is the most practical credential for serious attendees who do not hold WEF accreditation. Each participant is required to undergo a background verification by the Swiss police before the badge is issued; the cabinet manages that process end to end on the client's behalf. See our Secure Hotel Badge page for the operational process and terms, or the Davos Hotel Badge, explained for the editorial overview.
The third tier is the curated wristband and dinner programme. A small ecosystem of established operators runs programmes of dinners, lounges, and roundtables across the week. These programmes typically include the Hotel Badge and a calendar of fifteen to thirty curated events. This is the structured entry point for founders, family offices, corporate delegations, and brand executives.
The fourth tier is the open Promenade and side events. The Open Forum, public lectures, and many House sessions run as open or RSVP-based programming during the week. Useful for orientation. Not where the consequential conversations happen.
Most serious attendees combine three or four of these pathways. The discipline is the architecture, not the credentials. Read how to get invited to Davos for the working logic.
The week, day by day
A full day-by-day account lives at the experience. The shorter version belongs in any Davos guide.
Sunday is arrival. The week's calendar is final, the Secure Hotel Badge is ready for collection, and the briefings are in your hand. Accommodation and ground transport, including Zurich pickup and in-Davos cars, are available as additional services and quoted separately by request. A quiet dinner with your team or your concierge to walk through the week. By dessert, the week is set.
Monday is the opening. The first day sets the tone for the week. The opening conversations carry more weight than the volume of programming suggests. Private breakfasts, the first executive lounges, and the dinners that frame the week's most consequential debates.
Tuesday is convergence. The full ecosystem is active. The side programme, the official sessions, the corporate Houses, the quieter dinners that do not appear on any agenda. The optimal day for breadth.
Wednesday is substance. The most consequential closed-door sessions tend to fall mid-week. The off-record dinners. The bilateral meetings. The conversations that produce decisions rather than statements.
Thursday is culmination. The introductions built across four days produce closing dinners and late-night nightcaps that often matter more than any panel of the week. The team is on the ground until the last car leaves the last venue.
Friday is departure. Onward travel runs on your own arrangements; return transport to Zurich can be arranged as an additional service if useful. The work continues in the weeks that follow as the briefing document is built, every introduction documented, every follow-up tracked.
What changes for 2027
Each Annual Meeting shifts in texture, even when the format remains broadly consistent. The structural changes worth watching for 2027 include the continued tilt toward closed-door substance over panel performance, the rotation of sponsored Houses along the Promenade, and the evolving thematic framing around AI governance and multipolar cooperation. We have written a full piece on this at what changes in Davos 2027.
Accommodations
For one week each January, Davos becomes one of the most supply-constrained luxury accommodation markets in the world. Roughly 20,000 visitors converge on a town of 11,000 permanent residents. Hotel pricing runs three to five times normal high-season rates. Most properties are non-refundable after a certain date. Chalets in prime locations range from CHF 50,000 to several hundred thousand francs for the week, depending on size and included services.
The booking calendar matters. Twelve to nine months before the meeting is the standard window for best availability. By six months out, chalet availability in prime locations is essentially closed. By six weeks out, the practical options run several kilometres from the Promenade.
A full piece sits at the Davos accommodations guide. The short version: book early or accept the consequences.
Frequently asked questions
The questions we receive most often about the Annual Meeting. The full responses are documented in the accordion below.
Begin your conversation
WEF 2027 will be the 57th Annual Meeting. The 2027 calendar is currently being architected for the small number of principals we accept each year. If your year would meaningfully benefit from a working week in Davos, the conversation begins by application.
The earlier we begin, the more we can build. Hotel Badge processing closes in autumn. Chalet inventory tightens through summer. The dinners worth attending are quietly settled by November. We architect against your objectives. The week is the work; the year is the outcome.
Frequently asked questions
The 57th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum takes place 18 to 22 January 2027 in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland.
At the Kongresszentrum Davos, the main congress centre in Davos Platz, with extensive programming throughout the wider Davos-Klosters area including the Promenade and surrounding venues.
Official accreditation is issued by the World Economic Forum to members, strategic partners, public figures, and invited delegates. For those without official accreditation, a parallel ecosystem of side programmes, corporate Houses, and curated dinner programmes runs throughout the week and is accessed through designated partners.
A credential issued through designated Single Points of Contact that provides access to a network of hotel-zone events, lounges, and dinners during WEF week. It is the most practical credential for serious attendees who do not hold official WEF accreditation.
Approximately 3,000 official delegates attend the Annual Meeting itself, with an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 additional attendees in Davos during the week for side programmes, partner activations, and the broader ecosystem.
For accommodations and access, six to nine months in advance is the standard window. The most consequential dinners and lounges fill quietly across Q3 and Q4. By December, most of the week is settled.