In the United States, every UFC event now streams on Paramount+ with no pay-per-view fee. That is the whole answer for most people reading this: one subscription, every numbered event and every Fight Night, early prelims through main card. The old arrangement — an ESPN+ subscription plus a separate purchase of roughly $80 for each numbered card — ended on 1 January 2026.
What changed in 2026
Paramount signed a seven-year media rights agreement with TKO Group, reported at $7.7 billion and running through 2033, that moved UFC’s US rights away from ESPN. The headline change for viewers is the end of the domestic pay-per-view model. Under the old ESPN deal, watching a numbered card meant paying for ESPN+ and then paying again for the event itself. Under the Paramount deal there is no second payment.
The first event under the new arrangement was UFC 324 on 24 January 2026.
What a Paramount+ subscription costs
- Paramount+ Essential — $8.99/month or $89.99/year, with ads
- Paramount+ Premium — $13.99/month or $139.99/year, ad-free
Both tiers include identical UFC access. There is no UFC-specific add-on and no per-event charge. The cheaper tier is not a reduced fight package — the only difference is advertising and the other Paramount+ features that come with Premium.
What’s included
The 2026 schedule on Paramount+ covers the numbered events, the Fight Night calendar, and UFC at the White House. Cards stream in full — early prelims, prelims and main card in one place, rather than split across three services the way they were under the previous deal.
The platform also carries an archive: numbered events back to UFC 246, and Fight Night cards going back to 2006.
Watching free on CBS
Select major numbered events are simulcast live on CBS. That means they are watchable with a digital antenna at no cost, or through cable, satellite, or any streaming service that carries a local CBS station. Paramount+ Premium includes live CBS access; Essential does not.
Not every numbered card gets a CBS simulcast, so if a specific fight matters to you, check the listing for that event rather than assuming.
Does UFC Fight Pass still exist?
Yes. Fight Pass remains a separate subscription, and select prelim bouts are still available through it. For most US viewers it is no longer necessary for watching current UFC cards, since Paramount+ carries the full card — Fight Pass is now closer to what it always was underneath: a library and a home for non-UFC combat sports programming.
Outside the United States
This is where it gets less tidy, and where a lot of guides get it wrong by assuming the US arrangement applies everywhere. It does not.
Canada and Australia were not included in the 2026 change. Viewers in both countries continued paying per-event pay-per-view prices through 2026 while US viewers stopped. Canada has since signed its own six-year Paramount+ agreement, which removes the extra per-event fee there from 2027.
Other territories run on their own local broadcast agreements, and those change on their own schedules. If you are outside the US, the reliable move is to check UFC’s official broadcast listing for your country for the specific card rather than trusting a general guide — including this one.
Bars and restaurants
Commercial venues license events separately from consumer subscriptions, and a residential Paramount+ account does not cover public exhibition. For viewers this mostly matters in one practical way: a bar showing a card is doing so under a commercial arrangement, and which venues carry which events still varies.
The practical bottom line
If you are in the US and want to watch UFC in 2026, subscribe to Paramount+ at either tier and you are done. There is nothing else to buy, no event you need to unlock, and no card you need a second service for. That is a genuine simplification over the model it replaced — the same viewer in 2025 was paying an ESPN+ subscription plus roughly $80 per numbered event, several times a year.
Updated 24 September 2026. This article previously described the ESPN+ and pay-per-view arrangement, which ended on 1 January 2026 when UFC’s US media rights moved to Paramount+. It has been rewritten to reflect the current model. Subscription prices and event carriage are as published by Paramount+ and are subject to change.
