What Swimmers Need to Know About USMS’s National Qualifying Times

In the first 20 years or so of U.S. Masters Swimming’s existence, any swimmer wanting to compete at a pool national championship simply had to pay the entry fee and show up. There were no qualifying time standards for those meets and, initially, it worked great.

But as the organization grew, this full-access approach meant that meets began drawing astonishing numbers of participants. And by default, accommodating all those swimmers meant that some meets dragged on late into the evening. In some national championship meets, in fact, the final race wouldn’t start until after 11 p.m.

Enter national qualifying times, which would help manage crowd size and make for a faster, more streamlined meet that could be finished before bedtime.

Starting with the 1993 USMS Spring Nationals in Santa Clara, California, USMS instituted a system of NQT standards intended to ensure fair, competitive, and consistent entry standards for USMS’s pool national championships.

But it didn’t eliminate the inclusivity of meets; any member can swim up to three events at any national championship meet whether they can meet the established NQT for those events or not. (There are sometimes exceptions for the 1500 or 1650, which swimmers can only do if they meet the qualifying times for those events, because of how long those races can last.)

If you want to swim more than three events, however, up to a maximum of six, in a single national championship, you must be able to swim the NQT or faster in those additional events. 
NQTs are based on the honor system and you must have achieved the time within the past two years to be eligible to compete at nationals. The only way it works is if you’re honest about your times. Times can come from a variety of swim settings, including USMS, USA Swimming, and YMCA meets. You can even count a time swum in a practice meet, time trial, or in practice. Ask your coach or a teammate for help in setting this up.

And if you don’t have access to the type of pool you’ll be racing in, you can submit converted times. For example, if you’ll be competing in a long course meters meet but you only have access to a short course yards pool, you can take your SCY yards time and convert it to LCM. Swimming World and SwimSwam both offer free, easy-to-use online conversion tools.

How NQTs are Set

The Championship Committee, with approval from the House of Delegates, calculates NQTs annually using a few formulas.

Short Course Yards (Spring Nationals)

• For shorter yards events—50s and 100s—the NQT is the three-year average of 10th place in that age group plus 15% added to create a realistic, achievable qualifying standard.
• For yards events 200 yards and longer, NQTs are based on the three-year average of 10th place plus 10%.
• If there are no 10th-place times in at least two of the three previous years, the committee uses fifth place plus 20% for sprints and fifth place plus 15% in events 200 yards and longer.

Long Course Meters (Summer Nationals)

• For all events, the three-year average of fifth place plus 15% .
• If there are no fifth-place times in at least two of the previous three years, there is no time standard for that event.

Current NQTs are accessible online:

• SCY (2026 Spring Nationals)
• LCM (2025 Summer Nationals)

There are some exceptions to these rules, however. For example, folks swimming in the 85–89 and older age groups do not need to meet any qualifying time standards. And the

Championship Committee and/or the meet host can request a formula change for any meet.

What’s more, where the swim takes place may also factor into the calculations. For example, if you achieved a time at an altitude of 3,000 feet or higher, your times may be adjusted (for NQT purposes only) by subtracting the adjustment times in seconds from the actual time achieved, using the following chart. These altitude adjustments are updated every four years.