Big Brother Finale: When It Airs and How Finale Night Works

The Big Brother finale is the last live show of the season. The final Head of Household is decided, the last houseguest is evicted, and the jury votes to hand one of the final two $750,000. The Big Brother 28 finale airs Thursday, October 1, 2026.

• Big Brother 28 finale: Thursday, October 1, 2026, 8:00 to 9:30 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.
• Length: 90 minutes, live.
• Final three: Devens, Drew and Taylor.
• The jury: Lala, Angela, Barrett, Yash, Melody and Dee, plus whoever leaves on finale night. Seven votes, four to win.
• The money: $750,000 to the winner, $75,000 to the runner-up, $50,000 to America’s Favorite Houseguest.
• Most common finale night: Wednesday, fourteen times in twenty-seven seasons.

When Is the Big Brother Finale?

For most of the show’s history the finale has landed in the second half of September. The exceptions are the winter season, Big Brother 9, which ended in April 2008, and the recent run of late finishes: Big Brother 22 ended on October 28, 2020, Big Brother 25 on November 9, 2023, and Big Brother 26 on October 13, 2024.

Wednesday has been finale night more than any other, fourteen times in twenty-seven seasons, including twelve in a row from Big Brother 12 through Big Brother 23. Since then it has moved around. Big Brother 24, 26 and 27 ended on a Sunday, Big Brother 25 on a Thursday, and this year is a Thursday again.

What Time Is the Big Brother Finale?

8:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific on Thursday, October 1. CBS has the full 90 minutes, so the show ends at 9:30 p.m.

Where to watch the Big Brother finale

Live on CBS. You can also stream it live on Paramount+ with the Premium plan. Either Paramount+ plan has it the next day.

How Long Is the Big Brother Finale?

This year’s finale is 90 minutes. That is shorter than the last four, Big Brother 24 through 27, which each ran two hours. In the early seasons the finale was a one-hour show.

Ninety minutes has to hold the last part of the Final Head of Household, a live eviction, the jury’s questions, two closing speeches, the vote and America’s Favorite. There is not much room for anything else.

What Happens on Big Brother Finale Night?

The running order has been roughly the same since Big Brother 11. The placement of the jury roundtable and the reunion segments moves from year to year, but the core runs like this:

1. The recap. Parts 1 and 2 of the Final Head of Household are played earlier in the week. The finale shows what happened.
2. Part 3, live. The winners of Part 1 and Part 2 play the last round on the live show. It is usually a quiz about the jury: Julie reads a statement each juror made, and the two finalists guess how it ended.
3. The final eviction. The winner of Part 3 becomes the final Head of Household and evicts one of the other two, live. In practice they are choosing who to sit next to.
4. The last juror. The evicted houseguest talks to Julie and joins the jury.
5. The roundtable. A taped segment of the jurors arguing over the finalists before they vote.
6. Jury questions. Each juror gets a question for the final two.
7. Closing speeches. Each finalist makes a last case for the money.
8. The vote. Each juror says a few words to the finalists and puts a key in the box.
9. The reveal. Julie reads the keys one at a time until someone has a majority. The winner and runner-up come out to the confetti.
10. America’s Favorite. The viewer-voted prize is announced at the end.

How Does the Big Brother Jury Vote?

The jury is made up of the houseguests evicted late in the season. They have spent the end of the summer sequestered, away from the show, and they are voting for the person they want to win, not the person they want out. It is the only vote in Big Brother that works that way round.

Each juror’s vote is a key with a finalist’s name on it. The keys go into a box on stage, and Julie pulls them one at a time. The first finalist to a majority wins. With seven jurors this year, that is four keys.

The order of the reveal is part of the show. In Big Brother 20, Tyler went 4–1 up during the reading and Kaycee decided she had lost. She won 5–4. The four keys that settled it were still in the box.

The jury roundtable

Before the vote, the jurors sit down together and argue it out on camera. The moderated version started in Big Brother 15, with Dr. Will in the chair. Taylor ran it in Big Brother 26 and Cody in Big Brother 27. It is taped before the finale and cut into the broadcast.

