International Obfuscated C Code Contest

The winning code for the 28th contest, held in 2025/26, was announced by live stream 6 June 2026. Entries are evaluated anonymously by the current sitting judges, Leonid A. Broukhis & Landon Curt Noll. The judging process is documented in the competition FAQ and consists of elimination rounds. By tradition, no information is given about the total number of entries for each competition. Winning entries are awarded with a category, such as "Worst Abuse of the C preprocessor" or "Most Erratic Behavior", and then announced on the official IOCCC website. The contest states that being announced on the IOCCC website is the reward for winning (plus bragging rights). Previous contests were held in the years 1984–1996, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2004–2006, 2011–2015, 2018–2020, and 2024-2025. The IOCCC was started by Landon Curt Noll and Larry Bassel in 1984 while employed at National Semiconductor's Genix porting group.