David Guetta is the world’s No. 1 DJ again. DJ Mag crowned him at UNVRS in Ibiza on 6 October 2026, his sixth win and a record nobody else holds.

The DJ Mag Top 100 DJs 2026 poll is a public vote, not a critics’ list and not a booking chart. Fans pick five names. DJ Mag turns those picks into points, strips out bad ballots, and ranks whoever is left. That is the whole system. The arguments around it have not changed in twenty years.

DJ Mag Top 100 DJs 2026: the result

Voting ran from 12:00 GMT on 8 July 2026 to 23:59 GMT on 16 September 2026. DJ Mag says a record number of verified votes came in from 234 territories. The heaviest European ballots came from the UK, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal. The USA and China were also among the biggest voting countries. Chinese voters used a separate app at djmagvote.cn. Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia led the rest of Asia. South Africa, Algeria and Morocco led Africa. Colombia, Peru, Chile, Brazil and Argentina carried most of the South American vote.

The top 10 of the DJ Mag Top 100 2026 ranking:

| 1 | David Guetta | same |
| 2 | Martin Garrix | same |
| 3 | Anyma | up 7 |
| 4 | Alok | down 1 |
| 5 | Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike | down 1 |
| 6 | Charlotte de Witte | up 3 |
| 7 | Armin van Buuren | down 2 |
| 8 | Timmy Trumpet | down 2 |
| 9 | FISHER | down 2 |
| 10 | Vintage Culture | up 1 |

Guetta first won in 2011, then again in 2020, 2021, 2023, 2025 and 2026. Martin Garrix and Armin van Buuren have five wins each. Guetta is now alone on six. On stage he called it “pretty serious” and said he was honoured. Afrojack, No. 8 last year, dropped to 15.

Category titles handed out with the poll: Charlotte de Witte, World’s No. 1 Techno DJ for a seventh year in a row. Armin van Buuren, World’s No. 1 Trance DJ. FISHER, World’s No. 1 House DJ. Sara Landry, World’s No. 1 Hard DJ. Indira Paganotto, first winner of a new World’s No. 1 Psy DJ award, up 10 to No. 26. Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, World’s No. 1 DJ Group, even with Like Mike off the road for part of the summer for health reasons. Anastazja took Future Star. Luciano took Outstanding Contribution.

How the DJ Mag Top 100 vote actually works

There is no shortlist. There is no panel. A voter registers with a real email address. In mainland China the check is by SMS. Anti-bot software has to accept the address before a one-time link goes out. One person, one ballot. Repeat attempts get blocked, and enough of them can trigger a look at the names on those ballots.

Each ballot holds up to five DJs, in order:

- First choice: 5 points
- Second: 4
- Third: 3
- Fourth: 2
- Fifth: 1

If the same name is typed twice, only the higher slot counts. Doing it on purpose flags the artist for a check. After the window closes, DJ Mag runs every ballot through a verification process it will not describe in public. The magazine says the filter was built from three decades of cheating attempts, and publishing the method would only help the next round of cheats. Artists with a pile of inorganic votes get a manual review. That review can end in disqualification, and DJ Mag reserves the right to name the people it catches.

The ranking is the points total after that clean-up. DJ Mag does not publish raw vote counts, and the terms say it does not have to. The published order is final.

Artists are allowed to ask for votes. They are not allowed to buy them. The voting kit bans incentives: free drinks, tickets, competition entry, exclusive tracks, merch, discounts. Street teams are banned in schools, shopping centres, sports grounds and anywhere else that is not the artist’s own show. Teams inside a show, talking only to that artist’s crowd, are allowed if the activity was registered in advance. Skipping the registration can wipe the votes. Agencies that sell a guaranteed vote total or a guaranteed place are banned outright. DJ Mag says those operations use methods the filter already knows.

Who is allowed on the list

The poll is open, which is not the same as having no rules.

To stay on the published DJ Mag Top 100 DJs list an artist has to be active and working in dance music. People outside dance music, artists who have died, artists in prison, artists on a long break, and artists who have retired are taken off. Joke entries and social-media spoofs are removed. A duo or group counts as one entry. That is why Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Swedish House Mafia, Keinemusik and W&W sit on the same table as solo DJs.

