2026 FIFA World Cup qualification (UEFA)

2026 FIFA World Cup qualification (UEFA)
Tournament details
Dates	21 March 2025 – 31 March 2026
Teams	54 (from 1 confederation)
	← 2022 2030 ⊟

The European section of the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualification competition will act as qualifiers for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, to be held in Canada, Mexico and the United States, for national teams that are members of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). A total of 16 slots in the final tournament are available for UEFA teams.

Format

A revised qualification format was confirmed by the UEFA Executive Committee during their meeting in Nyon, Switzerland, on 25 January 2023. As the number of final tournament slots for UEFA has increased from 13 to 16,^[1] the qualification format was modified from the previous cycle. The qualifying group stage will feature twelve groups of four or five teams. The winner of each group will qualify for the World Cup, while the second-placed teams will advance to the play-offs, along with the four best-ranked group winners from the 2024–25 UEFA Nations League that finished outside the top two of their World Cup qualifying group.^[2] On 28 June 2023, the UEFA Executive Committee formally recommended the qualification format to FIFA,^[3] which was later approved.^[4]^[5]

First round (group stage): Twelve groups of four or five teams will play home-and-away matches against all other teams in the group. Group winners will qualify for the World Cup.
Second round (play-off stage): Sixteen teams (twelve group runners-up and four best Nations League group winners, based on the Nations League overall ranking, that finished outside the top two of their qualifying group) will be drawn into four paths, playing two rounds of single-match play-offs (semi-finals with the seeded teams to host, followed by finals, with the home teams to be drawn). The four path winners will qualify for the World Cup.

Schedule

Below is the schedule of the European qualifiers for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.^[6] Groups of five teams (Groups G–L) will begin in March 2025, while groups of four teams (Groups A–F) will begin in September 2025.^[2]^[7]

Round	Matchday		Dates
Round	Groups A–F	Groups G–L	Dates
First round (group stage)	—	Matchday 1	21–22 March 2025
		Matchday 2	24–25 March 2025
		Matchday 3	6–7 June 2025
		Matchday 4	9–10 June 2025
	Matchday 1	Matchday 5	4–6 September 2025
	Matchday 2	Matchday 6	7–9 September 2025
	Matchday 3	Matchday 7	9–11 October 2025
	Matchday 4	Matchday 8	12–14 October 2025
	Matchday 5	Matchday 9	13–15 November 2025
	Matchday 6	Matchday 10	16–18 November 2025
Second round (play-offs)	Semi-finals		26 March 2026
Second round (play-offs)	Finals		31 March 2026

Draw

The draw for the first round (group stage) will be held on 13 December 2024, 12:00 CET, at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland.^[8]^[9]^[10]^[11] Of UEFA's 55 member associations, 54 men's national teams submitted a valid entry to the competition, while Russia's entry was not accepted due to suspension from UEFA and FIFA competitions following their country's invasion of Ukraine.^[12]^[13]

The teams will be seeded into five pots: Pots 1 to 4 will each contain twelve teams, and Pot 5 will contain six teams. FIFA, in consultation with UEFA, announced the allocation of teams to the five pots following the completion of the league phase of the 2024–25 UEFA Nations League. The teams will be drawn into twelve groups: six groups of four teams (Groups A–F) and six groups of five teams (Groups G–L).^[14]

Following changes to the UEFA qualifying format, the competition will feature staggered starting dates. Five-team groups will begin in March 2025, while four-team groups will start in September 2025. As 24 teams will be competing in the 2024–25 UEFA Nations League in March 2025 (8 in the League A quarter-finals and 16 in the League A/B or B/C promotion/relegation play-offs), significant changes were made to the seeding and draw procedures to accommodate all teams within the schedule.

Seeding method

Five-team groups can only contain one team participating in Nations League matches in March 2025, allowing these teams to have two free matchdays in World Cup qualifying to be scheduled during March. The remaining four teams in their group will play among themselves during this window. Additionally, as the four quarter-final winners will compete in the 2025 UEFA Nations League Finals in June, they cannot begin World Cup qualifying until September and must therefore be drawn into four-team groups.^[14]

Given these conditions, Pot 1 will contain the eight Nations League quarter-finalists, regardless of their position in the FIFA Men's World Ranking of November 2024. The quarter-finalists will be represented by placeholders in the draw, denoting the winners and losers of each quarter-final pairing.^{[note 1]} The four remaining teams in Pot 1 will be the next best-ranked teams in the World Ranking that November. The remaining teams were allocated to Pots 2 to 5 based on the World Ranking. This seeding method differs from previous cycles, as all World Cup qualifying group draws since 2010 have been seeded based solely on the World Ranking.

