How to watch the 2022 Tour de France | Live streams, broadcasters, plus stage start and end times

By Paul Norman

Published: Friday, 01 July 2022 at 12:00 am

With 21 stages over three weeks, there’s a lot to watch if you want to follow the 2022 Tour de France.

There are options to watch the entire race end-to-end if you’ve got five-plus hours to spend each day or, for the more time-pressed, plenty of highlight options to compress the day’s action down into an hour or so.

If you’re really stuck for time, there are the daily five-minute highlights on the Le Tour website.

From the Grand Départ in Copenhagen right through to the final sprint on the Champs-Élysées three and a bit weeks later, you can expect wall-to-wall coverage with at least some subscription-free in most territories.

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Don’t miss a départ.
Zac Williams/SWPix.com

There’s also the option to use a VPN to stream from a country with free terrestrial coverage, although most VPNs with decent geographic coverage and streaming speeds will require a subscription.

How can I watch the Tour de France live in the UK?

In the UK, ITV4, Eurosport, discovery+ and GCN+ are broadcasting live. ITV4 is free to air (as is S4C for Welsh speakers), while the other options require a subscription. GCN+ is ad-free and available both live and on-demand.

All of the above offer evening highlights and analysis of the day’s action too.

How can I watch the Tour de France live in the US?

Viewers in the US can enjoy daily coverage on NBC, NBCSN and Peacock. You can watch on NBC on demand too – there’s no additional charge above your cable, satellite or telco TV provider’s subscription cost.

Peacock access requires a subscription to its premium tier, priced at $4.99 plus tax a month. You can escape the ads by paying $9.99 a month for Premium Plus.

How can I watch the Tour de France live in Australia?

With plenty of Aussie interest – not least Ben O’Connor’s impressive current form – cycling fans in Australia can enjoy every stage live on SBS. Handily, there’s a free on-demand service if you’re not an insomniac, while there are daily highlights on the SBS Sport website.

Stages and start times

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Keep an eye on the times below to ensure you don’t miss an arrivée either.
Tim de Waele/Getty Images

Like the race itself, stage start times are a moveable feast, with starts as early as 12:15 CET and as late as 16:30 CET. End times will vary significantly too, depending on stage length, how hard the terrain is and how fast it’s ridden.

Fortunately, the Tour de France has organised a few of these races before, so it’s got a pretty good idea of when the first riders are likely to reach the finish. Again, that’s highly variable – anything from 16:40 CET out to 19:43 CET, so you need to be on your toes to make sure you’re watching early enough not to miss the end-stage action.

Here’s a table, taken from the Le Tour website, of expected start and best (and worst) case end times. If you want to see particular action – such as the first of the 11 cobbled secteurs on Stage Five – the time that the race is expected to reach intermediate points is set out on the site too, right down to railway level crossings and tiny villages in la France profonde.

DateStageScheduled start timeEarliest end timeLatest end time
1 July 2022116:0019:1019:10
2 July 2022212:1516:5917:24
3 July 2022313:0517:1217:35
4 July 2022Transfer
5 July 2022413:1517:1417:35
6 July 2022513:3517:2017:39
7 July 2022612:0517:1517:45
8 July 2022713:0517:1717:43
9 July 2022813:0517:2817:53
10 July 2022912:3017:2818:02
11 July 2022Rest day
12 July 20221013:3016:5717:17
13 July 20221112:1516:4017:13
14 July 20221213:0517:5518:29
15 July 20221313:0517:2617:49
16 July 20221412:1517:0517:34
17 July 20221513:0517:3918:04
18 July 2022Rest day
19 July 20221612:3016:5817:27
20 July 20221713:1516:5017:14
21 July 20221813:3017:2517:54
22 July 20221913:0517:1617:39
23 July 20222013:0517:4917:49
24 July 20222116:3019:2619:43
All times Central European Time