The 47th FIS Alpine Ski World Cup season began on 27 October 2012, in Sölden, Austria, and concluded on 17 March 2013, at the World Cup finals in Lenzerheide, Switzerland.

The biennial World Championships took place in February. The 2013 World Championships were scheduled for 4–17 February in Schladming, Austria. For the first time the International Ski Federation is upgrading its city events, parallel slalom, by awarding them World Cup points also for the Slalom crystal globe ranking, not just overall. Starting with the 2013 season, the governing body will not award a Combined crystal globe trophy for the season-long titles. Many organizers say the event is difficult to market.  This event will still count in overall ranking.

Tina Maze became the first Slovenian skier to win an overall World Cup title; she achieved an insurmountable lead in the points standings after her eighth victory of the season, in a super-combined race at Méribel in France on 24 February 2013.  With a victory in a downhill race at Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany on 2 March 2013 – giving her a win in all five disciplines over the season – Maze became the first skier to score more than 2000 points in a World Cup season.  She beat the previous record of 2000 points held by Hermann Maier from the 2000 season.  Maze broke various statistical records in this season. They include the highest number of podiums in a season (24, record previously hely by Hermann Maier (22) and by Hanni Wenzel and Pernilla Wiberg for ladies (18)), highest number of top 5 finishes (31, previously Hermann Maier and Pernilla Wiberg (24)), highest number of points after first 10 races (677, previously Katja Seizinger, 643), largest percent of possible points won (69%, previously 61% by Pernilla Wiberg), and the highest point difference to the second-placed skier (1313, compared to 743 for Hermann Maier and 578 for Lindsey Vonn).  Maze finished on podium in all Giant slalom events of the season, a feature previously achieved only by Vreni Schneider in the 1989 season. She is also the only woman to remain at the top of the overall ranking throughout the season - a feature only achieved at men's Cup by Bode Miller. In addition to the overall title, Maze won the Super-G and Giant slalom titles, finished at the top of the Combined list by winning both races in the season, and finished second in the Downhill and Slalom listing. The titles went to Lindsey Vonn and Mikaela Shiffrin, respectively.

The men's overall title went to the final meeting at Lenzerheide, where a second place in the giant slalom event, gave Marcel Hirscher enough of an advantage for his second consecutive World Cup overall title; he became the first male skier to achieve this feat since Stephan Eberharter in 2002 and 2003.  Hirscher also won the Slalom overall title. Downhill and Super-G titles were won by Aksel Lund Svindal while the Giant slalom title went to Ted Ligety who won 6 out of 8 races of the season.