2026 European Men's Handball Championship qualification

This article describes the qualification process for the 2026 European Men's Handball Championship and EHF Euro Cup.

Format
Prior to the qualification, four teams were automatically qualified:
 * Denmark, Norway and Sweden as co-hosts;
 * The best-placed team from the 2024 European Men's Handball Championship, other than the 2026 tournament co-hosts.

The remaining eligible teams contest a qualification tournament to determine the teams securing the remaining 20 places in the final tournament. The qualification tournament consists of three rounds: qualification phase 1, promotion round, and qualification phase 2.


 * Qualification phase 1:
 * Four teams;
 * Round-robin tournament format;
 * Top-ranked team after all matches played advances to the promotion round.


 * Promotion round:
 * Six teams:
 * Qualification phase 1 winner,
 * Four of the lowest-ranked fourth-placed teams of the previous cycle qualifiers round,
 * Best European team at the 2023 IHF Emerging Nations Championship;
 * Two-legged tie format;
 * Three aggregate winners advance to the qualification phase 2.


 * Qualification phase 2:
 * Thirty-two teams:
 * Three promotion round winners
 * Remaining eight teams eliminated in the previous cycle qualifiers round
 * Twenty teams that participated in the 2024 European Championship, but did not qualify directly to the 2026 final tournament
 * Round-robin tournament format: eight groups of four teams;
 * Group winners, group runners-up, and the four best third-placed teams qualify for the final tournament.

Qualification Phase 1
Since only four teams participate in this round, no draw was needed, other than the hosting rights. Although Cyprus had the hosting rights, it declined and the rights moved to Azerbaijan.

Results
All times are local (UTC+4).

Promotion round
Six teams participated in this round: the winner of the Phase 1, the four of the lowest-ranked fourth-ranked teams in the 2024 European Men's Handball Championship qualification and the best European team of the 2023 IHF Emerging Nations Championship. The draw took place on 5 July 2023, in Vienna, Austria.

Seeding
The seeding was announced on 4 July 2023.

Overview

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Matches
Luxembourg won 61–60 on aggregate.

Kosovo won 59–45 on aggregate.

Belgium won 66–40 on aggregate.

Qualification Phase 2
Phase 2 will be played between November 2024 and May 2025. Like in previous cycles, 32 teams will be divided into eight groups of four, to be played as round-robin tournaments. The eight group winners and runners-up qualify for the final tournament, together with the four best third-placed teams, which will be determined taking into account only results against top two teams in each group. The draw took place on 21 March 2024 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Participating teams
1 Following another motion, submitted by the competitions department and confirmed by the EXEC, Latvia, as the best-ranked team not yet qualified, received a place in the Men’s EHF EURO 2026 Qualifiers Phase 2. This one place was until now open due to the non-admittance of Russia and Belarus.

Seeding
The seeding was announced on 21 February 2024.

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

EHF Euro Cup
The EHF Euro Cup will be played between the 2026 co-hosts Denmark, Norway and Sweden, plus the champions of the 2024 European Championship, France.

Qualified teams


Note: Bold indicates champion for that year. Italic indicates host for that year.