FIFA has revealed the details for the draw to define the group stage matchups of the 2026 World Cup, which will take place on December 5th at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C.

The final draw procedure stipulates that the host countries—Canada, Mexico, and the United States—will be assigned to Pot 1. The other 39 qualified teams will be distributed into four pots of 12 teams each, based on the FIFA Men's World Ranking published on Wednesday, November 19, 2025.

Finally, the two spots reserved for teams from the inter-confederation playoff tournament, as well as the four spots from the European playoffs, will be assigned to 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, Ivory Coast, Uzbekistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa

Pot 4: Jordan, Cape Verde, Ghana, Curaçao, Haiti, New Zealand, European Playoff A, B, C, and D, Inter-confederation Playoff 1 and 2

The draw will begin with all the teams from Pot 1, which will be distributed from Group A to Group L. Afterwards, Pots 2, 3, and 4 will be drawn, in that order.

Draw Restrictions

In Pot 1, Canada, Mexico, and the United States, as host nations, will be identified with different colored balls. In accordance with the match schedule published on February 4, 2024, Mexico will be assigned position A1 (green ball); Canada, position B1 (red ball); and the United States, position D1 (blue ball). The other nine teams in Pot 1 will be identified by nine balls of the same color and will be automatically assigned to the position 1 of the group in which they are placed.

To ensure competitive balance, two separate brackets until the semifinals have been established in the match schedule. To achieve a balanced distribution of teams, certain restrictions will be applied. The top-ranked team (Spain) and the second-best team (Argentina) will be randomly assigned to opposite brackets. The same principle will be used for the third and fourth-ranked teams (France and England, respectively). This way, if the top two teams in the world ranking finish the group stage in first place in their respective groups, they would not face each other before the final.

For Pots 2, 3, and 4, the position of the teams in each group will be assigned according to a pre-defined pattern. The position of teams in the groups will depend on the pot from which they are drawn and the group to which they are assigned.

In principle, no group will contain two teams from the same confederation, with the sole exception of UEFA, which is represented by 16 teams. Each group will contain at least one and a maximum of two UEFA teams.

Regarding the inter-confederation playoff spots, to comply with the general FIFA principle that prevents two teams from the same confederation from being placed in the same group, this limitation will also apply to the three teams from each inter-confederation playoff path that are competing for the two spots in Pot 4.

While the final draw will determine which teams face each other in the group stage, the updated schedule—including the stadium and kick-off time for each match—will be confirmed on Saturday, December 6th.