The 2027 dates aren't official yet: here's the reliable window
Nothing on cordoba.es or turismodecordoba.org names a 2027 date range yet. The most recent confirmed edition ran 22–30 May 2026[1], while the Patronato de Turismo's own listing frames the eight fair days themselves as running 23 to 30 May, with 22 May reserved for El Alumbrado, the opening-night lighting ceremony[4]. Even between two official bodies, the start date shifts by a day depending on whether you count the lighting night or the first full fair day, worth knowing before you lock in a flight.
Feria de Nuestra Señora de la Salud is, by the Ayuntamiento's own description, the standout event of Córdoba's mayo festivo, the run of spring festivals that dates back to the 18th century[5]. Applying the calendar this civic tradition has followed in recent editions, the last full week of May, to 2027's own calendar, where the last Saturday of May falls on the 29th, gives a projected window of Saturday 22 May to Saturday 29 May 2027, with El Alumbrado on the Friday night before, 21 May. That date is a calculation, not an announcement: treat it as provisional until the town hall says otherwise.
Confirmation itself tends to arrive late. The Ayuntamiento's annual Bando de Feria and the announcements from the Delegación de Fiestas y Tradiciones typically land in the months immediately before the fair, not the year before. For the full day-by-day program once it's published, and for what the fair actually is beyond a date range, see our Feria de Córdoba guide. What follows here is the part that doesn't need to wait on an announcement: over a million visitors[3] cross through El Arenal each edition, and how demand for rooms and casetas has moved in recent years is the planning problem a 2027 trip actually faces right now.
Why the fair never moves: the 1665 origin and the fixed May slot
The Feria's religious backbone predates its fixed civic date by more than a century. In 1665, two farmers ploughing land near the Puerta de Sevilla felt the ground give way beneath them and found a small image of the Virgin set in a hollow in the earth[6]. A chapel went up on the site, the cult of the Virgen de la Salud took hold, and the fair already running nearby attached itself to her feast. That is where the current name comes from: Feria de Nuestra Señora de la Salud.
Three and a half centuries of that pairing have produced a date that essentially doesn't move. El Alumbrado, the ceremonial lighting that opens the fair, happens on a Friday night at 22:00, followed by a midnight fireworks display that marks the true start of the week[7]. Everything downstream, the horse parades, the casetas, the closing night, runs off that same fixed anchor, without the kind of moveable-feast uncertainty that governs Easter-linked festivals elsewhere in Andalusia.
Some of the fair's fixed points are almost bureaucratically precise. The official paseo de caballos, the horse parade through the fairground, runs from 13:00 to 20:00, with horses barred from entering after 19:00[8]. Día del Niño, Children's Day, always falls on the Wednesday of Feria week, when the more than 70 fairground rides drop to around €3 instead of the usual €6 to €7[9]. None of that shifts from one year to the next, which is exactly why a calendar-based 2027 projection is worth more than a guess.
How fast Feria week accommodation disappears
The clearest evidence of demand doesn't come from the Ayuntamiento at all; it comes from the booking platforms. A press check during the 2024 opening weekend, the last time this was audited in this much detail, found major national platforms already showing 90% of listings unavailable[2] for the first three days of the fair. On Booking.com specifically, a search for that same weekend turned up only 20 available listings, with the platform's own alert stating that 98% of matching accommodation was already gone[10].
Prices for whatever is left follow the same curve. Last-minute Feria-week rooms ran from €200 to €600 a night, depending on zone, room count and party size[11], and the single most expensive booking found in that same check, a family-friendly 4-star hotel near the centre, reached €927 for the weekend[12].
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Short-term rentals showed the same pressure from a different angle. Airbnb listings for that same period ranged from €155 a night for a full apartment in San Andrés to €1,100 a night for a 9-bed rural house, with a mid-range apartment with a jacuzzi in the centre landing around €319[13].
The pattern isn't flat across the week, either, which matters if your dates are flexible. Availability improves for the second week of Feria, and prices rise only slightly toward the closing weekend rather than spiking the way the opening weekend does[14]. For a wider sense of what a Córdoba trip costs beyond the accommodation line, see our Córdoba travel cost guide; Feria week sits well above that baseline, but the gap narrows considerably in week two.
Casetas at capacity: what 2026's full house means for 2027
For 2026, every one of the fairground's 85 casetas filled, the first time that has happened in decades[15]. The number itself has been climbing: 82 casetas in 2024, 83 in 2025, 85 in 2026, with more than 45,250 m² now given over to caseta plots after another 1,400 m² was added this year[16]. All of that growth is happening inside a fixed footprint: the fairground covers just over 30 hectares beside the Guadalquivir[17]. Space has been stretched about as far as it can go, and demand has still caught up to it.
El Arenal's 85 casetas filled completely for the first time in decades in 2026, tightening the same footprint 2027 will use.
The city has also tried to make the existing footprint work harder rather than only adding plots. For 2026 it installed a new 7,135 m² canopy across two of the fairground's main streets, Guadalquivir and Enmedio, to give visitors more shade during the heat[18].
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Flamenco Show at Tablao El Jaleo
Award-winning flamenco artists at Tablao El Jaleo, just 20 metres from the Mezquita in Córdoba's Jewish Quarter. Show with a drink from €30. Book ahead.
What changed in 2026 is who's applying, not just the total. For the first time in a long time, the number of applicants for a caseta exceeded the number of available plots, and the city's Fiestas delegate said future editions could even face waiting lists[19]. None of this affects whether you, as a visitor, can walk into a caseta: most are casetas públicas, run by neighbourhood associations and cultural groups, open to anyone who sits down, not membership-only. What it affects is supply at the organiser level, in a fairground that is essentially built out at its current footprint.
Booking strategy: what to lock in now for 2027
Feria week is already the cheaper of Córdoba's two big spring draws, for context. Accommodation during the Patios and Cruces festivals, held earlier in May, has reached an average of €800 a night[20], noticeably higher than typical Feria-week pricing even at its most stretched. The absence of an official 2027 date is not a reason to wait, given that pattern: book with free cancellation wherever possible, using the provisional window (22–29 May 2027) as your working dates, and you lose nothing if the Ayuntamiento's eventual announcement shifts by a day or two.
If your dates are flexible, the accommodation numbers above point to a clear lever: the second week of Feria consistently shows better availability and a smaller price jump than the sold-out opening weekend. A traveller who can arrive a few days later, rather than for the Alumbrado itself, has a meaningfully easier booking problem to solve. Pair that with an early plan for the dance floor too; our sevillanas guide for Feria covers what to expect once you're actually inside a caseta.
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For a first Córdoba visit that isn't built entirely around the fair, a Córdoba weekend itinerary still works during Feria week; just budget extra time for the fairground itself, and extra nights either side if you also want the historic centre without a Feria crowd in every photo. If the real question is Córdoba's feria versus Seville's, that's answered in full in our Feria Córdoba vs Seville comparison, not here.