While ultimately not required, adjustments to Pots 2 to 5 could have been necessary depending on the distribution of teams competing in the Nations League promotion/relegation play-offs in March 2025. Specifically, if any draw pot contained more Nations League play-off teams than could be accommodated in the available qualifying groups, the lowest-ranked Nations League play-off team from that pot would have been swapped with the highest-ranked eligible team from the lower pot. This process would have been repeated as needed within the same pot or across different pots.^[15]

Draw procedure

The draw will start with Pot 1 and complete with Pot 5. A team will be drawn and assigned to the first available group (based on draw conditions) in alphabetical order. Each five-team group will contain one team from each of the five pots, while each four-team group will contain one team from each of the first four pots.^[14]

The following restrictions will be applied with computer assistance:

Competition-related reasons: To allow for the parallel scheduling of World Cup qualifying and Nations League matches in March and June 2025, the following restrictions apply for allocating teams to groups of four or five:
- Pot 1: The four teams participating in the 2025 UEFA Nations League Finals (identified as the winners of quarter-finals 1–4) will be guaranteed to be drawn into four-team groups (Groups A–F). All other teams from this pot can be drawn into any group.
- Pots 2, 3 and 4: Nations League promotion/relegation play-off teams from these pots can be drawn into any-sized group, but can only join five-team groups (Groups G–L) that do not already contain a losing quarter-finalist or play-off participant. All other teams from these pots can be drawn into any group.
Prohibited clashes: For political reasons, matches between the following pairs of teams are considered prohibited clashes and cannot be drawn into the same group: Belarus–Ukraine, Gibraltar–Spain,^{[note 2]} Kosovo–Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo–Serbia. (Additionally, Armenia–Azerbaijan was identified as a prohibited clash, but the teams will be in the same pot for the draw.)
Winter venues: A maximum of two teams whose venues are identified as having high or medium risk of severe winter conditions can be placed in each group: Estonia, Faroe Islands, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway.^{[note 3]}
- The two "hard winter venues" (Faroe Islands and Iceland) generally cannot host games in March or November, thus cannot be drawn together, whilst the others have to play as few home matches as possible in March and November.
Excessive travel: A maximum of one pair of teams identified with excessive travel distance in relation to other countries can be placed in each group:^{[note 4]}
- Azerbaijan: with Gibraltar, Iceland, Portugal.
- Iceland: with Armenia, Cyprus.^{[note 5]}
- Kazakhstan: with Andorra, England, France, Gibraltar, Iceland, Malta, Northern Ireland, Portugal, Republic of Ireland, Scotland, Spain, Wales.

Seeding pots

The draw pots were announced on 28 November 2024,^[16] based on the FIFA Men's World Ranking released on the same day.^[17]

Pot 1^{[note 1]}
QF	Team	Rank
1	Spain^[QF]	3
1	Netherlands^[QF]	7
2	France^[QF]	2
2	Croatia^[QF]	13
3	Portugal^[QF]	6
3	Denmark^[QF]	21
4	Italy^[QF]	9
4	Germany^[QF]	10
—	England	4
	Belgium^[PO]	8
	Switzerland	20
	Austria^[PO]	22

Pot 2
Team	Rank
Ukraine^[PO]	25
Sweden	27
Turkey^[PO]	28
Wales	29
Hungary^[PO]	30
Serbia^[PO]	32
Poland	35
Romania	38
Greece^[PO]	39
Slovakia^[PO]	41
Czech Republic	42
Norway	43

Pot 3
Team	Rank
Scotland^[PO]	45
Slovenia^[PO]	55
Republic of Ireland^[PO]	60
Albania	65
North Macedonia	67
Georgia^[PO]	68
Finland	69
Iceland^[PO]	70
Northern Ireland	71
Montenegro	73
Bosnia and Herzegovina	74
Israel	76

Pot 4
Team	Rank
Bulgaria^[PO]	82
Luxembourg	92
Belarus	98
Kosovo^[PO]	99
Armenia^[PO]	100
Kazakhstan	110
Azerbaijan	117
Estonia	123
Cyprus	130
Faroe Islands	137
Latvia	140
Lithuania	142

Pot 5
Team	Rank
Moldova	151
Malta	169
Andorra	171
Gibraltar	197
Liechtenstein	204
San Marino	210

Banned from entering qualifying
Team	Rank
Russia	34

Key

^QF Nations League quarter-finalist, automatically seeded into Pot 1 and unavailable during the March 2025 window
^PO Nations League promotion/relegation play-offs participant that is unavailable during the March 2025 window