The European play-off draw for the 2026 FIFA World Cup will take place on Thursday 20 November at FIFA headquarters, with the ceremony beginning at 13:00 CET.
Group standings
The draw will set the eight play-off semi-finals and four potential final match-ups, all of which will be played in March 2026.
Which teams are in the European play-offs?
Sixteen teams participate in the European play-offs: 12 runners-up from the European Qualifiers group stage plus four teams that have qualified via the 2024/25 UEFA Nations League.
Confirmed in play-offs as European Qualifiers group runners-up
Albania, Czechia, Italy, Poland, Republic of Ireland, Slovakia, Ukraine
Confirmed in play-offs via Nations League route
Romania, Sweden, Northern Ireland
Either North Macedonia or Wales will fill the other slot, depending on who finishes third in Group J
The four additional teams are selected on the basis of the interim overall 2024/25 Nations League rankings, starting with the best-ranked group winners that have neither qualified directly for the final competition as European Qualifiers group winners, nor entered the play-offs already as group runners-up.
Who has qualified?
There will be 16 European teams involved at the World Cup, with the four eventual play-off final winners joining the 12 teams who have already qualified directly as group winners.
The direct qualifiers so far are:
Croatia, England, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal
What is the European play-off format?
The play-offs are played in single-leg knockout matches. Each play-off path is composed of two semi-final pairings of one seeded team and one unseeded team: Pot 1 vs Pot 4 and Pot 2 vs Pot 3.
The seeded teams will be drawn to play the play-off semi-final at home. Within each path, the winners of the semi-finals advance to the play-off final. For each play-off final, a draw is conducted in advance to determine which semi-final winners will play at home.
The semi-finals take place on Thursday 26 March and the finals on Tuesday 31 March 2026.
How are the European play-off draw pots decided?
Once the 16 play-off contenders have been determined, the 12 qualifying group runners-up will be ranked 1st to 12th on the basis of the FIFA Men’s World Ranking issued prior to the draw, and the four teams having qualified from the 2024/25 UEFA Nations League will be ranked 13th to 16th.
Based on these FIFA rankings (1st to 16th), the 16 teams are divided into four pots as follows:
a. Pot 1 is composed of the top-seeded EQ teams ranked 1st to 4th.
b. Pot 2 is composed of the seeded EQ teams ranked 5th to 8th.
c. Pot 3 is composed of the unseeded EQ teams ranked 9th to 12th.
d. Pot 4 is composed of the unseeded UNL teams ranked 13th to 16th.
How does the European play-off draw work?
The draw starts with Pot 1 and ends with Pot 4. The four play-off paths are formed as follows:
a. Pot 1: the four top-seeded EQ teams are allocated to semi-finals 1, 3, 5 and 7 in the order drawn.
b. Pot 2: the four seeded EQ teams are drawn to the first available position of semi-finals 2, 4, 6 and 8.
c. Pot 3: the four unseeded EQ teams are drawn to the first available position of semi-finals 2, 4, 6 and 8.
d. Pot 4: the four unseeded UNL teams are drawn to the first available position of semi-finals 1, 3, 5 and 7.