There is no minimum stream count, no festival-headline requirement, and no rule that you had to be on last year’s list. Josh Baker landed at 40 on his first appearance, the highest new entry. Thirteen new names and three re-entries made the 2026 list, among them Mahmut Orhan at 42, Illenium back at 30, Padre Guilherme, Sonny Fodera, Cloonee, Joseph Capriati, Shimza, Prospa, ¥ØU$UK€ ¥UK1MAT$U and KI/KI at 100.

Just outside, DJ Mag also published a Next 50. Sammy Virji is first of those, which puts him at 101. Chris Lake, I Hate Models, Meduza, REZZ, Chase & Status, Adam Beyer, Fatboy Slim and Patrick Topping are in that band too. Missing the 100 does not mean the votes were not real. It means other names scored more points.

How the 2026 ranking moved

House and techno took ground from the big-room and EDM names that owned the top half for most of the 2010s. DJ Mag called it another shift in what the global vote actually listens to.

The joint highest climbers, each up 22 places: John Summit to 24, Mau P to 55, and CHRIS STASSY (the name Stussy now performs under) to 59. Fred again.. jumped 17 to 16. GORDO rose 18 to 50. The Martinez Brothers climbed 15 to 28. Korolova, Miss Monique and Solomun each gained 14. Michael Bibi gained 11, to 37. Skrillex moved up 6 to 25. Calvin Harris gained 5 and sits at 11, a year after a São Paulo carnival show DJ Mag and others have tied to a Guinness record for a solo DJ set.

The drops were just as sharp. Vini Vici fell 39 places to 71. Quintino fell 29. Above & Beyond fell 26, to 87. Eric Prydz fell 25, to 62. DJ Snake fell 20. The Chainsmokers fell 19. Hardwell slid from 15 to 29. Oliver Heldens, Claptone, R3HAB and Bassjackers all lost ground in double digits.

German interest sat with Keinemusik at 31, the highest German placing, Lilly Palmer up 8, and a scatter of techno and melodic names through the lower half. Alok held 4. Vintage Culture entered the top 10. Black Coffee rose to 14. Peggy Gou is 13.

The reveal itself was the second year in a row at UNVRS, which had just been voted World’s No. 1 Club in its first year open. Sarah Story hosted. Sets on the night came from Lost Frequencies, Charlotte de Witte, Anyma, GORDO b2b Vintage Culture, Anastazja and Korolova, then a two-hour headline from Guetta after the crown.

The poll again raised money for Bridges for Music, which runs a music academy in Langa, South Africa. Every artist on the list was asked to sponsor at least one student. Last year’s campaign brought in £170,832 from 42 artists, the biggest single haul the charity had seen. By the 2026 announcement, reporting put the new total near £120,000, with Guetta among the early donors.

The full DJ Mag Top 100 DJs 2026 list

Positions below come from the published countdown and secondary rundowns of the official list. Moves are against 2025.

