The only on-the-air con­test spon­sored by the IARU at the glob­al lev­el is the IARU HF World Cham­pi­onship (see sub-menu).

IARU Region 1 spon­sors VHF and Field Day contests.

On the gen­er­al sub­ject of con­tests, it is IARU pol­i­cy that con­tests not be per­mit­ted in cer­tain bands. IARU Admin­is­tra­tive Coun­cil Res­o­lu­tion 17 – 1 (an update to a pre­vi­ous res­o­lu­tion) reads as follows:

RESOLUTION 17 – 1

Con­cern­ing the use of sec­ondary and nar­row allo­ca­tions below 25 MHz

The IARU Admin­is­tra­tive Coun­cil, Land­shut, 2017,

rec­og­niz­ing that the ama­teur ser­vice allo­ca­tions at 135.7−137.8 kHz, 472 – 479 kHz, 5,351.5 – 5,366.5 kHz, and 10.1−10.15 MHz are on a sec­ondary basis with oth­er ser­vices hav­ing pri­or­i­ty, and

fur­ther rec­og­niz­ing that the allo­ca­tions at 18.068−18.168 MHz and 24.890−24.990 MHz are also rel­a­tive­ly nar­row, and

acknowl­edg­ing that these bands there­fore are unable to sup­port com­pet­i­tive activ­i­ties with­out exces­sive dis­rup­tion to oth­er legit­i­mate pursuits,

express­es appre­ci­a­tion to the spon­sors of con­tests who uni­ver­sal­ly avoid uti­liz­ing these bands,

resolves that it is IARU pol­i­cy that con­tests not be per­mit­ted in these bands, and

strong­ly encour­ages all radio ama­teurs to observe the respec­tive region­al band plans for these and all oth­er ama­teur allocations.