The International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) has announced the draw procedures to determine the four teams competing in the 12 groups for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. For the first time in the tournament's history, 48 teams will participate. The draw will take place on Friday, December 5, in Washington, D.C. The draw procedures stipulate that the host nations (Canada, Mexico, and the United States) will be placed in Pot 1. The remaining 39 qualified teams will be distributed into four pots according to the FIFA Men's World Ranking, released on November 19, 2025. The two balls designated for the teams that will qualify through the global playoff path and the four balls for the teams that will advance through the European playoff path for the 2026 World Cup will be in Pot 4.
To ensure a balanced level of competition, the draw process for the match schedule has established two paths to the semi-finals. Each group must include at least one, but no more than two, European teams. Regarding the two teams advancing through the global playoffs, and to adhere to the general principle that no group may contain more than one team from the same continental confederation, the confederation constraint will apply to all three teams within each of the two paths linked to the two slots reserved for the global playoffs in Pot 4. To ensure a balanced distribution of teams, the draw will feature special constraints applicable to the highest-ranked teams in the FIFA Men's World Ranking. The two top-ranked teams (Spain/1st) and (Argentina/2nd) will be drawn randomly into two different paths, and the same principle will apply to (France/3rd) and (England/4th). This constraint is designed to prevent the two top-ranked teams from facing each other before the final if they finish first in their respective groups.
In principle, the rule is that no more than one team from the same continental confederation may be in the same group, which applies to all confederations, with the exception of UEFA, which is represented by a total of 16 teams in the tournament.
The final pots for the 2026 FIFA World Cup draw are as follows:
Pot 1: Canada, Mexico, United States of America, Spain, Argentina, France, England, Brazil, Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany.
Pot 2: Croatia, Morocco, Colombia, Uruguay, Switzerland, Japan, Senegal, Islamic Republic of Iran, Republic of 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 (A, B, C, D) advancing from the European playoff, and the two teams (A, B) advancing from the global playoff.
The host countries Canada, Mexico, and the United States of America will be assigned different colored balls. When drawn, Mexico will be placed at the head of Group 1 (green ball), Canada at the head of Group 2 (red ball), and the United States of America at the head of Group 4 (blue ball), as originally stipulated in the tournament match schedule released on February 4, 2024.
