2026 European Women's Handball Championship qualification

The 2026 European Women's Handball Championship qualification was a handball competition that was played from March 2025 to April 2026 to determine the 16 EHF member women's national teams that would join the automatically qualified teams in the final tournament. Alongside the qualifiers, the EHF Euro Cup also took place.

A total of 30 EHF member associations entered the qualifying process alongside the eight teams in the EHF Euro Cup. The draw for the qualifying group stage took place in Cluj-Napoca on 20 March 2025.

Qualification system The qualification consisted of two phases: Phase 1 Nine bottom-ranked teams were drawn into three groups of three. The groups were played in a single-round-robin system, with the group winners advancing to phase 2 and joining the remaining teams. Phase 2 Three phase 1 winners and 21 top-ranked teams were drawn into six groups of four. The groups were played in a double-round-robin system. The top two teams from each group and the best four third-placed teams qualified for the final tournament.

Qualification phase 1 The groups were played at a single venue.

Draw The draw took place on 20 December 2024.

Seeding Pot 1Pot 2Pot 3

Groups Group 1

Group 2

Group 3

Qualification phase 2 Each team played three matches at home and three matches away.

Draw The draw took place on 20 March 2025.

Seeding The seeding was announced on 11 March 2025.

Pot 1 Pot 2 Pot 3 Pot 4

Groups All times are CET/CEST.

Group 1

Group 2

Group 3

Group 4

Group 5

Group 6

Ranking of third-placed teams The results against the fourth-placed teams are omitted.

EHF Euro Cup

The EHF Euro Cup took place for the third time and was played by the 2026 co-hosts and the three best-placed teams of the 2024 European Championship. This was the first time the eight teams participated in the tournament, up from four from the previous two editions.

Composition of teams TeamQualification methodDate of qualificationAppearance(s)Previous best performance Co-hosts 8 March 2024 1stDebut 1stDebut 1stDebut 1stDebut 1stDebut Top three at 2024 edition 13 December 2024 1stDebut 202220243 (2022, 2024) 15 December 202420242 (2024)

Preliminary round Group 1

Group 2

Knockout stage Bracket

Semifinals

Third place game

Final

Qualified teams {| class="wikitable sortable" !rowspan=2|Team !rowspan=2|Qualification method !rowspan=2|Date of qualification !colspan=4 data-sort-type="number"|Appearance(s) !rowspan=2|Previous best performance !rowspan=2| |- ! ! ! !

| align="center"| | align="center"|1996 | align="center"|7 | (1998) | align="center"|TBD

| align="center"| | rowspan=2 align="center"|1994 | align="center"|10 | (2010) | align="center"|TBD

| align="center"| | rowspan=2 align="center"|2 | (1994, 2014) | align="center"|TBD

| align="center"| | align="center"|2024 | (2024) | align="center"|TBD

| align="center"| | align="center"|2010 | rowspan=3 align="center"|2024 | align="center"|2 | (2010, 2012) | align="center"|TBD

| align="center"| | align="center"|1998 | align="center"|3 | (2008) | align="center"|TBD

| align="center"| | align="center"|1994 | align="center"|2 | (2000) | align="center"|TBD

Notes

References

2026 European Women's Handball Championship qualification

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