The 2027 Women’s World Cup is still a year and a half away, but qualification for the tournament has already begun. So far, most of the qualification action has been via preliminary qualification stages to narrow down fields for the main qualification stage. This is has been the case in Asia and Africa. South America has also kicked off their qualification campaign. This weekend, North American and Oceania join the fray. Since qualification is basically in full swing, I figured I would overview the qualification process for each of the continental confederations.

The Women’s World Cup in 2027 will be the 10th edition of the tournament, which will take place in Brazil. The 2027 tournament will be the first in Brazil, the first on the South American continent. A total of 32 teams will qualify to participate in the final tournament, of which only Brazil has qualified so far because they are the host nation.

The other 31 participants will qualify from the qualifying campaigns organized by the six continental confederations. Each confederation has at least one guaranteed qualifying country, but there are a number of spots that will fall to teams via an inter-confederation playoff, so exactly how many nations will be qualifying from each continental confederation will be determined competitively.

With that basic set up, let’s look at the qualification process for each confederation.

Guaranteed Qualifiers: 6 nations
Possible Through Inter-confederation Playoff: 2 nations

Asia’s qualification process will happen via the 2026 AFC Women’s Asian Cup. This is the main continental tournament for international teams in the Asian Football Confederation. The AFC has already begun it’s qualification process for the World Cup because teams have already completed the qualification process to participate in the 2026 Women’s Asian Cup.

The 2026 Asian Cup will take part in Australia. A total of 12 nations are participating in the tournament. There are two stages to the tournament: the first is a standard group phase and the second is a knockout phase.

In July, 2025, the 12 nations were drawn into three groups of 4 teams as follows:

Once the Group stage is complete, 8 teams will qualify for the Knockout stage: the first- and second-placed teams in each group as well as the two highest ranked third-placed teams. These 8 teams will comprise the 8 teams eligible to represent Asia at the World Cup.

The 8 quarterfinalists will be paired off and play in bracket-style knockout tournament. The four teams to win their quarterfinal match and reach the semifinals will also qualify for the World Cup. Their participation in World Cup qualifying then ends, and they continue to the semifinals to finish competing for the Asian Cup

The four teams that lose in the quarterfinal matches will then be paired off to determine the final two guaranteed spots and the two teams to take part in the inter-confederation playoff. They will look as follows:

Loser of Quarterfinal 1 vs Loser of Quarterfinal 3
Loser of Quarterfinal 2 vs Loser of Quarterfinal 4

Remember, these teams are no longer competing for the Asian Cup. At this point, they will only be competing to qualify for the 2027 World Cup.

The winners of these two matches will automatically qualify for the 2027 World Cup, and the loses will go on to the interconfederation playoff.

Qualifiers for the World Cup
Semifinalist 1
Semifinalist 2
Semifinalist 3
Semifinalist 4
Quarterfinal Playoff Winner 1
Quarterfinal Playoff Winner 2

Qualifiers for the Inter-confederation Playoff
Quarterfinal Playoff Loser 1
Quarterfinal Playoff Loser 2

Australia, Japan, and China are strong favorites to qualify. North Korea, South Korea, and Vietnam are the next tier to likely qualify. From there, I would put Taiwan, Uzbekistan, and the Philippines as the most likely to surprise the bigger nations, but Bangladesh, India, and Iran all have the ability to create an upset.

The 2026 Women’s Asian Cup will take place in March of 2026. The first match kicks off on March 1 and the final will be held on March 21.

In the United States, you can watch the Asian Cup on Paramount+. For readers in other countries, you’ll have to check your local listings.

Guaranteed Qualifiers: 4 nations
Possible Through Inter-confederation Playoff: 2 nations

Like in Asia, the African qualification process will happen through the continental competition being held in 2026. In the case of Africa, this is the 2026 Women’s African Cup of Nations (aka WAFCON). Also like in Asia, the qualifying rounds for WAFCON 2026 have already happened, leaving the final participants in the tournament as the potential qualifiers for the World Cup.

The 2026 WAFCON will take place in Morocco. A total of 16 nations have qualified for the tournament. As with many tournaments of this type, WAFCON will involve two stages, an initial Group stage and a Knockout stage.

