2030 IIHF World Championship in Helsinki and Riga

At its Annual Congress in Zurich, the IIHF has named the hosts for the World Championship tournament in 2030. The first edition of the new decade will return to Finland and Latvia.

The bid by Helsinki, Finland and Riga, Latvia to host the 2030 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship was approved with 98.23% of the vote after the two north-eastern European countries were the only ones to submit their bid by the deadline. The World Championship was previously held in Finland and Latvia in 2023, when matches were played in Tampere and Riga.

While no specific announcement regarding venues has been made, it stands to reason that Helsinki’s Veikkaus Arena (which had been closed for several years due to sanctions against its then-owners, who were close to the Russian president) and Riga’s Xiaomi Arena (which was built to be used as one of the venues for the 2006 IIHF World Championship) will be set to host the matches. Helsinki will be the main venue and will host the final weekend, matches will be played in both countries up to the quarter-finals.

With that, the upcoming men’s top division tournament calendar looks like this:
2027: Dusseldorf and Mannheim, Germany
2028: Paris and Lyon, France
2029: Bratislava and Kosice, Slovakia
2030: Helsinki, Finland and Riga, Latvia

The 2028 Women’s World Championship has also been awarded: Switzerland, the host of this year’s men’s tournament, had a successful bid. The host city will be announced at a later time. (stadiaworld, 01.06.2026)