How to Watch Royal Ascot 2026 in Canada? [Free and Paid Options]

QUICK ANSWER: Royal Ascot 2026 is free to stream in Canada on CBC Gem, which is carrying all five days (June 16 to 20) at no cost with a free CBC account. No VPN required. If you want ITV’s fuller race-by-race coverage, or you’re a Canadian travelling abroad, you can stream the free UK feed on ITVX using a VPN. NordVPN is my top pick, and its 30-day money-back guarantee lets you use it free for the festival.

Royal Ascot is the five-day showpiece of the British flat racing season, run at Ascot Racecourse in Berkshire from Tuesday, June 16 to Saturday, June 20, 2026. It’s 35 races, eight of them at Group 1 level, with Thursday’s Gold Cup and the £1m Prince of Wales’s Stakes among the headline events.

Here’s the good news for Canadian viewers. For the first time, CBC has the rights, so you can watch the action free on CBC Gem. In past years Royal Ascot had no Canadian home at all, which sent fans hunting for workarounds. That’s no longer the case.

There’s one catch worth knowing: CBC carries the international World Feed, which is built around the Gold Cup and the marquee races, and its live streams include ads. If you want ITV’s full five hours of daily coverage, the Royal Procession, and every race analyzed end to end, the UK’s ITVX is the better watch, and you can reach it free with a VPN.

This guide covers the free CBC Gem route, the free ITVX route with a VPN, the honest truth about paid options in Canada, the devices that work, and the full schedule in both BST and Eastern Time.

Key Takeaways

• Royal Ascot 2026 is free to stream in Canada on CBC Gem, which is carrying all five days (June 16 to 20) for the first time.
• A free CBC account is all you need, and CBC Gem works on web, phones, smart TVs, Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV, and game consoles within Canada.
• CBC airs the international World Feed and its live streams carry ads, so racing purists may prefer ITV’s fuller coverage on the UK’s ITVX.
• ITVX is free in the UK, and you can reach it from Canada with a VPN set to a UK server. I recommend NordVPN, and from my testing in Toronto a London server loaded ITVX in about two minutes.
• There’s no separate paid Canadian broadcaster for Royal Ascot, and CBC Gem Premium ($5.99 plus tax per month) does not remove ads from live streams, so free CBC Gem is all most Canadians need.
• Travelling Canadians who are outside the country can’t open CBC Gem (it’s geo-locked to Canada), so a VPN is the way to tune back in from abroad.

Quick Steps: watch free in Canada on CBC Gem

1. Go to gem.cbc.ca or download the CBC Gem app on your phone, smart TV, or streaming device.
2. Create a free CBC account, or sign in if you already have one.
3. Open the Sports section or the live TV guide and find Horse Racing: Royal Ascot for the current day.
4. Press play and start watching. You’re streaming within Canada, so no VPN is needed.

Prefer ITV’s full coverage, or watching from outside Canada? Use the VPN route instead:

1. Get a reliable VPN. I recommend NordVPN because its UK servers reliably get past ITVX’s location checks.
2. Install the app on your phone, laptop, or streaming device and sign in.
3. Connect to a UK server (London works well).
4. Open ITVX, create a free account with a UK postcode, and start streaming.

How to Watch Royal Ascot 2026 free in Canada on CBC Gem

CBC Gem is the simplest free route for anyone in Canada. The public broadcaster is showing all five days of Royal Ascot, and streaming is free once you create a CBC account.

A few things worth knowing before you settle in:

• It’s genuinely free. A free CBC account unlocks live streaming. You don’t need a cable login or a paid plan.
• It’s Canada-only. CBC Gem streams are geo-locked to Canada, so this route works at home but not while you’re travelling abroad.
• Live streams carry ads. CBC’s live feeds include commercial breaks, and that doesn’t change even on a paid plan.
• It’s the World Feed. CBC carries the international broadcast centred on the Gold Cup and the big races, rather than ITV’s full daily program.

NOTE: Start times shown in the CBC Gem live guide can vary by region and day, so check the in-app schedule for the exact slot. As a guide, the headline races run early afternoon Eastern Time (see the schedule table below for each day).

CBC Gem runs on the web at gem.cbc.ca and through apps for iOS, Android, Apple TV, Fire TV, Android TV, Roku, Xbox, LG and Samsung smart TVs, and Rogers Xfinity, plus AirPlay and Chromecast.

