CCC announces 40C3 for 27–30 December 2026 in Hamburg, opens participation calls

The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) has announced that its 40th Chaos Communication Congress, 40C3, will run from 27 to 30 December 2026 at the Hamburg exhibition halls. The announcement, published on the club's events blog on 12 September, also opened the Call for Participation covering the event's talk, art, music and punk programmes.

Europe's largest hacker gathering returns to Hamburg

According to the CCC, the Congress is Europe's largest hacker party, conference and platform for technology, society and civil liberties. The 2026 edition is the 40th, and it takes place again in the Hamburg Exhibition halls, a venue the club moved to in a previous edition and credits with providing room for a bigger and more varied programme.

The club presents the event as a collective undertaking rather than a conventional conference. It describes the Congress as the largest non-commercial hacker conference, organised by volunteers with the help of thousands of unpaid supporters, and attended by more than 16,000 people who help shape the event instead of merely consuming it.

Four ways to take part

Participation is split across several calls. The Call for Content invites speakers for the long-running lecture programme. The Call for Art targets artists and designers with exhibits, sculptures and performances that do not need a stage. The Call for Music reaches out to DJs and musicians for the lounge and party stages, while the Call for Punk looks for what the club calls accomplices for its Punk-Späti, a space for anarchic and anti-fascist performances in a deliberately informal setting.

The "Model Citizens" motto

This year's theme is "Model Citizens". The CCC frames it as a prompt to work out new models for society, arguing that the models of the past have left the world in a fragile condition. The announcement carries pointed political commentary: the club argues that the democratic habit of working in solidarity towards a shared, better future is increasingly giving way to an authoritarian model in which the strong dictate to the weak, and that liberal forces now mostly defend what exists rather than attempting to build something new.

The CCC's counter-position is the Congress itself, which it presents as a working demonstration that things can be organised differently — one that values difference, learns from the unfamiliar, and treats mutual needs as the starting point for a community in which everyone feels at home.

Why it matters

The Congress is a fixture of the European technology calendar, and confirmed dates let attendees, hacker spaces and volunteer groups plan around the end of December 2026. For potential contributors, the practical news is that submissions are open now across four distinct tracks, each with its own call. The 40th edition also marks the club's continued bet on the larger Hamburg venue as the event grows. Just as notable is the tone: the motto and accompanying statement show the CCC positioning the Congress explicitly as a political and cultural project, using the event to argue for cooperative self-organisation at a moment when, in the club's view, that model is under pressure.