How many teams will each federation have to participate in the 2026 World Cup?
FIFA currently recognizes 6 federations (regions) to award tickets to the World Cup. The number of tickets for each federation will be decided by FIFA. After that, the federations will decide which teams are allowed to participate, based on the qualifying format organized by that federation.
Number of attended spots for each federation
AFC (Asia): 8 direct tickets, 1 intercontinental play-off ticket
CAF (african): 9 direct tickets, 1 intercontinental play-off ticket
CONCACAF (North America): 3 direct tickets, 2 intercontinental play-off tickets, excluding the 3 host countries of the US, Canada and Mexico
CONMEBOL (South America): 6 direct tickets, 1 intercontinental play-off ticket
OFC (Ocean region): 1 direct ticket, 1 intercontinental play-off ticket
UEFA ( Europe): 16 direct tickets
The intercontinental play-off round is scheduled to take place in March 2026. There will be 6 teams participating in this round and only 2 places will be available for the 2026 World Cup. New Caledonia (Ocean region) is the only team that has so far secured a playoff spot.
Which teams have qualified for the 2026 World Cup?
The US, Canada and Mexico are co- hosts, so they should have tickets to participate without having to qualify. Of these three countries, Mexico is the team that has participated in the World Cup the most (17 times), followed by the US (4) and Canada (2).
Mexico is a more traditional team but the highest achievement is only in the quarter-finals. Meanwhile, the US won the bronze medal in 1930.
Asia has only identified the two representatives as Japan (7 times) and Iran (6). Japan's best result was only reaching the round of 16. Meanwhile, Iran has never advanced from the group stage.
Japan is the first team outside the three host countries to qualify for the 2026 World Cup after a 2-0 victory over Bahrain on March 20. This will be their 8th consecutive time participating in this tournament.
New Zealand has become the first representative of the Atlantic to have a ticket. They have previously only participated in the World Cup twice in 1982 and 2010. Because Australia has "transferred" to the AFC, a ticket directly from the OFC region will be considered to belong to New Zealand from now on.
The next team to win a ticket is defending champion Argentina. Albiceleste has participated 18 times and won 3 times. The team's number 1 star, Lionel Messi, is expected to have his 6th World Cup in his career next year. If Ronaldo of Portugal also participates, both will have the same number of World Cup appearances.
Only Brazil (29) and Germany (20) have reached more World Cups than Argentina in history. These two teams have also won the world championship 5 and 4 times respectively.
At which stage are the federations in the qualifying round?
The AFC is in the third qualifying round. The new CAF is the first round, similar to the CONCACAF.
CONMEBOL will have only 1 round. 10 teams under the federation will play a round-robin to calculate points. Each team will play one leg at home and away. As for the OFC, everything is over. The most tickets are UEFA in the early stages.