How the Big Brother Finale Has Changed

Big Brother 1: America picked the winner

The first season had no jury. Viewers voted among the final three, and Eddie won with 59% to Josh’s 27% and Curtis’s 14%. The money was split three ways: $500,000, $100,000 and $50,000. It is still the only season the public has decided.

Big Brother 2: the first jury, and the void

Big Brother 2 brought in the jury, and with it a twist the show never used again. Before the count, each finalist could cancel one juror’s ballot. Nicole cancelled Shannon’s, a vote for Will. Will cancelled Bunky’s, a vote for Nicole. What would have been 6–3 went into the record as Will 5–2.

Big Brother 3: the jury that watched

In Big Brother 3, evicted houseguests were not cut off from the show. They could watch the episodes, including Danielle’s Diary Room sessions, before they voted.

All ten came back to the studio for the finale and sat in a circle to talk it out, which is the jury roundtable before it had a name. It turned into a clearing of accounts. Marcellas got up and changed seats so he would not have to sit next to Jason. Josh argued that knocking Danielle for how she got to the end was not understanding the game. Amy said Liberace could never play the piano as well as Danielle played all of them.

Lisa won 9–1. From Big Brother 4 on, the jury was sequestered without the broadcast, and it has been ever since.

Big Brother 8 and 10: questions by video, days early

For a stretch in the late 2000s the final two was settled days before the finale, and the jury questioned them early. In Big Brother 10, the session was taped on Friday, September 12, 2008, Day 67, four days before the finale. Dan and Memphis answered from inside the house on a video link to the jury, and each gave his closing speech there. Big Brother 8 worked the same way, with the questioning a few days before the September 18 finale.

On finale night the Big Brother 10 jurors walked into the studio one at a time, said a line each to the finalists and put their keys in the box. Ollie came out in a somersault. Julie stopped reading once Dan had four keys and showed the last three after the break. All seven were for Dan, the first unanimous win in the show’s history.

Big Brother 11: the finale as it runs now

Big Brother 11 is where the modern finale starts. The final three went into the live show, the last round of the Final Head of Household was settled on the night, and the final eviction happened in front of the audience. Jordan won it, evicted Kevin and sat next to Natalie.

It also had the strangest jury. Chima had been expelled mid-season, which left the jury one short, so CBS gave the seventh ballot to America. America voted for Jordan, and she won 5–2.

Big Brother 22 and 23: no audience

The two pandemic finales, in 2020 and 2021, ran without a studio audience.

Big Brother 23: $750,000

The prize went up for the first time in Big Brother 23, from $500,000 to $750,000. The runner-up prize and America’s Favorite went up with it.

How Much Does the Big Brother Winner Get?

America’s Favorite started in Big Brother 7 as a prize only jurors could win, and it stayed that way in Big Brother 9 and 10. Big Brother 8 did not have one. From Big Brother 11 anyone who had been in the house was eligible.

The biggest prize the show never paid was in Big Brother 6. If both halves of one of the season’s secret pairs had made the final two, the winner would have taken $1,000,000 and the runner-up $250,000. Maggie and Ivette were not a pair, and Maggie took the standard $500,000. Every winner, runner-up and final vote is on the Big Brother winners page.

Big Brother Finale Moments

Four shutouts

Four finales have ended unanimous: Dan in Big Brother 10 (7–0), Cody in Big Brother 22 (9–0), Xavier in Big Brother 23 (9–0) and Chelsie in Big Brother 26 (7–0).

Seven decided by one vote

Big Brother 5, 6, 12, 13, 18, 19 and 20 were all won by a single vote. Two of those belong to the same runner-up. Paul lost Big Brother 18 to Nicole 5–4, came back the next summer and lost Big Brother 19 to Josh 5–4.

Two proposals

Boogie proposed to Krista on the Big Brother 2 finale, and she said yes. Seventeen years later Swaggy proposed to Bayleigh on the Big Brother 20 finale stage, and she said yes too.

The winner who took both

In Big Brother 24, Taylor won the game and America’s Favorite on the same night. Nobody else has done it.

Every Big Brother Finale

Every US finale since 2000, with the night it aired and the result.