For the Group stage, the 16 teams will be divided into four groups of 4 teams. As far as I can tell, the draw for the Group stage has not taken place, as CAF only recently announced that it was expanded the field from 12 teams to 16 on November 5, 2025, after the qualifying round was complete. The confederation completed the field that the 4 highest ranked teams that did not qualify. It seems like the draw was supposed to happen on November 5th, but instead the expanded field was announced and the draw is yet to happen. Long time lovers of CAF will be familiar with this kind of confusion.

The 16 teams that qualified for the Group stage are:
Morocco - hosts
Algeria
Burkina Faso
Cameroon
Cape Verde
Egypt
Ghana
Ivory Coast
Kenya
Malawi
Mali
Nigeria
Senegal
South Africa
Tanzania
Zambia

The top 2 teams in each of the four groups will advance to the quarterfinal round. The winners of the quarterfinal round will automatically qualify for the World Cup. Their participation in World Cup qualifying will be over and they will continue on to the semifinal round of WAFCON.

The four teams that lose at the quarterfinal stage will then play each other. The winners of these matches will take part in the inter-confederation playoff.

Qualifiers for the World Cup
Semifinalist 1
Semifinalist 2
Semifinalist 3
Semifinalist 4

Qualifiers for the Inter-confederation Playoff
Quarterfinal Playoff Winner 1
Quarterfinal Playoff Winner 2

Africa has a lot of strong candidates to qualify for the World Cup. Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa, and Zambia are probably the favorites, with Ghana and Cameroon as the next tier. From there, Algeria, Ivory Coast, and Senegal are probably the most like to cause a surprise.

WAFCON 2026 will start on March 17 with the final scheduled for April 3. As of now, I cannot find broadcast rights for the US, but I would guess the rights will be held by beIN Sports, who have broadcast the Men’s AFCON for a few editions now, including the upcoming tournament in December. They also showed the 2024 edition of WAFCON. So, the formal answer is TBD, but beIN Sports the a good bet.

Guaranteed Qualifiers: 4 nations
Possible Through Inter-confederation Playoff: 2 nations

You’ll notice a theme, but CONCACAF will also be using a stand-alone competition to also double as the World Cup qualification process. In fact, it will also triple as the Olympic qualification process, but we’ll just set that aside for now.

CONCACAF will be using next year’s edition of the W Championship to also double as the World Cup qualification process. As with the confederations above, the W Championship will involve a Group stage and a Knockout stage; however, the formal CONCACAF W Championship is just the Knockout stage. The Group stage, within the W Championship itself, is a qualification round. So the teams taking part in the Group stage are doing so as part of World Cup qualification and CONCACAF W Championship qualification.

The draw for the group stage took place in August of 2025. Of CONCACAF’s 41 member nations, 31 are taking part in the CONCACAF W Championship. The two highest ranked nations in the region—the United States and Canada—are automatically qualified for the Knockout stage. So the the Group stage will pit 29 teams spread over six groups. Five of the groups will feature 5 teams, and the sixth group will have 4 teams.

The 6 group winners will advance to the Knockout stage of the CONCACAF W Championship.

As it relates to World Cup qualification, the CONCACAF W Championship’s Knockout stage will proceed like that in the WAFCON tournament. The Knockout stage will involve 8 teams beginning in the quarterfinal round of the tournament. The 4 winners of the quarterfinal matches will automatically qualify for the 2027 Women’s World Cup and continue on to the semifinal round of the CONCACAF W Championship.

The 4 teams that lose in the quarterfinals will be eliminated from the CONCACAF W Championship, but they will be paired off to play a World Cup qualifying match. The winners of these pairings will enter the inter-confederation playoff for World Cup qualification. The losers of these matches will be eliminated.

Qualifiers for the World Cup
Semifinalist 1
Semifinalist 2
Semifinalist 3
Semifinalist 4

Qualifiers for the Inter-confederation Playoff
Quarterfinal Playoff Winner 1
Quarterfinal Playoff Winner 2

Unsurprisingly, the United States and Canada are the two biggest favorites to qualify for the World Cup. From there, the next group seems clear, but sorting them is tricky. Costa Rica, Mexico, Haiti, Jamaica, and Panama all have a good shout at making the World Cup. Although Costa Rica have been the strongest side of that group over the last decade, they’ve declined a bit. Mexico has been underperforming, but their play in 2024 and 2025 has been much improved. Ultimately, any of those teams can beat each other in a single match, so it’s just hard to know who will win amongst them. If you’re looking for an outsider, El Salvador is probably your best bet to cause surprises.

