Iron Viz

The Iron Viz 2026 Qualifiers are now closed.

Thank you to everyone who submitted a viz. All submissions are currently under review. The 2026 Iron Viz finalists will be announced soon!

Ready to serve up your best work?

From local flavors to global trends, tell the story of Food & Drink through data for this year’s Qualifier theme. Connect with the DataFam, showcase your skills, build your portfolio, and earn cash prizes. Scroll down for how to enter, helpful resources, and official rules.

Fame, glory, and prizes

Every qualifying participant earns a LinkedIn Badge and a spot in the Iron Viz Gallery—plus, feedback and scores are available on request.

The top 10 finishers snag a $200 Tableau Store gift card to deck out your data swag. The top 3 finalists move on to the Iron Viz Championship, where the stakes are sky-high:

  • 1st place: $15,000 cash prize; $10,000 to a nonprofit of choice; and the Iron Viz Champion trophy
  • 2nd place: $6,000 cash prize; and $4,000 to a nonprofit of choice
  • 3rd place: $6,000 cash prize; and $4,000 to a nonprofit of choice

And the prestige of competing on the global Iron Viz stage? Priceless.

Find your 'why.' It’s not just about winning or comparing your viz to others. Build something you love, challenge your skills, and try something new. There are countless reasons to enter—and the community has your back. You won’t regret it.

CJ Mayes
Tableau Visionary and Iron Viz Finalist, London, UK

Data Viz Inspiration

See what others have cooked up in previous Qualifiers.

Browse the Iron Viz Gallery

Judging Criteria

Design

  • Visual elements add to the overall understanding of the visualization rather than distract
  • Interactivity and layout are user-friendly, instructed/specified, and purposeful
  • Charts are clearly presenting the data
  • Charts contain a title, summary, and/or caption
  • All charts contribute to the story
  • Accessibility is applied - colorblind/low vision (contrast) friendly palette, limited use of images to convey text, font size 12pt or larger

Analysis

  • Viz topic aligns with contest theme
  • Dataset and calculations appear to be accurate and clean
  • Analysis illustrates profound insights grasped from visualizations
  • Analysis supports the story being told
  • Analysis has been mostly produced within Tableau
  • Analysis highlights a broad range of Tableau capabilities

Storytelling

  • A clear story is being told
  • Story flows through visualizations and guides consumers from question to insight
  • Visualizations and animations support the story being told
  • The story includes a unique idea or perspective
  • The story being told has complexity/nuance that elevates the visualizations.
  • Storytelling captures and maintains interest throughout the entire viz

Qualifier Contest FAQ

Iron Viz is the world’s largest data visualization competition. Three worthy contestants take center stage in front of a global audience and have 20 minutes to deliver a compelling and awe-inspiring story using the same data set.

The 2026 Iron Viz Qualifiers theme is Food & Drink. The submission deadline is November 21, 2025.

For questions on whether your data set meets the theme criteria, please reach out to ironviz@tableau.com with subject line 'Theme Question.'

Yes! Please fill out this form to request feedback on your viz.

Please refer to the official rules for the qualifier contest: Iron Viz Qualifier Official Rules

One entry per person. If you need to make changes to your viz after submitting, please make those changes prior to the submission deadline.

This qualifier contest allows for any data. Please ensure the data set(s) you choose are related to the theme.

Please be considerate of others, and do not use a data set that might be found overly offensive. We would also like you to consider image rights when including visuals in your visualization. For specific eligibility questions, please reach out to ironviz@tableau.com.

If possible, provide a link to your source(s) in the footnote or description of your viz and allow 'Download' for the viz you submit. This allows others to learn from your work, just as you can learn from others. Making vizzes downloadable can be done by signing in to Tableau Public, click on the viz you created, and checking the box "Allow workbook and its data to be downloaded by others", then click save.

You may contact Tableau Public at public@tableau.com, please include Viz Contest in the subject line. Note that submissions can only be made via the submission form.

A panel of judges comprised of Tableau ambassadors, previous Iron Viz finalists, data viz experts, and guest judges will evaluate all submissions based on the following criteria:

  • Design
  • Storytelling
  • Analysis

Analysis will be the tiebreaker in case two vizzes have the same overall score. Should the Analysis score also be tied, the panel of judges will make a final decision.

We strive to open Iron Viz up to everyone in the world. Unfortunately, due to limitations we must limit Iron Viz to those countries that are listed for this year. We continuously assess our eligible countries to be as inclusive as possible, and we hope to add more countries for 2027 and beyond.