BTS is officially back — and ARMY finally has a date to circle on the calendar.
After nearly four years away from group releases, the K-pop superstars announced that their long-awaited reunion album will arrive March 20, 2026, marking their first full group project since 2022’s Proof. The news was revealed in a deeply personal way, with handwritten letters sent to select members of the BTS ARMY fan club, each bearing the simple but powerful message: “2026.3.20.”
The album announcement comes after years of anticipation as the group paused activities to fulfill South Korea’s mandatory military service requirement. Now, all seven members — Jimin, Jung Kook, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, RM and V — are officially reunited and ready for their next chapter.
“I greeted you all as a soloist in 2023 and 2024,” Jin wrote in his letter, published by Variety, “but I can finally greet you as part of a team again.”
RM echoed the sentiment, telling fans he had been “waiting for this moment more desperately than anyone,” while Jung Kook added, “Please take good care of us this year as well.” J-Hope summed it up best: “Finally, it’s the year that we will all be together with you!!”
The road to reunion has been a long one. Jin, the group’s oldest member, enlisted first in December 2022 and was discharged in June 2024, famously greeted by his bandmates — including RM, who surprised fans by playing “Dynamite” on the saxophone. J-Hope followed in April 2023, while RM, V, Jimin and Jung Kook enlisted together in December 2023. Jimin and Jung Kook were the last to be discharged on June 11, 2025, just one day after RM and V.
By summer 2025, BTS began teasing their comeback. During a July livestream, Jung Kook explained, “Since it will be a group album, it will reflect each member’s thoughts and ideas. We’re approaching the album with the same mindset we had when we first started.”
In September 2025, RM said he and his recently reunited bandmates are “working diligently” on new music in a message shared on Weverse. In the note (taken from an English translation provided on Weverse), RM reflected on what it’s been like returning to the studio with BTS and adjusting to life in Los Angeles after completing his mandatory military service in South Korea earlier this summer. “It’s already been a little over two months since I was discharged from the military,” he wrote. “I’m from faraway Los Angeles. I live, work, and play with the members. It’s a really strange experience. It feels like ‘Bon Voyage Pyeongchang.’ It’s weird already, right… Anyway, I feel like I’m working diligently somewhere.”
RM shared a peek into his new routine, saying he wakes up at 10 a.m., works out, eats breakfast, and then works with BTS from about one or two in the afternoon until eight or nine at night. “Sit alone on the terrace of the rented house, the past, present, and future, I think about these dizzy tenses,” he added. Further hinting at BTS’ new music, RM continued, “Making something ‘together’ with these friends, I’m going to commit myself to this moment. I’m going to thank you. It’s our next album. I’m looking for what I’ll become. Something I’ve forgotten for too long, the moments that are far away together. I hope that it will be a kind of beauty.”
And that’s not all. Alongside the album announcement, BTS confirmed plans for a global world tour in 2026.
“We’re also planning a world tour alongside the new album. We’ll be visiting fans all around the world, so we hope you’re as excited as we are,” the members said in a statement from July 2025. No word on which cities the members will be visiting yet.