The Group stage kicked off this week, with the first matches being held on November 27th. The Group stage will wrap up on April 18, 2026. The Knockout stage will take place in November of 2026.

In terms of watching, the qualifying matches are available on the CONCACAF YouTube channel.

Guaranteed Qualifiers: 2 nations (plus the host, Brazil)
Possible Through Inter-confederation Playoff: 2 nations

CONMEBOL is holding what they are calling the “Women’s Nations League” as their qualification tournament. This is intended to be a recurring tournament with the 2025/26 edition being the inaugural edition of the tournament.

CONMEBOL’s Nations League involves the 9 remaining nations competing to qualify for the World Cup. Since Brazil has already qualified for the World Cup as the host nation, they are not taking part in the Nations League competition.

The CONMEBOL Women’s Nations League is a single table tournament where each team will play each other once. After all the matches are played, the teams in first and second place on the table qualify for the World Cup. The teams in third and forth place enter the inter-confederation playoff.

The nations league has already kicked off with the first two match days complete. The standings are as follows.

You can watch the highlights from the first two matchdays on the CONMEBOL YouTube page.

Qualifiers for the World Cup
Brazil (host)
First Place in Nations League
Second Place in Nations League

Qualifiers for the Inter-confederation Playoff
Third Place in Nations League
Fourth Place in Nations League

Colombia and Chile are the two nations most likely to take the automatic qualification spots. Outside of Brazil, they’ve been the continents two strongest nations in the last few years, and this was reflected in this year’s Copa Libertadores, that featured two Brazilian clubs, a Colombian club, and a Chilean club in the semifinals.

After that, Argentina, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela all have a chance of breaking into the top two and are likely to compete for the 3rd/4th place. Argentina and Venezuela probably top that collection of teams, but Paraguay and Uruguay have exciting young players and Ecuador has a collection of players that can match with all but the elite on any given day. Considering the teams play each other once, how these teams land in the final standings is very unpredictable.

The Nations League has already started, but the next round of matches are this Friday, November 28. Two key matches to look out for include Paraguay hosting Uruguay and Ecuador hosting Venezuela. Both of these matchups will be key in beginning to really separate the contenders with the also rans.

All of the matches are shown via Fox Sports, especially on FS2 or Fox Soccer Plus. You can typically watch the matches on demand for a few days on the Fox Sports website, but they do get removed fairly quickly.

Guaranteed Qualifiers: 1 nation
Possible Through Inter-confederation Playoff: 1 nation

Oceania is not combining their World Cup qualification with another tournament. They have a stand-alone procedure for qualification. However, the process will be similar to the tournaments being held in the other confederations.

There are 11 full member nations in OFC, and all of them are taking part in the qualification tournament. The tournament is broken into three rounds:

(1) A Qualification stage
(2) A Group stage
(3) A Knockout stage

The four lowest ranked nations will complete in a bracket-style, single elimination tournament to determine the final participant in the Group stage. The four teams are split between two matches. The winners of those matches will then play against each other. The winner of that final match is the final participant in the group stage.

The participants in the Qualification stage are arranged as follows:

Once the final Group stage participant is determined, two groups of 4 teams will take part in a round-robin tournament to determine who will progress to the Knockout stage. The teams the finish in first and second place in each group will move on. The groups have been drawn as follows:

The top two teams from each group will then face off to determine who automatically qualifies for the World Cup and who advances to the inter-confederation playoff. The Knockout stage will function like any other knockout bracket, beginning at the semifinal round. The winner of each group takes on the second place team of the opposite group.

The winners of these semifinal matches move on to the final. The winner of the final automatically qualifies for the World Cup in 2027, and the lose of the final moves on to the inter-confederation playoff.

Qualifiers for the World Cup
Knockout stage Final Winner

Qualifiers for the Inter-confederation Playoff
Knockout stage Final Loser

New Zealand is, by far, the favorite to be the automatic qualifier. They’re a regular at the World Cup and have long been the dominant force in the region.

