Season sixteen of Dancing with the Stars premiered on March 18, 2013. Tom Bergeron and Brooke Burke Charvet returned as hosts, while Carrie Ann Inaba, Len Goodman and Bruno Tonioli returned as judges. The Harold Wheeler orchestra and singers also returned to provide the music throughout the season. Fractional scores did not continue this season.

This is the first season where all finalists did not learn a Latin and a ballroom dance; no finalist learned Tango, Raisman did not learn Paso Doble, Jones did not learn Samba, Pickler did not learn Salsa, and Zendaya did not learn Rumba. Each of the four finalists also did not dance one of the two new dance styles introduced this season. Raisman and Zendaya did not dance Jazz while Pickler and Jones did not dance Contemporary.

This marks the fourth win for Derek Hough giving him the most mirror ball trophies out of all the professional dancers on the show.