 The International Olympic Committee ( IOC ) officially launched the bid process for the 2016 Summer Olympics and Paralympics on May 16 , 2007 . All then 203 National Olympic Committees ( <unk> ) were invited to submit the name of a city within their jurisdiction until September 13 , 2007 . On September 14 , the IOC recognized seven cities — Baku , Chicago , Doha , Madrid , Prague , Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo — which had been put forward by their respective <unk> to bid . On October 1 , 2007 , the Rio de Janeiro bid committee paid the required fee of USD 150 @,@ 000 to the IOC and signed the Candidature <unk> Procedure . Soon after , from October 15 to 19 , Rio officials attended the 2016 Applicant cities ' <unk> organized by the IOC at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne , Switzerland , where they learnt more about technical areas that would be analyzed throughout the application process . On January 14 , 2008 , the seven Applicant cities returned documents , known as the Application Files , containing the answers and guarantees requested by the 2016 Candidature <unk> Procedure , which provided to the IOC an overview of each city 's project . The responses were studied by the IOC Working Group for months and served as the basis to the shortlist of Chicago , Tokyo , Rio de Janeiro and Madrid on June 4 , 2008 , becoming Candidate cities during a meeting of the IOC Executive Board at the 2008 SportAccord Convention in Athens , Greece . 