The battle for the inter-confederation playoff has a number of teams vying for that spot. Papua New Guinea and Fiji are top of that list, but the Solomon Islands are also a team to look at, especially after winning the OFC Nations Cup earlier this year. Samoa is that last team that might pitch a surprise or two in qualifying.

The Round 1 Qualifying stage kicks off during this upcoming international break. The Group stage will take part in late February through early March, and the Knockout stage will be in April of 2026.

All of the matches will be steamed live on FIFA+. You can find the links to the first two Qualifying round matches here.

Guaranteed Qualifiers: 11 nations
Possible Through Inter-confederation Playoff: 1 nation

Like Oceania, UEFA is hold a standalone qualification tournament; however, with nearly 5 times as many teams, this one is a bit more complicated. I will try and simplify it, which means we can think of it has having two stages: a Group stage and a Knockout stage.

The UEFA qualifying tournament will start with a format similar to the league and group distribution used in the UEFA Women’s Nations League. In fact, which nations fell into which leagues was determined by performance in the 2025 UEFA Women’s Nations League.

The 53 nations competing to qualify from Europe are divided into 3 leagues. From there, each league is subdivided into groups of 3-4 teams. The leagues are meant to reflect general performance; though, they specifically reflect performance in the UEFA Women’s Nations League.

League A is comprised of the highest performing teams.
League B is comprised of the next tier of teams.
League C is comprised of the lowest tier of teams.

The teams is each league were subdivided into groups. The teams in each group will play each other home and away. From there, a small number of teams will automatically qualify for the 2027 World Cup, while the majority of the teams will move on to a Knockout stage.

The groups in each league are as follows:

After the group stage, what happens to each team depends on which league they are in.

League A
The winners of the four League A groups will automatically qualify for the World Cup. These are the only teams that qualify for the World Cup via the Group stage.

The remaining teams in League A move on to the Knockout stage.

League B
The teams that finish first through third in each League B group move on to the Knockout stage.

League C
The teams that win each of the groups in League C advance to the Knockout stage. Additionally, the two best-performing second-placed teams also advance to the Knockout stage.

Once the Group stage is complete, there will be 4 teams that have qualified for the World Cup and 32 teams moving on to the Knockout stage. Everyone else is eliminated at this point.

The 32 teams that qualify for the Knockout stage will be paired off. They will play home-and-away. The 16 winners of this first set of matches will again be paired off, they will again play home-and-away to determine the victors.

The 8 teams that remain will then be ranked based on their league ranking. To 7 best ranked teams of those remaining qualify for the World Cup. The 8th ranked team moves on to the inter-confederation playoff.

Qualifiers for the World Cup
League A1 Champion
League A2 Champion
League A3 Champion
League A4 Champion
1st Ranked Knockout Round Winner
2nd Ranked Knockout Round Winner
3rd Ranked Knockout Round Winner
4th Ranked Knockout Round Winner
5th Ranked Knockout Round Winner
6th Ranked Knockout Round Winner
7th Ranked Knockout Round Winner

Qualifiers for the Inter-confederation Playoff
8th Ranked Knockout Round Winner

The favorites to qualify are all of the nations you’d expect: Spain, England, Germany, France, Netherlands, and Sweden immediately come to mind.

The next tier include more well-known nations like Norway, Italy, Denmark, Austria, Poland, Iceland, Portugal, Switzerland, and Belgium.

For teams that may cause some surprises, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Czech Rep, and Finland are up there. Additionally, teams like Slovenia, Serbia, Ukraine and Turkey are on the edge of success. Finally, for major surprises, Albania, Israel, Hungary, and Romania are teams to consider.

The Group stage games take place between March and June of 2026. The Knockout stage matches will happen between October and December of 2026.

I believe at least some of the UEFA qualifying matches will be shown on Paramount+.

The inter-confederation playoffs will involve 10 teams from the above qualifying tournaments. The playoffs will be broken into two rounds, and it will eventually result in the final 3 qualifiers for the 2027 Women’s World Cup.

Because this round of qualification is over a year away, I will save the details for then, but the first round will take place in November and December of 2026. The second round will take place in February of 2027.

I will do a round up of some of the World Cup qualifying matches happening during this upcoming international break as well as other notable international matches, both competitive and friendlies.