UCI Cycling Regulations Part 1 — General Organisation 2026
Part 1 of the Regulations of the Union Cycliste Internationale — General Organisation of Cycling as a Sport, in force from 1 July 2026.
| In force | 1 July 2026 |
| Structure | Part 1 of the seventeen parts of the UCI Regulations — 303 articles |
| Status | Current version — supersedes the edition of 10 September 2021 |
What Part 1 governs
The Regulations of the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) are divided into seventeen numbered parts, which sit alongside the Constitution and the Code of Ethics. Each article carries its own three-part number — such as 1.1.008 — whose first digit is the number of the part. This document is Part 1 of that set.
This part is the backbone of the entire body of regulations: licences, the international calendar, races, clothing and advertising, equipment, and the general rules that apply to all disciplines. The discipline-specific parts refer back to the articles of this part.
Key changes in this editionfrom the edition of 10 September 2021
- Prohibition on altering the rider's morphology through clothing and equipmentNew article 1.3.032 provides that clothing and any device or accessory worn by the rider — including helmets, eyewear, shoes and in-race communication devices — must not alter the rider's morphology, and non-essential elements are not permitted.
- Complete rewrite of the licensing procedureA set of amendments of 1 February 2026 has modernised the licensing process: the national federation must respond to an application within 30 days; notification of a refusal and its reasons no longer necessarily requires a registered letter — written form suffices; the issue of a licence in a country with no member federation is now conditional on the applicant obtaining the necessary insurance; and the fee for a licence issued by the UCI is set by the UCI itself.
- Federations' access to licence informationIn place of case-by-case notification, national federations now have access to information on licences issued by other federations to their nationals.
- Broader scope of the licence requirementArticle 1.1.002 now covers sanctioned events in addition to events "organised or supervised".
- Gender-neutral draftingThe text has been rewritten throughout the part; masculine pronouns have given way to neutral wording. The change is extensive but does not alter the substance of the rules.
- Removal of the temporary authorisation after a local suspensionArticle 1.1.032, which granted a temporary authorisation to a licence-holder suspended within the territory of their own federation, has been deleted.
- Updated team cross-referencesReferences concerning continental teams, cyclo-cross teams and track teams have been corrected to the new article numbers in the relevant parts.
Who this document matters to
Every dispute over the issue, refusal or suspension of a licence begins with this part, and the 30-day deadline for the national federation's response and the conditions for challenge before the UCI Arbitral Board are set out here. For teams and equipment manufacturers, the new article 1.3.032 places a clear restriction on clothing and accessories.