Steam Autumn Sale dates: the window moved to early October

The Autumn Sale — the fall sale, if you are American — is the odd one out on Steam's calendar, and it is also the one that recently changed. For years it ran in the week of US Thanksgiving, overlapping Black Friday. It does not any more. If you are waiting for a Steam sale in late November, you are waiting for something that has already happened.

Valve moved the Autumn Sale roughly two months earlier in 2025 and has kept it there. It now runs in early October, for about a week. Unlike the console stores, Valve does publish its seasonal dates ahead of time through the events calendar it gives developers, so these are announced dates rather than estimates — they are listed in the table further down, alongside the dates each recent edition actually ran.

What the Autumn Sale actually is

A sitewide event, like Summer and Winter — effectively the whole catalog discounts at once. The difference is entirely about duration and its position in the calendar.

• Length: about a week. That is roughly half the Summer Sale and well under half the Winter Sale, which is why the deadline on this one genuinely matters.
• Depth: deep, and often identical to what the same game gets in December. "Shorter" does not mean "shallower".
• Time of day: the usual 10am Pacific start and finish. With a five-day event that cut-off is genuinely easy to miss.
• Price stability: fixed for the duration. No flash deals, no daily rotation, nothing to wait for.

Autumn Sale or Winter Sale? The honest answer

This is the only real question this page needs to settle, because the two events are under a month apart and buying twice is how you end up owning the same game on two accounts.

Buy in the Autumn Sale if the cut is deep

If a game you want is at or near its historical low in the October window, buy it. The Winter Sale is broader, but on any specific game the December price is frequently the same number. The move to October made this decision harder, not easier: you are now committing about ten weeks ahead of Winter rather than four, and the autumn window is short enough that "I'll decide tomorrow" often means missing it.

Wait for December if the cut is token

If something is only lightly discounted — 20% off a recent release, say — the Winter Sale is the better bet. It is longer, wider, and more likely to hit a true floor, particularly for games released earlier that year that have not yet been through many discount cycles.

Check the floor price either way

The percentage on the banner is measured against the list price, not against what the game normally sells for. A game that is permanently 50% off is not on sale at 50% off. Two minutes with a price-history tool settles it — our price-tracking guide covers the how, and how to spot a fake game discount covers the ways that number gets dressed up.

What the move means for Black Friday week

Thanksgiving week is still the single busiest discount window of the year across the industry — the eShop runs Cyber Deals, the rare moment a Nintendo first-party game moves at all, and PlayStation and Xbox both run Black Friday promotions alongside every physical retailer. What changed is that Steam is no longer part of it. On PC, the pre-holiday discount now lands in early October, and there is nothing between it and the Winter Sale in mid-December.

That is genuinely useful if you buy across platforms, because the two windows no longer compete for the same budget. Spend on PC in October, then keep your powder dry for the console and physical deals in late November — where, for discs and cartridges, the prices still beat December outright. Our Black Friday game deals guide covers that side, eShop sale dates covers Cyber Deals, and the game sale calendar lines all four stores up together.

The dated Autumn Sale calendar

These are announced dates from Valve's published events calendar, not estimates. The history below is what makes the move visible: two editions in a row now sit in the first days of October rather than the last week of November.

Dates checked: 2026-09-03. Announced dates come from the stores' own announcements and are listed as they were published. Expected windows are derived from the dates in the history table above and are clearly marked as expectations — we never print an invented date and imply a store announced it.

How to prepare for a one-week sale

A short sale rewards preparation far more than a long one does. A week sounds like plenty of time until you spend five days of it deciding, and the price on the last morning is the same as the price on the first.

• Build the wishlist in September. Sort it by discount on the first morning and you are done in minutes.
• Know your floor prices in advance. During the sale you want to be confirming a decision, not researching one.
• Remember the next Steam sale is ten weeks away. Since the move to October there is nothing between this and the Winter Sale, so "I'll catch it in the next one" means December, not a few weeks.
• Note when it ends. A one-week window plus a 10am Pacific cut-off is how people miss it. If you know you want something, buy it on day one — the price will not improve.