Official: The World Cup play-off draw ceremony will be held on November 20 this year

According to FIFA’s official website, the draw times for the 2026 US-Canada-Mexico World Cup intercontinental play-offs and European play-offs have been determined. The draw ceremony will be held at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland, on November 20, 2025.

These two events will determine the path for 22 national teams to advance to the World Cup preliminaries. Six teams will participate in the intercontinental play-offs, while the other 16 teams will compete for qualifications through the European play-offs.

The draws for the two events will be conducted sequentially: first, the 2026 World Cup intercontinental play-off draw, which is scheduled to start at 13:00 local time, followed by the European play-off draw.

The six teams participating in the intercontinental play-offs are Asia, Africa, Central and North America and the Caribbean, Bolivia (South America) and New Caledonia (Oceania). The World Cup European playoffs are planned to be held from March 23 to 31, 2026.

Currently, 28 teams have obtained tickets for the World Cup. 14 more teams will advance to the World Cup through the qualifiers this month, and the remaining 6 places will be determined through the play-offs in March next year.

The two winners of the intercontinental play-offs will receive two World Cup qualifying places; the 16 participating teams in the European play-offs will be divided into 4 groups of 4 teams each to determine the last four World Cup qualifying places.

In order to ensure the smooth progress of the intercontinental play-off and European play-off draws, the next national team FIFA ranking will be announced on November 19, 2025.