Swiss Darts Trophy 2026: Field, Format and Prize Money

When is the Swiss Darts Trophy 2026?

Play runs across three days, Friday 9 to Sunday 11 October, with an afternoon and an evening session each day. The first round is spread across Friday, the last 32 fills Saturday, and Sunday takes the tournament from the last 16 to the final. The draw is confirmed at midday on the Thursday, which is also the day the four Swiss host nation places are decided — so four of the 32 first-round places are still empty 24 hours before the opening throw.

Basel is a young fixture by European Tour standards. The Swiss Darts Trophy was first staged in 2024, the first PDC European Tour event ever held in Switzerland, and this is only its third edition.

Who is seeded at the Swiss Darts Trophy?

Seeding is taken from the two-year PDC Order of Merit as it stood at the entry deadline, counting only players who actually entered. That last clause matters this year: Luke Littler is absent, so the seedings begin with the man he leads by more than £2m on the world rankings.

The striking thing about that list is who is missing from it. Littler withdrew before the Tour Card Holder Qualifier and Dave Chisnall took the vacated place in the field, which pushed Jermaine Wattimena up into the 16th seeding.

How players get into a European Tour event

The 48 places are filled through six separate routes, and only the first of them is automatic.

Luke Woodhouse heads the 16 ProTour Order of Merit qualifiers, with Kevin Doets, Krzysztof Ratajski, Andrew Gilding and Rob Cross among those behind him. The Tour Card Holder Qualifier produced a notably heavy ten, including Michael Smith, Raymond van Barneveld and Mensur Suljović. Jani Haavisto came through the Nordic and Baltic route and György Jehirszki through the East European one.

The two Basel champions are both playing on Friday

The two men who have lifted this trophy come into it from opposite ends of the draw sheet. Bunting is seeded eighth and waits until Saturday. Martin Schindler, who won the inaugural edition in 2024 from 0-4 down against Ryan Searleand seven match darts adrift, is in as a ProTour qualifier and has to start on the Friday. So does Woodhouse, who lost 8-3 to Bunting in last year’s final.

Searle is seeded tenth and comes in at the last 32, so one Friday win would be enough to put Schindler back in the same round as the man he beat in that final.

Swiss Darts Trophy 2026 prize money

There is a catch buried in that ladder, and it is the reason seeding is not pure advantage. A pre-qualified player who loses their opening match — which for a seed means the last 32 — is paid the £3,500 but has none of it credited to any Order of Merit. Win that one game and the £5,000 for reaching the last 16 counts in full. For most of the seeds this is a footnote. For one of them it is the whole weekend.

Bunting defends a title that is worth nothing to him

The European Championship fieldis decided by the European Tour Order of Merit, a one-year table that counts prize money from the 2026 European Tour and nothing else. Bunting’s title in this hall last year sits outside that window, so the defending champion arrives holding 32nd place on £33,000 — the last seat on the plane to Dortmund, with Joe Cullen £3,500 behind him in 33rd and Michael Smith, playing here as a Tour Card qualifier, 36th on £22,000.

Combine that with the rule above and Bunting’s position is unusually exposed for a man seeded eighth. He cannot add a penny to his Dortmund total by turning up; he has to win a match first. Cullen, Smith and everyone else chasing from outside banks something from the very first round they survive.

Only Basel and the Dutch Darts Championship in Maastricht on 16-18 October remain, so there is a theoretical £70,000 still available to anyone who wins both. The cut can only rise from here, because prize money is added to this table and never taken off. You can watch it move on the live European Championship race standings.

Littler’s European Tour season is finished

Littler won in Prague in September and sits fifth on the European Tour Order of Merit, comfortably inside the Dortmund places. He will not add to that total. He is out of Basel and was never entered for Maastricht, the second of those a consequence of the withdrawals he made from Dutch events in late September after being whistled through both his matches in Amsterdam.

Switzerland was never part of that argument, which makes Basel the cleaner signal: the world No.1 has simply stopped playing European Tour darts for 2026. He qualified for Dortmund on money banked by mid-September and will arrive at the Westfalenhalle on 22 October without having played a European Tour match since Prague.

What a Basel title would mean

For Luke Humphries, top seed and fresh from the World Grand Prix, it would be a second title in seven days. For Wade it would follow the Flanders Darts Trophy he won in Antwerpin September, his first European Tour win in ten years. For Michael Smith, a former world champion reduced to entering through the Tour Card qualifier, £35,000 would do rather more than win a trophy — it would take him from 36th to inside the Dortmund 32 in a single weekend.

The rest of the autumn schedule is on the 2026 calendar.