There are three curling events at the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics: men's and women's curling, along with mixed doubles curling. The men’s and women’s tournaments are identical in format, while the mixed doubles tournament varies slightly.

All disciplines feature 10 teams in the field. In the preliminary round, each team plays every other team. After each team has completed their games, the teams with the four-best records advance to the semifinals. If the top-four teams are not clear, tie-breaking procedures are used to determine the playoff teams.

Once the semifinals begin, if a team has a better record than its opponent, it has the option to shoot first or second during the first end. If the teams have the same record, the winner of their round-robin game has the choice of shooting first or second in the first end. In the semifinals, the top-ranked team from the round-robin will play the fourth-place team, and the second-place team will play the third-place team (No. 1 vs. No. 4, No. 2 vs. No. 3).

The winners of the semifinals meet in the final for the gold medal. The losers play for the bronze medal.

Each game in men's and women's curling is 10 ends in length. Mixed doubles is eight ends. Each end is complete when the two teams each have delivered all stones alternately and determined the score. If the teams are tied after 10 ends (men's and women's) or eight ends (mixed doubles), a complete extra end must be played to break the tie. If the teams are still tied, play must continue for as many ends as may be required to break the tie.

During the round-robin, men's and women's teams may concede the game once a minimum of six ends have been completed. During the playoffs, a minimum of eight ends must be completed. Conceding the game when the losing skip feels he is too far down to come back is fairly common and is an accepted part of the etiquette of the sport. It should happen multiple times during the Olympics.

Each team in the men's and women's tournaments will receive 38 minutes of thinking time for 10 ends. There are one-minute breaks between ends 1-5 and 6-10. Between the fifth and sixth end, there is a five-minute break. Each team can call one 60-second timeout per game to consult with its coach. Mixed doubles teams receive 22 minutes of thinking. There is a five-minute break after the completion of the fourth end.

If matches in the men's and women's tournaments require an extra end or ends, each team receives four minutes and 30 seconds of thinking time for each extra end. There is a one-minute break between the 10th and 11th end and any subsequent ends. Each team can call one 60-second timeout during each extra end. For an extra end in the mixed doubles tournament, three minutes of thinking time is allotted.

The hammer refers to the order in which teams throw during an end when a team gets to throw the last stone during the end. Having the hammer is an advantage during an end of curling, and it is considered a positive if the team without the hammer only allows one point to be scored by the hammer team.

To decide the hammer at the beginning of a game in round-robin play, teams compete in a last stone draw, a contest conducted after both teams’ pre-game practice. Each team delivers two stones, the first stone with a clockwise and the second with a counter-clockwise rotation, to the tee at the home end. The resulting distances are measured and used to determine which team has the choice of delivering the first or second stone for the first end. 

Ties happen two ways in Olympic curling: match ties and round-robin ties.

If a score is tied at the end of an Olympic curling match, the game continues into extra ends until one team scores more points in an extra end than the opposition.

After teams are ranked according to their win-loss records following the round-robin portion, the system listed below is used to rank the teams that are tied. The same system is used to rank teams for seeding in the semifinals. The following criteria (in order) will be used to rank the teams after the round-robin:

1.) If two teams are tied, the team that won their round-robin will be ranked higher (head-to-head)

2.) If three or more teams are tied, the record of the games between the tied teams provides the ranking. Should this provide a ranking for some teams but not all, the record of the games between the remaining teams that are still tied determines the ranking (head-to-head).

3.) If the ties still are not broken, the rankings are determined using the draw shot challenge (DSC). The DSC is the average distance from the button a stone travels with each team’s last stone draws (LSD), which were played by a team during the round-robin. The worst mark is automatically eliminated before calculating the average distance. The team with the lower DSC receives the higher ranking. If the DSCs are equal, then the team with the best non-equal LSD receives the higher ranking. In case all LSDs are equal, the team ranked higher in the WCF World Rankings is ranked higher.