How to watch Royal Ascot 2026 free with a VPN (ITVX and Virgin Media Play)

If you want the full ITV experience, or you’re a Canadian abroad, a VPN is the answer. Royal Ascot is free-to-air in a few countries, and a VPN makes your device look like it’s back in that region so you can open the local free stream.

The two best free options:

• ITVX (UK): ITV shows roughly five hours of coverage each day, including the Royal Procession and full race analysis. ITVX is free, though signing up asks for a UK postcode (for example, HA9 0WS) and a TV licence confirmation.
• Virgin Media Play (Ireland): Free to stream and another solid backup if ITVX is busy.

How to do it: install a VPN, connect to a UK server (for ITVX) or an Irish server (for Virgin Media Play), then open the service and sign in. VPN use is legal in Canada. Accessing a service from another region may go against that service’s terms of use, but it isn’t against the law here, and the worst case is a stream that won’t load, not a fine. This is informational guidance, not legal advice.

NOTE: From my testing in Toronto, a UK server on NordVPN loaded ITVX in about two minutes. If a stream won’t start, disconnect, clear your browser cache, reconnect to a different UK city, and reload.

Is there a paid Canadian option for Royal Ascot 2026?

Short version: not a useful one. There’s no dedicated paid Canadian broadcaster carrying Royal Ascot this year. CBC is the Canadian home, and its coverage is free.

CBC Gem does offer a paid tier, Gem Premium, at $5.99 plus tax per month with a short free trial. But Premium only makes on-demand titles ad-free. Live streams keep their ads regardless of plan, so paying for Premium gets you nothing extra for watching Royal Ascot live. Save your money and use the free account.

If you specifically want NBC’s American coverage, that exists on Peacock in the US, which starts around $10.99 per month (USD) for a plan with live sports. You’d need a VPN set to a US server to subscribe and watch from Canada, and you’d be paying for something CBC already gives you free. I mention it only for completeness. Verify current Peacock pricing before you sign up.

How to watch from anywhere (travelling Canadians and expats)

CBC Gem won’t open if you’re outside Canada, because the streams are locked to Canadian IP addresses. A VPN fixes that two ways:

• Connect to a Canadian server to make CBC Gem think you’re back home, then watch as normal.
• Connect to a UK server to stream ITVX instead, which often gives you the fuller race-day coverage anyway.

Either approach works on a laptop, phone, tablet, Fire TV, or Apple TV, so you can follow the Gold Cup from a hotel room as easily as from your living room.

Best VPNs for streaming Royal Ascot 2026

I’ve tested these against ITVX, Virgin Media Play, and CBC Gem from Canadian cities. All three are reliable picks.

1. NordVPN (top pick). The fastest network I test and the most consistent at getting past streaming location checks, with a huge server list across the UK, Ireland, and Canada. Plans start around $3.49 per month (USD) on a two-year term, and every plan includes a 30-day money-back guarantee. Verify current pricing before subscribing.
2. Surfshark (best value). The budget choice, with unlimited device connections on a single subscription, so the whole household can watch on different screens. It still unblocks the major free streamers and also carries a 30-day money-back guarantee.
3. ExpressVPN (the all-rounder). The widest device support, including easy setup on Fire TV and Apple TV, plus dependable speeds. A good fit if you mainly watch on a smart TV or streaming stick.

The no-risk free trial trick: NordVPN’s 30-day money-back guarantee works as a free trial. Sign up before the festival, use it for all five days, and request a refund within 30 days if you don’t want to keep it. You get full speed and unblocking now, with a full refund if you cancel inside the window.

WARNING: Skip free VPNs for this. Free VPNs fall short on all three fronts. First, their servers are heavily flagged, so streaming services block them on sight. Second, free tiers throttle bandwidth, which turns an HD race into a stuttering slideshow right as the horses hit the final furlong. Third, many free VPNs log and sell your data, and some carry malware. The smarter “free” move is a paid VPN’s 30-day money-back guarantee: full speed and unblocking now, full refund if you cancel inside the window.

Royal Ascot 2026 schedule and headline races

All five days are on CBC Gem in Canada. Times below are the featured Group 1 race each day, shown in BST (UK) with the Eastern Time conversion. BST is five hours ahead of ET.

Each day’s card runs seven races, with the gates opening around 2:30 PM BST (9:30 AM ET) and the finale near 6:10 PM BST (1:10 PM ET). The total prize fund across the 35 races is £10.65m, with the Prince of Wales’s Stakes and the Jubilee Stakes the richest at £1m each.