FIFA World Cup 26 Finals draw information

England will learn their FIFA World Cup 26 pathway on Friday 5 December 2025, when the draw for the finals takes place in Washington DC, USA.

The Three Lions sealed their place at next summer’s tournament in Canada, Mexico and USA with two qualifying games to spare following their 5-0 win over Latvia in October, and will now discover who they will play in the group stage at the draw.

Being staged at the Kennedy Centre in the USA’s capital city, the draw is scheduled for 5pm GMT and will be shown live on the FIFA+ channel.

There will be 42 of the qualified nations in the draw alongside a vacant six spaces that will be filled next year following the play-offs, which are scheduled to take place in March 2026 to complete the full line-up of 48 teams at the World Cup.

So far, we know that the host nations will be assigned to positions A1 (Mexico), B1 (Canada) and D1 (USA), with further details on the draw procedure to be revealed by FIFA in due course.

The following 42 nations are confirmed in the final draw:-

Co-hosts: Canada, Mexico, USA

AFC: Australia, IR Iran, Japan, Jordan, Korea Republic, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan

CAF: Algeria, Cabo Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, Egypt, Ghana, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa, Tunisia

Concacaf: Curaçao, Haiti, Panama

CONMEBOL: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay

OFC: New Zealand

UEFA: Austria, Belgium, Croatia, England, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Scotland, Spain, Switzerland.

Four more nations will qualify from the UEFA play-offs, which will be contested with eight semi-finals and four finals, all played within the March 2026 international window as follows:

Wales or Bosnia and Herzegovina v Italy or Northern Ireland
Ukraine or Sweden v Poland or Albania
Slovakia or Kosovo v Turkiye or Romania
Czechia or Republic of Ireland v Denmark or North Macedonia

The remaining two slots will be filled from six teams in the shape of Bolivia, Congo DR, Iraq, Jamaica, New Caledonia and Suriname - at the FIFA World Cup 26 play-off tournament.

The FIFA World Cup 26 Finals will be staged between 11 June to 19 July 2026 across 16 cities in Canada, Mexico and the United States: Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Seattle (USA); Guadalajara, Mexico City and Monterrey (Mexico) and Toronto and Vancouver (Canada).

The World Cup final will be held in New York New Jersey Stadium on Sunday 19 July 2026.