1. David Guetta
2. Martin Garrix
3. Anyma (+7)
4. Alok (−1)
5. Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike (−1)
6. Charlotte de Witte (+3)
7. Armin van Buuren (−2)
8. Timmy Trumpet (−2)
9. FISHER (−2)
10. Vintage Culture (+1)
11. Calvin Harris (+5)
12. Don Diablo (+1)
13. Peggy Gou (−1)
14. Black Coffee (+3)
15. Afrojack (−7)
16. Fred again.. (+17)
17. Lost Frequencies (+2)
18. Steve Aoki (−4)
19. KSHMR (+4)
20. W&W (−2)
21. Reinier Zonneveld (+1)
22. Tiësto (−1)
23. Carl Cox (+2)
24. John Summit (+22)
25. Skrillex (+6)
26. Indira Paganotto (+10)
27. Nicky Romero (+2)
28. The Martinez Brothers (+15)
29. Hardwell (−14)
30. Illenium (re-entry)
31. Keinemusik (−11)
32. Alan Walker (−8)
33. Jamie Jones (−6)
34. Swedish House Mafia (same)
35. Paul van Dyk (+4)
36. Korolova (+14)
37. Michael Bibi (+11)
38. Dom Dolla (+3)
39. Oliver Heldens (−13)
40. Josh Baker (new)
41. Solomun (+14)
42. Mahmut Orhan (new)
43. Claptone (−13)
44. Joel Corry (−9)
45. R3HAB (−17)
46. Mochakk (+10)
47. Amelie Lens (−9)
48. HUGEL (+6)
49. Lilly Palmer (+8)
50. GORDO (+18)
51. James Hype (+1)
52. Maddix (+1)
53. Marshmello (−11)
54. Zedd (−10)
55. Mau P (+22)
56. Alesso (−5)
57. Boris Brejcha (−8)
58. Bassjackers (−13)
59. CHRIS STASSY (+22)
60. DJ Snake (−20)
61. Miss Monique (+14)
62. Eric Prydz (−25)
63. ATB (−4)
64. Sara Landry (−2)
65. Kölsch (same)
66. Ben Nicky (new)
67. Sub Zero Project (−3)
68. Joseph Capriati (new)
69. Liu (+2)
70. ARTBAT (+3)
71. Vini Vici (−39)
72. Wade (new)
73. Nora En Pure (−15)
74. B Jones (+14)
75. Shimza (new)
76. Quintino (−29)
77. Lucas & Steve (−11)
78. Giuseppe Ottaviani (+11)
79. Padre Guilherme (new)
80. Sonny Fodera (new)
81. Deborah De Luca (−21)
82. Nico Moreno (−15)
83. Ferry Corsten (+2)
84. Cloonee (new)
85. Mosimann (re-entry)
86. PAWSA (−17)
87. Above & Beyond (−26)
88. Marnik (−8)
89. The Chainsmokers (−19)
90. Plastik Funk (−4)
91. deadmau5 (−9)
92. MATTN (re-entry)
93. Nils van Zandt (+5)
94. Prospa (new)
95. ¥ØU$UK€ ¥UK1MAT$U (new)
96. Cuebrick (−6)
97. Marlon Hoffstadt (+3)
98. Honey Dijon (−1)
99. DubVision (−12)
100. KI/KI (new)

Rumours, campaigns, and what people actually think

Before the show, the open question was whether Guetta would make it six or whether Garrix, Anyma or Alok could take it. The lineup at UNVRS listed the headliner only as “The World’s No. 1 DJ”, which is the same trick the poll has used before. Anyone treating that as a leak was guessing. The number was not read out until the night.

The standing complaint is older than this result. The DJ Mag Top 100 is a popularity poll among people willing to register and vote, heavily shaped by who asks. A DJ with a huge WhatsApp list, a festival crowd, and a manager who treats July to September as campaign season will beat a DJ who sells out rooms and never mentions the poll. Bookers in some markets still print the number on posters. Plenty of other bookers ignore it and look at ticket data.

The dirtier history is documented. In 2007 the Chinese DJ Tiesmi said he paid £260 for 100,000 votes and hired someone to get around the checks. In 2014, reports had people working for Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike walking Tomorrowland with iPads pointed at a page where the duo were already filled in. Old sales emails, published years ago by VICE, showed DJ Mag offering voting-page ads in the tens of thousands of dollars, on the argument that the ads would be in front of people while they voted. Gareth Emery has said he was pitched by a company that framed payment as the price of staying competitive. DJ Mag’s current terms ban paid vote packages and say inorganic ballots get cut. Catching every agency is a different claim, and the magazine has never pretended the poll is a pure measure of who played the best sets.

This year’s public reaction split the usual way. Guetta fans treated the sixth win as overdue recognition for a career that still fills arenas past the four-decade mark. Techno accounts pointed at Charlotte de Witte at 6 and Indira Paganotto’s new category as proof the poll is no longer only an EDM fan vote. House accounts did the same with John Summit, Fred again.., Josh Baker and FISHER. The other half of the timeline called it a marketing contest, asked why certain club DJs were missing, and moved on. That argument will be back in July 2027, when the next ballot opens.

Nothing in the 2026 result says Guetta is the best DJ alive. It says more verified voters put him first, or high enough in their five, than anyone else, after DJ Mag threw out the ballots it did not trust. For a poll that started in 1993 as a staff-written list for the magazine’s 100th issue, and later became the biggest public vote in dance music, that is the only claim the number can carry.