The ACM SIGCOMM 2026 conference seeks papers describing significant research contributions or significant deployment experiences in communication networks and networked systems. SIGCOMM takes a broad view of networking which includes (but is not limited to):

All types of computer networks, including mobile, wide-area, data center, embedded, home, and enterprise networks.
All types of wired and wireless technologies, including optics, radio, acoustic, and visible light-based communication.
All aspects of networks and networked systems, such as network architecture, packet-switched and circuit-switched hardware and software, virtualization, mobility, resource management, performance, energy consumption and environmental impact, topology, robustness, security, diagnosis, verification, privacy, economics, evolution, and interactions with applications.
All parts of the network life cycle, including planning, designing, building, operating, troubleshooting, migrations, and end-of-life.
All approaches and techniques applied to networking, including theory, analysis, experimentation, and AI/machine learning.

SIGCOMM 2026 will accept submissions in two tracks: research and experience.

Research track submissions should significantly advance the state of the art in networking by, for instance, proposing and developing novel ideas or by rigorously evaluating or re-evaluating existing ideas.

Experience track submissions will present key insights found in the course of executing deployments of networking techniques, especially in settings that most in the community cannot duplicate (for instance, for reasons of scale). Please note there are significant changes to the experience track which are described below in the "new this year" section.

Survey and tutorial papers are out of scope.

All submissions must be anonymous, i.e., not reveal author names. Experience submissions, however, may reveal the name of the deploying organization or the deployed system. All authors must be listed in HotCRP before the submission deadline so that reviewer conflicts are handled properly.

At paper registration time, authors must explicitly choose in the submission form whether their paper is to be considered for the research or experience track. Each submission will only be considered for the one track identified at submission time.