The World Correspondence Chess Championship determines the World Champion in correspondence chess. Men and women of any age are eligible to contest the title. The official World Correspondence Chess Championship is managed by the International Correspondence Chess Federation (ICCF).

The world championship comprises four stages: Preliminaries, Semi-Finals, Candidates' Tournament, and Final. ICCF tournament rules define which players can access each stage. The first-, second- and third-placed finishers from the previous Final, and the first- and second-placed finishers from the Candidates' Tournaments have access to the World Correspondence Chess Championship Final.

The ICCF also manages the Ladies World Correspondence Chess Championships, that comprises Semi-Finals and Final.

World Champions Dates given are the period in which the final of the championship took place, as given on the ICCF website.

N° Years Champion Runner-up 01. 1950–1953 Cecil Purdy Harald Malmgren 02. 1956–1959 Viacheslav Ragozin Lucius Endzelins 03. 1959–1962 Albéric O'Kelly de Galway Piotr Dubinin 04. 1962–1965 Vladimir Zagorovsky Georgy Borisenko 05. 1965–1968 Hans Berliner Jaroslav Hybl 06. 1968–1971 Horst Rittner Vladimir Zagorovsky 07. 1972–1976 Yakov Estrin Jozef Boey 08. 1975–1980 Jørn Sloth Vladimir Zagorovsky 09. 1977–1983 Tõnu Õim Fritz Baumbach 10. 1978–1984 Victor Palciauskas Juan Morgado 11. 1983–1989 Fritz Baumbach Gennadi Nesis 12. 1984–1991 Grigory Sanakoev Josef Franzen 13. 1989–1998 Mikhail Umansky Eric Bang 14. 1994–2000 Tõnu Õim Ove Ekebjaerg 15. 1996–2002 Gert Jan Timmerman Joop van Oosterom 16. 1999–2004 Tunç Hamarat Rudolf Maliangkay 17. 2002–2007 Ivar Bern Wolfgang Rohde 18. 2003–2005 Joop van Oosterom Hans Elwert 19. 2004–2007 Christophe Léotard Frank Gerhardt 20. 2004–2011 Pertti Lehikoinen Stefan Winge 21. 2005–2008 Joop van Oosterom Alexander Ugge 22. 2007–2010 Aleksandr Dronov Jürgen Bücker 23. 2007–2010 Ulrich Stephan Thomas Winckelmann 24. 2009–2011 Marjan Šemrl Hans-Dieter Wunderlich 25. 2009–2013 Fabio Finocchiaro Richard Hall 26. 2010–2014 Ron Langeveld Florin Serban 27. 2011–2014 Aleksandr Dronov Matthias Kribben 28. 2013–2016 Leonardo Ljubičić Horacio Neto 29. 2015–2018 Aleksandr Dronov Jacek Oskulski 30. 2017–2019 Andrey Kochemasov Enver Efendiyev Detlef Buse Fred Kunzelmann 31. 2019–2022 Ron Langeveld Christian Muck Fabian Stanach N/A 32. 2020–2022 Jon Edwards Michel Lecroq Sergey Adolfovich Osipov Horácio Neto 33. 2022–2025 Javier Ros Padilla Angel Acevedo Villalba Tansel Turgut Olaf Hesse Valery Aleksandrov Pavel Sváček Ivan Panitevsky Mikhail Churkin Tiziano Mosconi Daniel M. Fleetwood N/A

Ladies World Champions

N° Years Champion Runner-up 01. 1968–1972 Olga Rubtsova Gertrude Schoisswohl 02. 1972–1977 Lora Jakovleva Olga Rubtsova 03. 1978–1984 Ljuba Kristol Merike Rotova 04. 1984–1992 Liudmila Belavenets Nina Orlova 05. 1993–1998 Ljuba Kristol Ingrida Priedite 06. 2000–2005 Alessandra Riegler Maja Zelcic 07. 2002–2006 Olga Sukhareva Mary Jones 08. 2007–2010 Olga Sukhareva Marie Bazantová 09. 2011–2014 Irina Perevertkina Maria Lisitcina 10. 2014–2017 Irina Perevertkina Tetiana Moyseenko 11. 2017–2020 Irina Perevertkina Vilma Dambrauskaitè Tetiana Moyseenko 11. 2020–2023 Irina Perevertkina Dawn L. Williamson Tetiana Yurchuk Victoria Schweer Luz Marina Tinjacá Ramirez

ICCF World Cup Nr. Years Champion 01. 1973–1977 Karl Maeder 02. 1977–1983 Gennadi Nesis 03. 1981–1986 Nikolai Rabinovich 04. 1984–1989 Albert Popov 5A. 1987–1994 Alexandr Frolov 5B. 1987–1994 Gert Timmerman 06. 1994–1999 Olita Rause 07. 1994–2001 Alexei Lepikhov 08. 1998–2002 Horst Staudler 09. 1998–2001 Edgar Prang 10. 2001–2005 Frank Schroder 11. 2008–2011 Reinhardt Moll 12E 2005–2007 Reinhardt Moll 12P 2009–2013 Matthias Gleichmann 13. 2009–2012 Reinhardt Moll 14. 2009–2012 Reinhardt Moll 15. 2012–2015 Klemen Sivic 16. 2013–2016 Uwe Nogga 17. 2014–2017 Matthias Gleichmann 18. 2015–2019 Reinhard Moll Stefan Ulbig 19. 2014–2016 Thomas Herfurth 20. 2017–2020 Sergey Kishkin 21. 2019–2021 Matthias Gleichmann 22. 2021–2023 Matthias Gleichmann Dmitry Viktorovich Morozov

ICCF Chess 960 World Cup Nr. Years Champion 01. 2014–2015 Fabian Stanach 02. 2015–2016 Darko Babič 03. 2016–2018 Jean Banet 04. 2018–2019 Ivan Panitevsky 05. 2019–2021 Aleksey Voll 06. 2020–2022 Aleksey Voll 07. 2020–2021 Evgeny Tsygankov 08. 2021–2023 Paul Muljadi Tudor Ristea 09. 2022–2023 Viktor Aleksandrovich Pavlov Daniel A. Weber-Widmer Vladimir Dobroselskiy Igor Korovnik Antonio Sánchez Ródenas Aleksey Voll Dmitry Viktorovich Morozov Norbert Lukas 10. 2023–2024 Alberto Pérez López Hans-Christian Lykke

See also World Chess Championship

References