He continued to mark his improvement in 2006, tying Alexander Motylev for first place in Corus Wijk aan Zee Group B (2006) and scoring 6 points from 8 games in the 37th Chess Olympiad (2006). He also won his first Norwegian Championship in 2006, after defeating his trainer Simen Agdestein in a tie-break match. After several more strong performances in the spring and summer, including a joint second-place finish at Linares-Morelia (2007), he crossed the 2700-mark, the youngest player ever to do so. In his first Candidates match in Elista in May, he drew Levon Aronian 3-3 in the six normal-length games before losing in quick-play tie-breaks and being eliminated from the 2007 World Championship cycle. He reached the final four in the FIDE World Chess Cup (2007) before being defeated in the semifinals by the eventual winner, Gata Kamsky. Carlsen's placement in the World Cup qualified him for participation in the FIDE Grand Prix for 2008-09 (he later withdrew).

In 2008 Carlsen was the joint winner of Corus (2008) A-Group together with Levon Aronian, and placed second in Morelia-Linares (2008) behind World Champion Viswanathan Anand. Following his strong results in the first half of 2008, Carlsen improved his world ranking to 6th place on FIDE's July 2008 list behind Viswanathan Anand, Vladimir Kramnik, Veselin Topalov, Vassily Ivanchuk and Alexander Morozevich with a rating of 2775. Shortly afterward he tied for first place in the Baku Grand Prix (2008), the first round of FIDE's inaugural Grand Prix series, and then won clear first place at Aerosvit (2008) with a dominant 8/11 score. His "disappointing" third placement at 41st Biel International Chess Festival (2008) with 6/10, a half point behind joint winners Leinier Dominguez-Perez and Evgeny Alekseev , was nevertheless still a 2740 performance, whilst his equal second in the Bilbao Grand Slam Chess Final (2008) with 5.0/10 was a 2768 performance. 2009 has seen Carlsen score equal first in the Amber Tournament (Blindfold) (2009) with 7/11 alongside Kramnik and Aronian, and equal second with Veselin Topalov at M-Tel Masters (2009) behind Alexey Shirov with a 2822 performance. He also won the XXII Magistral Ciudad de Leon (2009), a rapid knockout tournament, ahead of Alexander Morozevich, Ivanchuk, and Wang Yue, and was equal second behind Kramnik at Dortmund (2009) with a 2773 performance.