National Tequila Day 2026 Is Now July 24: What Changed and What to Drink

When is National Tequila Day 2026?

National Tequila Day 2026 is Friday, July 24. Going forward it is a fixed annual date rather than a moving one.

The change came through a presidential decree signed by President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, approved by Mexico's Congress on April 22, 2026, and published in the Diario Oficial de la Federación, Mexico's official gazette, on May 28. It took effect the following day. The previous date, the third Saturday of March, had been set by a 2018 decree and changed year to year, which made it hard for the industry to plan around.

According to legal analysis of the decree, the government's stated goal was to align the holiday with the customary International Tequila Day on July 24 and to create a permanent and predictable anchor for industry planning, marketing campaigns, and cultural events. The summer timing is not an accident. July sits squarely in the high-consumption window for spirits in tequila's biggest export markets, and it lines up with peak agave harvesting back in Jalisco.

Why the timing could not be better for drinkers

The new July date arrives at a rare moment: good tequila has quietly become a better deal.

For most of the last decade, the story was scarcity. Agave prices climbed to painful highs as celebrity brands and a global tequila boom chased a limited supply of mature plants. That has flipped. After years of overplanting, the market is now sitting on a surplus so large that people in the trade have started calling it the Tequila Lake.

The numbers are stark. Agave that sold for around 32 pesos per kilogram at the 2021 to 2022 peak had collapsed to roughly 2 pesos per kilogram by early 2025, a drop of about 94 percent in under three years, according to industry data reported across the trade press. Estimates put the raw agave surplus near 500 million liters of potential tequila. A glut of cheap agave does not automatically mean cheaper bottles on the shelf, because brand pricing rarely tracks raw material costs on the way down. What it does mean is opportunity. Smaller, traditional producers who never cut corners are no longer fighting for scarce agave, and the quality bar across the category has room to rise. It is a good year to trade up.

The data behind the moment

Figures compiled from industry reporting including The Spirits Business, IWSR analysis, and trade coverage of the 2025 to 2026 agave surplus.

The additive question changed the conversation

The other reason this July 24 hits differently: drinkers are paying closer attention to what is really in the bottle.

In 2025, a series of lawsuits took aim at some of the biggest names on the shelf, including Casamigos, Don Julio, and Kendall Jenner's 818, alleging that bottles labeled 100 percent agave did not live up to the claim. The brands have regulatory approval from Mexico's Consejo Regulador del Tequila, the CRT, and dispute the suits. But the cases put a spotlight on a practice that has quietly been legal for years: producers can use small amounts of approved additives, such as glycerin, caramel color, and oak extract, and still label a tequila 100 percent agave.

That gap between what "100 percent agave" sounds like and what it legally allows is exactly why additive-free has become the phrase serious drinkers now look for. An additive-free tequila is one made with nothing but agave, water, and time, where the smoothness comes from mature agave and traditional production rather than from something poured in after distillation. Our full breakdown of what the term means and which bottles qualify is in our guide to the best additive-free tequila.

What to actually drink on July 24

You do not need to spend a fortune to drink well this year. The move is to pick something traditionally made, ideally additive-free, and let the agave do the work.

For sipping neat, look for tequilas built on fully mature agave, brick-oven cooking, and copper-pot distillation, the markers of production that does not rely on shortcuts. Don Londrès is a strong example of that approach and sits at the top of our smoothest tequila rankings, alongside benchmark traditional producers like Fortaleza and Siete Leguas. For a broader shortlist across styles and budgets, our best tequila guide ranks the field.

If you are throwing a party rather than sipping, a clean blanco is the smarter buy, because it lets the cocktail shine without a harsh burn. A proper margarita or a summer paloma rewards a fresh, agave-forward blanco far more than an expensive añejo would. The best tequila for cocktails breaks down which bottles mix best.

The through line is simple. A fixed summer date, a category flush with agave, and a drinking public that finally reads the label. National Tequila Day 2026 is the first one in years where trading up to honest, traditionally made tequila is both easy and affordable. July 24 is a good excuse to do it.