Does Outlander Season 7 have a release date? Cast including Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe

Outlander Season 6 has finished – so here’s what we know about Season 7.

Outlander Season 6 brought eight episodes of drama with Claire and Jamie Fraser (Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan) at Fraser's Ridge. The season finale has now aired, plunging us once again into a Droughtlander, but fans will be happy to know the epic time-travelling fantasy show has already been renewed for a seventh series.

The news was confirmed back in March 2021, with Starz saying: “We look forward to following the adventures of Claire and Jamie in America during the Revolution as well as more time travel during this next season.” Here’s everything we know so far about Outlander Season 7.

Does Outlander Season 7 have a confirmed release date? When will filming begin?

Outlander Season 7 doesn’t have an official release date just yet – however, production on the new series has begun. On April 6 2022, Starz officially announced filming had started, posting on Twitter: “The cast and crew are back at it - #Outlander Season 7 is in production!”

It could take up to 12 months to film the new series, with Scotland filling in for North Carolina. The Droughtlander hopefully won’t be as long as last time – when fans had a two-year wait between Season 5 and Season 6. Viewers could potentially be treated to the seventh series in late spring 2023.

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Sam Heughan as Jamie Fraser in Outlander Season 6 (Outlander Starz)

How many episodes will Outlander Season 7 be?

Outlander Season 7 will have more than twice the episodes of Season 6.The seventh series will be a “supersized” 16 episodes long, Starz has confirmed. This is in part to make up for the smaller eight episode run of Season 6, which was affected by the Covid pandemic.

Showrunner Matthew B. Roberts said: “Filming in 2021 has presented an unprecedented set of challenges which led us to the decision to truncate the season in order to bring the fans the most vibrant and dynamic season as soon as possible. Dinna fash, we will then film an extended season 7 with 16 episodes next year as life returns to normalcy.”

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Who is the cast for Outlander Season 7?

Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan are reprising their roles as Claire and Jamie Fraser. Sophie Skelton will be Brianna and Richard Rankin will also return as Roger. Also likely to return are Mark Lewis Jones as Tom Christie, John Bell as Young Ian, and Alexander Vlahos as Allan Christie.

And former characters have also been confirmed to appear in the next season, including Geillis Duncan (Lotte Verbeek), Dougal MacKenzie (Graham McTavish), Brian Fraser (Andrew Whipp), Ian Murray (Steven Cree), Laoghaire Fraser (Nell Hudson) and Joan MacKimmie (Layla Burns).

Which Diana Gabaldon book will Outlander Season 7 be based on? What happens?

The plot of Outlander Season 7 will be based on the seventh novel by Diana Gabaldon, An Echo in the Bone. Mild spoiler alert: This book travels between Roger and Brianna in the 20th Century and Claire and Jamie, who remain in the 1700s, in the midst of the American Revolution.

However, as the Outlander show has played with book timelines in the past, fans can expect sections from the sixth book A Breath of Snow and Ashes – and even the eighth, Written In My Own Heart’s Blood – to appear.

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Will Season 7 be the last Outlander series?

There are 10 books in the Diana Gabaldon series, which would suggest there could be 10 seasons of the show. Producer Maril Davies previously said they would keep making the show “until Claire and Jamie are 100” – if Starz, Sony, and the actors are willing. However, lead actress Caitriona Balfe told Vanity Fair it might be a “nice kind of time frame” to end the show when it reaches its 10-year mark in 2024. But she said: “Those decisions are far above my pay grade.”

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