Xerocon Denver 2026: The Insider's Guide

Presented by our partner Vinyl — the AI meeting assistant built for accounting and bookkeeping firms.

Xero told you the dates. We'll tell you what's worth queueing for.

Denver is the second and final Xerocon of 2026, landing six weeks after London — which means most of the product fireworks have already gone off. That's not a reason to skip it. It's a reason to walk in with a plan, because the value of this one is less "what will they announce" and more "what will you actually do with what they announced". Here's the guide.

Xerocon Denver 2026 at a glance

When: Wednesday 19 – Thursday 20 August 2026. Registration and expo open 8:00am both days; sessions kick off around 9:00am.
Where: Colorado Convention Center, downtown Denver.
Tickets: US$650 standard. The early-bird windows (40% launch flash sale, 30% off to 31 March, 20% off to 31 May) have all closed, so you're paying full freight from here. Buy only via Xero's official registration site.
What's included: Both conference days, up to 10 CPE/CPD credits, and the wrap party at Mile High Station on the Thursday night. No plus-ones for the party — everyone needs their own named ticket, and tickets can't be split between people across the two days.
Who it's for: Open to Xero accounting and bookkeeping partners and app partners worldwide. In practice: US firm owners and their teams, a healthy contingent of app-ecosystem people, and the usual scattering of Australians who treat Xerocon like a world tour.
Fine print worth knowing: Cancel more than 10 business days out and you lose a US$50 admin fee; inside 10 business days it's US$150. Tickets transfer to a colleague up to seven days before the event.

What's new in 2026

Two things have genuinely changed this year: the format and the context.

The format. Xero has rebuilt the stage structure into four types. The Supercharge stage is the main room — opening showcase, big keynotes. Discovery stages replace the old breakout format with what Xero promises are deeper, more focused sessions. The App Spotlight stages live on the expo floor for partner demos. The interesting one is the new Partner stage — a peer-to-peer track where practitioners present to practitioners. Submissions came from the community and are now closed. If Xero has curated it well, this is where the real content lives: people who run firms telling you what worked, without a product roadmap attached.

The context. London on 8–9 July was Xero's biggest AI statement to date — the "agentic era" show. JAX (Xero's AI finance assistant) got Auto Bank Reconciliation and Smart Document Capture. XeroForce, a no-code agent builder, went into early access with general availability slated for later this year. Xero Ultra launched as the new mid-market tier. And Xero shipped integrations with Anthropic's Claude and Microsoft 365 Copilot, so your clients' live Xero data now surfaces inside the AI tools they were already using anyway. Add Payment Follow Ups, Bill Protection and Cash Flow Actions — all JAX-powered, all in beta or coming soon — and a five-million-customer milestone, and London was a dense show. Full breakdown in our London recap.

Denver will be the American second act. Expect the same agentic-era framing with US-specific detail: what's actually shipping in the US and when, what the Melio acquisition means now that Melio founder Matan Bar is running Xero's US business, and how hard Xero intends to push on US payments. The London announcements were heavy on UK compliance (Corporation Tax on-platform); the Denver equivalent is the question of what Xero builds for US tax and mid-market. If you want to know whether Xero is serious about America, this is the room where you find out.

The speakers. Andre Agassi headlines — insert your own "second serve" joke about attending both Xerocons. Rachel Sheerin emcees. The guest roster leans high-performance and AI: Simon Curran (executive coach behind the All Blacks Performance Labs), Chelsea Pottenger (EQ Minds, on performing without burning out), Mark Adams (who advises A-list celebrities on AI), and Jasmine Crowe-Houston, founder of Goodr. From Xero: CEO Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, CPTO Diya Jolly, Andrew Kanzer and Matan Bar.

The sessions actually worth queueing for

The full agenda is live on Xero's event site, and the honest advice is: don't try to see everything. Two days, four stage types, and an expo floor means triage. By persona:

Firm owners. Your must-see is whatever Diya Jolly's product keynote is called this year — that's where the roadmap gets real dates attached. Beyond that, prioritise anything on the Discovery stages covering JAX in practice and pricing/advisory. Skip the sessions that are thinly veiled feature tours; you can watch those on-demand later.

Bookkeepers. Smart Document Capture and Auto Bank Reconciliation are the two features that will actually change your Tuesday. Find every session that shows them working on real, messy data — and ask the awkward questions about the complex rec cases (split payments across sales and fees is on the roadmap, not in the product). The Partner stage should be your default home base between keynotes.

Ops and practice managers. The evolved Xero Partner Hub — live book health, work status, month-end readiness in one view, landing from October — is aimed squarely at you, and Denver is your chance to see it before it ships and tell Xero what's missing. Also worth your time: anything on XeroForce, because if the no-code agent builder is real, ops people will be the ones actually building with it.

The expo floor, triaged

Fifty-plus exhibitors, two days, and a finite supply of politeness. Map the floor to your actual problems, not the other way around:

Drowning in document chasing? The capture/pre-accounting category is where the JAX story gets competitive — Xero building Smart Document Capture natively puts every third-party capture tool on notice. Ask each one the same question: what do you do that JAX won't do by Christmas?
Payments and AR pain? With Melio now inside the tent and Payment Follow Ups coming, the payments aisle is the most strategically interesting real estate at the show. Watch which independent payment apps are leaning in versus quietly repositioning.
Practice management shopping? The Partner Hub evolution means Xero is moving further up the workflow stack. If you're evaluating PM tools, ask vendors directly how they coexist with it.
AI tooling? Everyone will have "agentic" on their banner. The filter question: show me a customer using this in production, today, on real client data.

