Final Oscar voting for the 98th Academy Awards closed on Thursday, March 5, 2026, at 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time.

Quick Scoop: When did Oscar voting close?

If you’re tracking the 2026 Oscars race, here’s the key detail: the final balloting window for winners ended on March 5, 2026, at 5 p.m. PT. After that deadline, votes went into tabulation and the results were sealed ahead of the ceremony on March 15, 2026.

A couple of timing nuances:

  • Nominations voting (to decide who gets nominated) ran earlier in the year and closed January 16, 2026, at 5 p.m. PT.
  • The March 5 cutoff applied to the final round, where Academy members choose the winners from the nominees.

So if someone says “Oscar voting just closed,” they’re almost certainly talking about that March 5, 2026, 5 p.m. PT deadline for the final ballots.

TL;DR: Oscar voting for the 2026 ceremony (98th Oscars) closed on March 5, 2026, at 5 p.m. Pacific Time.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.