Khaberni - All essential details, including the date, place, and levels of participating national teams, have been revealed before the draw for the 2026 World Cup group stage.
The final drawing ceremony will be held on Friday, December 5, 2025, at 12:00 Eastern Standard Time (18:00 Central European Time, 17:00 GMT).
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. will host the final draw ceremony.
Participating Teams
The final draw will see the presence of 42 teams out of 48 as follows:
Host countries: Canada, Mexico, and the United States.
Asian Football Confederation: Australia, Iran, Japan, Jordan, South Korea, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Uzbekistan.
African Football Confederation: Algeria, Cape Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, Egypt, Ghana, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa, Tunisia.
Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football: Curaçao, Haiti, Panama.
South American Football Confederation: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay.
Oceania Football Confederation: New Zealand.
European Football Confederation: Austria, Belgium, Croatia, England, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Scotland, Spain, Switzerland
Remaining Spots
Six of the 48 participating teams in the 2026 World Cup are still unknown, and their fate will be decided this upcoming March.
Four teams will qualify from the European playoff that includes 16 teams: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Denmark, Italy, Kosovo, Northern Ireland, North Macedonia, Poland, Republic of Ireland, Romania, Slovakia, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine, and Wales.
Six teams will compete for the remaining two spots in the global playoff qualifying for the 2026 World Cup: Bolivia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Jamaica, New Caledonia, and Suriname.
Team Levels
The draw procedures stipulate placing the host countries' teams (Canada, Mexico, United States) in pot 1, while the remaining 39 qualified teams will be distributed across four pots based on the men's world team rankings issued on November 19, 2025.
The two balls allotted for the teams qualifying through the global playoff and the four balls for the teams qualifying through the European playoff for the 2026 World Cup will be in pot 4.
Pot 1: Canada, Mexico, United States, Spain, Argentina, France, England, Brazil, Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany.
Pot 2: Croatia, Morocco, Colombia, Uruguay, Switzerland, Japan, Senegal, Iran, South Korea, Ecuador, Austria, Australia.
Pot 3: Norway, Panama, Egypt, Algeria, Scotland, Paraguay, Tunisia, Côte d'Ivoire, Uzbekistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa.
Pot 4: Jordan, Cape Verde, Ghana, Curaçao, Haiti, New Zealand, the four teams qualifying from the European playoff, the two teams qualifying from the global playoff.
The draw ceremony will begin by drawing teams from pot 1 into groups from the first to the twelfth, and then continue drawing teams in order from pots 2, 3, and 4.
Draw Restrictions
FIFA stated that the host countries Canada, Mexico, and the United States will be drawn with differently colored balls, and upon drawing, Mexico will be placed at the top of group one (the green ball), Canada at the top of group two (the red ball), and the United States at the top of group four (the blue ball), as originally listed in the tournament schedule issued on February 4, 2024.
The remaining nine teams in pot 1 will be allotted balls of the same color, and each will be placed at the top of the group in which the draw places them.
FIFA stated that "In the interest of balancing competition, the schedule preparation involved determining two paths for the semifinals. To balance the distribution of teams, the draw will involve special restrictions that apply to the highest-ranked teams in the world ranking, randomly drawing the two best-ranked teams (Spain/first place) and (Argentina/second place) within different paths, applying the same principle for (France/third place) and (England/fourth place)."
This restriction ensures that the two highest-ranked teams do not face each other before the final if they both finish first in their groups.
Regarding pots 2, 3, and 4, the position of each team in the group will be determined based on a predefined pattern explained in a schedule within the draw procedure document, ensuring that the position of each team within its group is based on the pot from which it was drawn, and the group in which the draw placed it.
Principally, the rule is that no group should have more than one team from the same continental confederation, applying to all continental confederations except the European confederation, which has a total of 16 teams represented in the tournament.
Each group must include at least one European team and no more than two.
The two teams qualifying through the global playoff, in compliance with the general principle adopted by FIFA, which restricts any group from having more than one team from the same continental confederation, will apply the continental confederation restriction to all three teams within each of the two paths associated with the two seats allotted for the global playoff in pot 4.
Viewing and Following
Live coverage of the 2026 World Cup drawing ceremony will be available on FIFA.com and FIFA World Cup social media platforms.