Side events, parties and meetups

The official wrap party is at Mile High Station on the Thursday night (20 August), included with your ticket, strictly no plus-ones. It's the one fixture everyone attends, so don't book a flight out on Thursday evening — you'll regret it.

Beyond that, the real Xerocon happens in the margins: app-partner dinners, community breakfasts, and the unofficial gatherings that materialise in downtown Denver bars. Watch the app partners you already pay for — the good ones will be in your inbox with invites in the fortnight before the show.

First-timer survival guide

The altitude is not a bit. Denver sits at 1,600 metres. You will dehydrate faster, feel alcohol harder and tire earlier than at sea level. Carry water, drink more of it than feels necessary, and go easy on night one — the wrap party is night two.
Book your bed now. One official hotel block (AC Hotel/Le Méridien) is already sold out. The remaining discounted blocks — Aloft, Embassy Suites and Hyatt Place downtown — close in mid-to-late July or when they fill, whichever comes first. After that you're paying rack rates in August convention season.
Arrive Tuesday. Registration opens 8:00am Wednesday and the opening showcase is not the thing to sprint into off a red-eye. If you're coming from Australia or New Zealand, give yourself two nights before day one; the jet lag plus altitude combination is genuinely rough.
Schedule like an adult. Pick two must-see sessions per day and one backup, book your expo conversations as actual meetings rather than drive-bys, and leave white space — the corridor conversations are half the value.
Wear comfortable shoes and layers. Convention centres are aggressively air-conditioned; Denver in August is 30-plus degrees outside.

Is Xerocon worth it? An honest take

Full price is US$650 before flights and three nights of accommodation, so call it US$2,000–2,500 all-in for a domestic US attendee, and considerably more from AU/NZ. Whether that's money well spent depends entirely on who you are.

US firm on Xero: yes, go. This is the one event per year where Xero's US leadership, the entire app ecosystem and your peer community are in the same building, and the US is clearly where Xero is spending its ambition right now. The CPE credits soften the cost, and if you're making platform or app-stack decisions in the next 12 months, two days here beats two months of demo calls.

Bookkeeping practice with a small team: worth it if you send one person with a plan, not the whole team on vibes. The bookkeeping-relevant releases (document capture, auto rec, Partner Hub) are the most immediately usable things Xero has shipped in years, and seeing them live — and interrogating the vendors they threaten — is genuinely useful.

AU/NZ firm considering the trip: this is the honest bit — probably not, unless you have US clients, US ambitions or app-partner meetings that justify it. The product story was already told at London, most of it will be on-demand and blogged within hours, and your Xerocon is expected back in Australia in 2027. Save the airfare, spend it on implementing JAX properly.

App partners and vendors: you already know you're going. The interesting question for you isn't attendance, it's positioning — Denver is where the ecosystem works out who's a partner and who's now a competitor.

What's next: Xerocon 2027

Xero has said the flagship returns to Australia in 2027, after the London–Denver double of 2026. No city or dates yet — the last home edition was Brisbane in September 2025, and Xero has form for rotating venues, so treat any confident predictions (including ours) as speculation until the official announcement. Our Xerocon hub tracks every edition and gets updated the day Xero announces. What's not speculation: by the time Xerocon lands back on home soil, the agentic features shown at London and Denver will be a year into the wild, and the firms who did the boring implementation work in between will be the ones with something to show for it.

See you in the queue for Agassi.

Frequently asked questions

When and where is Xerocon Denver 2026?

Xerocon Denver 2026 runs Wednesday 19 to Thursday 20 August 2026 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado. Registration and the expo open at 8:00am both days, with sessions starting around 9:00am.

How much do Xerocon Denver 2026 tickets cost?

The standard ticket is US$650. Early-bird pricing has finished — a 24-hour launch flash sale offered tickets at US$390 (40% off), then 30% off ran to 31 March and 20% off to 31 May 2026. The ticket covers both conference days and the wrap party. Cancellations incur a US$50 admin fee (US$150 within 10 business days of the event).

Is Xerocon worth attending for a small firm?

If you're a US-based firm on Xero, yes — it's the one event where the whole US Xero ecosystem is in one room, and you'll bank up to 10 CPE/CPD credits. If you're a small firm flying in from Australia or New Zealand, it's harder to justify: most product news was already shown at London in July, and Xerocon is expected to return to Australia in 2027.

What was announced at Xerocon London 2026?

London (8–9 July 2026) was Xero's "agentic era" show: new JAX capabilities including Auto Bank Reconciliation and Smart Document Capture, the no-code agent builder XeroForce (early access), the mid-market tier Xero Ultra, integrations with Anthropic's Claude and Microsoft 365 Copilot, an evolved Xero Partner Hub landing from October, plus JAX-powered Payment Follow Ups, Bill Protection and Cash Flow Actions. Xero also confirmed it now serves five million customers.

Who speaks at Xerocon Denver 2026?

Andre Agassi headlines, with Rachel Sheerin as emcee. Guest speakers include Simon Curran (executive coach, All Blacks Performance Labs), Chelsea Pottenger (EQ Minds), Mark Adams (AI advisor to global celebrities) and Goodr founder Jasmine Crowe-Houston. From Xero: CEO Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, CPTO Diya Jolly, Managing Director North America Andrew Kanzer and US CEO Matan Bar.

When is the next Xerocon in Australia or New Zealand?

Xero has said Xerocon is expected to return to Australia in 2027, after the 2026 events in London and Denver. No city or dates have been announced yet — the last local edition was Brisbane in September 2025.

This coverage is presented by Vinyl. Vinyl is the AI meeting assistant built for accounting and bookkeeping firms — it sits in your client meetings, writes the file notes and turns the talking into actions. See Vinyl in action →