New course

A new course  is a course in a Mario Kart game that is new to the series and has never appeared before. New courses appear in the Mushroom Cup, Flower Cup, Star Cup, and Special Cup (and in Mario Kart: Super Circuit, Lightning Cup), with each cup containing four new courses (five in Super Mario Kart). Prior to the "new course" term being used, they were addressed by other terms based on the game they were derived from: in Mario Kart: Super Circuit, the original tracks are called Super Circuit Tracks to distinguish them from the tracks originating from Super Mario Kart, called Extra Tracks; in Mario Kart DS, the new courses are known as Nitro Courses from the project codename for the Nintendo DS, Project Nitro; and in Mario Kart Wii, the new courses are known as Wii Courses. Most new courses have gone on to later reappear in other Mario Kart games as classic courses. Starting with the DLC cups in Mario Kart 8, new courses can appear in the same cup as classic courses.

In all console Mario Kart games, at least one Mario Circuit, Bowser's Castle, Rainbow Road, beach- or water-themed course, and ice- or snow-themed course have appeared as new courses. While Mario Kart Tour does have all of these, its Mario Circuit, Bowser's Castle, and Rainbow Road have only been in the form of remix courses.

Booster Course Pass courses
Although the Booster Course Pass is almost completely composed of classic courses, it also contains Sky-High Sundae as the fourth and last course of the Propeller Cup, and Yoshi's Island which is set to be released sometime in Spring 2023. While internal data marks Sky-High Sundae and Yoshi's Island as originating from Mario Kart Tour, they were both announced first and, in the case of Sky-High Sundae, released first for this game as completely new courses.

Mario Kart Tour
A subset of Mario Kart Tours new courses are referred to as city courses' and are specifically set in real life cities. These courses typically appear in tours themed after their pertinent city, such as London Loop in the London Tour. There are up to four different layouts of city courses, with the fourth layout typically being a 1-lap circuit that incorporates most of the routes of the three previous layouts.

Despite Sky-High Sundae appearing in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe as part of the Booster Course Pass first, Mario Kart Tour also treats it as a new course instead of a classic course.

Since the content of each cup changes periodically in Mario Kart Tour, courses below are listed alongside their debut tours and dates.

Mario Kart 8
Unlike other games in the series, Mario Kart 8 has no courses unique to Battle Mode. Instead, eight of the game's original thirty-two race courses (two new, six classic) are modified and used as battle courses.

Platform codes
Since Mario Kart 7, every course in the console Mario Kart games and in Mario Kart Tour features a specific platform code prepended to its internal name, indicating the platform on which the game each course debuted in was released. These are similar to, but distinct from, the prefixes used by classic courses to indicate their origin.

Trivia

 * The four special worlds after World Bowser in Super Mario 3D World use similar symbols to those of the four new cups (World Star for the Star Cup, World Mushroom for the Mushroom Cup, World Flower for the Flower Cup, and World Crown for the Special Cup).