2020 Women's European Water Polo Championship

The 2020 Women's European Water Polo Championship was the 18th edition of the major European water polo tournament for national teams. It was held at the Danube Arena in Budapest, Hungary, from 12 to 25 January 2020.

Spain defeated Russia 13–12 in the final to win their second title.

Host
LEN announced the choice of Budapest as host for the competition on 9 July 2016. All the matches were played at the Danube Arena.

Qualification
Twelve teams were allowed to the tournament. The qualification was as follows:
 * The host nation
 * The best five teams from the 2018 European Championships
 * Six teams from the qualifiers

Format
The twelve teams were split in two groups with six teams each. The first four teams of each group played each other in the quarterfinals in cross group format, the remaining teams played for places nine to twelve.

Draw
The draw of the preliminary round's pools took place in Budapest on 22 October 2019. The teams were drawn into two groups of six. The first batch included the best two teams of the previous edition; the teams ranked third and fourth were in the second batch, the fifth and the sixth in the third batch and the qualification winners in the fourth batch.

With the play-offs winners determined on 26 October, the draw resulted in the following groups:

Preliminary round
All times are local (UTC+1).

Bracket
5th place bracket

Final standing
1 Spain qualified for the Olympics by finishing second in the 2019 World Championships.

Top goalscorers
Source: wp2020budapest.microplustiming.com

Top goalkeepers
Source: wp2020budapest.microplustiming.com

Awards
The awards were announced on 26 January 2020.