The season started on 11 November 2016 in Harbin, China, and ended with the final on 11 March 2017 in Stavanger, Norway.
[1] In total, six competition weekends were held at six different locations, 18 cups were contested (nine for men, and nine for women), and 88 races took place.
Additionally, there were two Grand World Cups, one for men and one for women, in which all individual races, regardless of distance, counted.
For the mass start and team pursuit events, skaters who had achieved any one of the above results were qualified.
[1] Every ISU member nation was allowed to enter at least one competitor for each distance, subject to the qualification criteria above.
A member nation organizing a World Cup competition was granted the maximum quota in all events.
For the mass start event, a member nation was allowed to enter a maximum of two skaters, all subject to the qualifying criteria above.
For each country and distance category, the number of skaters in the ranking top of the previous year decided the number of places available in Division A, but the team leader's seeding decided which skater goes into which division.
World Cup points for all competitions, except the last, were awarded in both divisions, using two sets of tables, A1/B1 and A2/B2.