2016 European Women's Handball Championship qualification

This article describes the qualification for the 2016 European Women's Handball Championship.

Qualification system
The draw was held in Vienna, Austria on 24 March 2015 at 11:30 local time. Sweden as host nation was directly qualified. 32 teams had registered for participation and compete for 14 places at the final tournament in 2 distinct Qualification Phases. The group winners of phase 1 advanced to phase 2. The 28 teams were divided into seven groups of four teams. The top two teams qualified for the main tournament as well as the best-ranked third placed team, where the results against the last-placed team were revoked.

Qualification Phase 1
The groups played in a tournament format from 12–14 June 2015. The group winners advanced to the second phase.

Qualification Phase 2
The draw was held on 9 April 2015 in Kristianstad, Sweden.

Ranking of third-placed teams
To determine the best third-placed teams from the qualifying group stage which qualified directly for the final tournament, only the results against the first, and second-placed teams in their group were taken into account, while results against the fourth-placed team were not included. As a result, four matches played by each third-placed team counted for the purposes of determining the ranking.