FLUX 3 Release Date: What Is Available Now

For months, "when is FLUX 3 coming out" was answered with speculation. That ended on July 23, 2026, when Black Forest Labs published the FLUX 3 announcement and put a real launch plan in writing.

The plan is phased. Some things are available right now, some have a vague timeframe, and some have no date at all. Pages that give you a single tidy release date are inventing it.

Where this comes from: this article tracks only what BFL has published on its own site — the announcement post, the model page, and the announcements index. No leaks, no aggregator summaries, no rumours. Last verified July 28, 2026, five days after the announcement. Dates below will move; the sourcing method will not.

The dated facts

The model page on bfl.ai still carries a "coming soon" label with a "Request early access" button, while the announcement says FLUX 3 is "now available in Early Access." Both are true at once: the request-gated video model is live, the general product is not.

What this article solves

The pain point: people searching a release date want to know whether to wait or to act. A page that says "released!" sends you to a waitlist you did not expect. A page that says "coming soon" makes you miss access that is already open. Neither tells you what to do this week.

The differentiator here: rather than a single guessed date, this is the official four-stage launch plan reproduced in full, plus an honest read on what "over the next few weeks and months" has historically meant for this lab — based on the actual gaps between BFL's previous announced and shipped releases, which you can verify from their own announcements index.

The official launch plan, verbatim in substance

BFL wrote that over the next few weeks and months, they will make the following available, each after an early access phase for smooth rollout, feedback, and safety testing. All of it is built from the same underlying multimodal flow-matching model:

1. Video and audio generation and editing through APIs and private weight access — "FLUX 3 Video"
2. Action prediction through selected research and commercial partners, beginning with mimic robotics — "FLUX-mimic and FLUX 3 Action"
3. Image synthesis and editing through APIs and private weight access — "FLUX 3 Image"
4. Open-weight access to a multimodal backbone for content creation and action prediction — "FLUX 3 Dev"

They also said more technical details on the underlying approach will follow.

Two things worth noticing. First, image comes after video in this rollout, which inverts the order everyone expected from an image-model company. Second, open weights are stage four, which means the local-install crowd is last in line, not first.

Reading the timeline realistically

BFL does not pre-announce dates, so the only honest estimate comes from their own shipping cadence. From the public announcements index:

• FLUX.2 was announced November 25, 2025 as generally available on day one — playground, API, and launch partners.
• FLUX.2 [klein] was announced in that same post as "coming soon" open source, and by June 4, 2026 klein models were shipping on-device with ASUS ProArt laptops.
• Between those, BFL shipped a steady run of Tools releases: Outpainting (May 14, 2026), Erase (May 21, 2026), VTO (May 28, 2026).

The pattern: BFL ships production APIs fast and open weights slowly. FLUX 3 Video early access opening the same day as the announcement fits that. An open-weight FLUX 3 Dev arriving within a few weeks would not fit it at all.

If you need a working assumption: treat FLUX 3 Image early access as a matter of weeks, general API availability as months, and FLUX 3 Dev open weights as unscheduled. Then verify against bfl.ai rather than trusting this or any other third-party estimate.

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Waiting is not a workflow. If you have campaign work in front of you now, Flux 3 AI gives you a browser workspace for prompt-to-image generation, reference-driven concepts, and editing today — try the image generator and have your visual direction locked before official multimodal access opens.

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How to get FLUX 3 early access

There is one legitimate route, and it runs through Black Forest Labs:

1. Go to the FLUX 3 model page or the announcement post.
2. Use Request early access. Video access is the stage currently open.
3. Expect a review — BFL describes the phase as being for smooth rollout, feedback collection, and rigorous safety testing, which implies selection rather than instant provisioning.
4. For commercial or research partnership access (including action prediction), BFL directs teams to their contact and enterprise channels.

There is no third-party reseller for FLUX 3 right now. Any site claiming to give you FLUX 3 access without going through BFL is not doing what it says.

What is available today instead

If your actual need is "generate something this week," the shipping BFL models are FLUX.2 and FLUX Tools:

• FLUX.2 [max] — highest fidelity in the family, up to 4MP output
• FLUX.2 [pro] — the volume workhorse, reference image input
• FLUX.2 [klein] 4B / 9B — sub-second generation; the 4B variants are Apache 2.0 and run locally on modest hardware
• FLUX.2 [dev] — 32B open-weight model on Hugging Face
• FLUX Tools — Outpainting, Erase, Deblur, Virtual Try-On

Published API pricing starts at $0.014 for the first megapixel on FLUX.2 [klein] 4B and $0.07 on FLUX.2 [max], per BFL's pricing page. Those are the real numbers; there are no FLUX 3 numbers to quote.

FAQ

When was FLUX 3 released? Announced July 23, 2026. FLUX 3 Video entered Early Access the same day. There is no general-availability date.

When does FLUX 3 come out for everyone? Not announced. BFL's own wording is "over the next few weeks and months," phased by capability.

When is FLUX 3 Image available? BFL said an early access phase for FLUX 3 Image would open "in the following weeks" from July 23, 2026.

Will FLUX 3 have open weights? A model called FLUX 3 Dev — open-weight multimodal backbone — is stage four of the launch plan. No date has been given.

How much will FLUX 3 cost? Unpublished. Current pricing on bfl.ai covers FLUX.2 and FLUX Tools only.

Is there a FLUX 3 waitlist? Effectively yes — the "Request early access" flow on the FLUX 3 model page.

Bottom line

The release-date question has a real answer now, it is just not a single date: announced July 23, 2026; video usable by request today; image within weeks; open weights whenever BFL says so.

The practical read: nothing about FLUX 3 should stop you from producing work this month. Lock your prompt discipline and reference workflow on tools you can access, and step up to FLUX 3 when your access request clears. Start in the Flux 3 AI workspace, or check the credit plans if you are producing at volume.

Sources

1. FLUX 3 — Real World Models (BFL announcement, July 23, 2026) — announcement date, early access status, full launch plan
2. FLUX 3 model page — current label and access request flow
3. FLUX 3 x mimic (BFL, July 23, 2026) — partner-gated action-prediction stage
4. BFL announcements index — dated release history used for cadence analysis
5. FLUX.2: Frontier Visual Intelligence (BFL, November 25, 2025) — prior release, day-one availability precedent
6. FLUX.2 klein on-device announcement (BFL, June 4, 2026) — open-weight timeline precedent
7. BFL API pricing — current published prices, FLUX.2 and Tools only
8. FLUX.2 klein model page — licence and hardware requirements for shipping models
9. BFL API documentation — models currently exposed via API
10. black-forest-labs/flux on GitHub — open weights that exist today

Scope note: timeline accurate as of July 28, 2026. Flux 3 AI is an independent creator workspace, not affiliated with Black Forest Labs. Confirm access, pricing, and dates at bfl.ai before making commitments.