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. After the show’s major moment in 2025, there’s more buzz around it than ever, and the ratings have proven it.
While Season 35 won’t premiere for several months, fans got a nice tease with the official renewal announcement, including two of the stars who will be hitting the ballroom.
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.)
Whether the network will take Bergeron’s advice remains to be seen, but scroll down for everything we know about Season 35 so far!
When will Dancing With the Stars Season 35 premiere?
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 on ABC and Disney+.
For the past three seasons, it’s 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.
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.
Who are the Dancing With the Stars Season 35 judges?
The judges have not been confirmed yet, but Carrie Ann Inaba, Derek Hough, and Bruno Tonioli have all been on the panel since Season 29. 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.
Who is in the Dancing With the Stars Season 35 cast?
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 siad.
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
This story originally appeared on TV Insider
