It’s official: Dancing With the Stars is returning for Season 35! ABC confirmed the news at Hulu’s Get Real event on April 22. Just a few weeks later, the network shared more information about the show’s schedule.
Season 35 won’t premiere for several months, but we already know two stars who will be hitting the ballroom in 2026. The first female cast members are two of the most buzzed-about reality stars of the year.
Meanwhile, in 2025, Season 34 featured the return of Tom Bergeron as a guest judge, and he urged ABC to “bring back the results show” in 2026 because “the show is setting record ratings again.” (Dancing With the Stars used to air two nights a week, with voting lines open overnight, as opposed to one night where voting happens in real-time throughout the episode, which is the current format.)
Is the network taking Bergeron’s advice? Scroll down for everything we know about Season 35 so far!
A premiere date has not been revealed yet, but ABC confirmed that it will be back in fall 2026. The show generally returns in mid-September, so we can predict a September 2026 premiere. ABC confirmed on May 12 that DWTS will be on Tuesday nights from 8/7 to 10/9c this fall.
For the past three seasons, DWTS has been airing on Tuesday nights, although it used to be a Monday night program, and aired on Mondays and Tuesdays when there was still a results show. Since ABC’s programming slate only has one night of DWTS, the results show is not returning for Season 35, despite Bergeron’s plea.
Before 2019, Dancing With the Stars aired two seasons a year (one in the spring and one in the fall), but starting with Season 28, there’s only been one season a year.
Carrie Ann Inaba, Derek Hough, and Bruno Tonioli have all been on the panel since Season 29 and are back as judges. Tonioli and Inaba have judged every season of DWTS since it began in 2005, while Hough joined toward the end of Len Goodman‘s tenure (the third OG judge died in April 2023).
Generally, the permanent judges’ panel only has three people on it, although there was a two-season overlap with Goodman and Hough. Derek’s sister Julianne Hough was also a judge for five seasons, four of which also had four judges. There are often guest judges brought in throughout the season as well, but those aren’t usually announced until the week before their appearances.
The first two cast members are Summer House star Ciara Miller and The Traitors/Love Island alum Maura Higgins. Both stars had breakout years in 2025, so it’s only fitting that they continue their reality show tenure.
“I know it’s going to be so, so hard, but because I really want to do it I’m going to put my all into it. I’m just so excited. I just want to get going now, to be honest,” Higgins said.
The rest of the cast and their professional partners will be revealed at a later date. Usually, the full cast and pro dancers are not confirmed until much closer to the premiere.
Dancing With the Stars, Season 34, Tuesdays, 8/7c, ABC
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Originally published on tvinsider.com, part of the BLOX Digital Content Exchange.
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