# 2026 Men's Rugby League World Cup qualification

The 2026 Men's Rugby League World Cup qualification will decide the teams that will join the quarter-finalists from the previous World Cup at the 2026 Rugby League World Cup. The location of the tournament will be held in two venues within France.
Qualification will begin on 22 October 2024 with European qualification tournament.

## Background

The allocation of teams for the 2026 World Cup was announced on 7 August 2023. The 2026 edition of the Rugby League World Cup will only feature ten men's teams, down from 16 in 2021. The eight quarter-finalists from the previous World Cup achieved automatic qualification, leaving two spots remaining for the qualification process.
The qualification process for the 9th and 10th places will be a two stage process. The first stage is to establish the representatives from each of the four International Rugby League (IRL) confederations (Americas, Asia-Pacific, Europe, and Middle East-Africa) with those representatives advancing to a second and final round of qualification in 2025.
The process announced in August 2023 would have seen qualifying tournaments in all four confederations but subsequent changes by the IRL have changed this. In October 2023 IRL confirmed that only full members of the IRL can take part in the qualifying competition. This left only Cook Islands (Asia-Pacific), Jamaica (Americas) and South Africa (Middle East-Africa) as the only full-member nations for their respective confederations, and therefore will automatically advance to the second round of qualification.
This leaves the European confederation as the only one to stage a confederation tournament to decide their second-round slot allocation.
As originally planned, following the conclusion of the European confederation qualification tournament, the 2025 World Series will take place with winners and runners up qualifying for the finals. In March 2025 the IRL announced that as no viable bids to host the World Series had been received, the World Series would be replaced by two single knockout matches, one for the northern hemisphere and one for the southern hemisphere.

## Qualified teams

| Team | Method of qualification | Date of qualification | Total times qualified | Last time qualified | Current consecutive appearances | Previous best performance |
| New Zealand | 2021 Group C winners | 28 October 2022 | 17 | 2021 | 17 | Winners (2008) |
| England | 2021 Group A winners | 29 October 2022 | 8 | 2021 | 8 | Runners-up (1975, 1995, 2017) |
| Australia | 2021 Group B winners | 29 October 2022 | 17 | 2021 | 17 | Winners (12 times) |
| Fiji | 2021 Group B runners-up | 29 October 2022 | 7 | 2021 | 7 | Semi-finals (2008, 2013, 2017) |
| Lebanon | 2021 Group C runners-up | 30 October 2022 | 4 | 2021 | 3 | Quarter-finals (2017, 2021) |
| Tonga | 2021 Group D winners | 30 October 2022 | 7 | 2021 | 7 | Semi-finals (2017) |
| Samoa | 2021 Group A runners-up | 30 October 2022 | 7 | 2021 | 7 | Runners-up (2021) |
| Papua New Guinea | 2021 Group D runners-up | 31 October 2022 | 9 | 2021 | 9 | Quarter-finals (2000, 2017, 2021) |
| TBC | Northern Hemisphere playoff winners | 25 October 2025 | | | | |
| TBC | Southern Hemisphere playoff winners | 2025 | | | | |

## European qualifying

The European confederation qualification tournament will take place in October 2024 and is open to all full member nations as of 15 March 2024. The winner of the tournament will advance to the World Series in 2025.
Teams will play semi-finals and a final. The semi-finals are based on IRL Rank with highest-ranked playing lowest-ranked and second-highest playing second-lowest. The losing semi-finalists will contest a third place playoff; this has no bearing on World Cup qualification, but will count for world ranking points.

### Bracket

| Semi-finals | Semi-finals | Semi-finals | Final | Final |
| 8 | France | 74 | | |
| 20 | Ukraine | 8 | | |
| 20 | Ukraine | 8 | France | 48 |
| | | | Wales | 6 |
| 11 | Serbia | 0 | Wales | 6 |
| 17 | Wales | 48 | | |

### Semi-finals

* 22 October 2024 17:00 CEST (UTC+02:00)
| Serbia | 0–48 | Wales |
| | 1st: 0–30 2nd: 0–18 Report | Tries: Fozard, Kear, Walker, Evans, Connor Davies, Butt, Worthington, Coope-Franklin Goals: Fozard (7/7), Kear (1/1) |
* Stade Albert Domec, Carcassonne Attendance: 1,257 Referee: Geoffrey Poumes (France)
* 22 October 2024 19:30 CEST (UTC+02:00)
| France | 74–8 | Ukraine |
| Tries: Vailhe, Budde, Pedrero (3), Vailhen, Pelissier (2), Zenon, Goffin, Jouffret, Aispuro Bichett (2), Marti Goals: Albert (6/10), Aispuro Bichett (3/4) | 1st: 48–0 2nd: 26–8 Report | Tries: Skorbach, Polata |
* Stade Albert Domec, Carcassonne Attendance: 1,257 Referee: Stephane Vincent (France)

### Final

* 26 October 2024 14:30 CEST (UTC+02:00)
| Wales | 6–48 | France |
| Tries: Williams Goals: Fozard (1/1) | 1st: 6–20 2nd: 0–28 Report | Tries: Romano, Rouge (2), Franco, Pelissier, Sangare, Fages, Belmas, Chan Goals: Rouge (6/9) |
* Stade Municipal, Saint-Estève Attendance: 2,150 Referee: Aaron Moore (England)

## Inter-confederation qualifying

The 2025 World Series was initially intended be the inter-confederation qualification tournament for the 2026 Rugby League World Cup. The winner and the runners-up were to qualify for the World Cup.
In September 2024, South Africa (who will participate in the tournament) submitted a proposal to host the World Series, in attempt to strengthen their bids to host the 2028 Women's World Cup and 2030 Men's World Cup.
On 18 March 2025, the International Rugby League announced no viable bid to host the World Series had been made and as such two playoff matches would be held in its place. The Northern Hemisphere playoff will see France host Jamaica as a one off match, and Southern Hemisphere playoff will the Cook Islands host South Africa during their off week in the group stage of the 2025 Pacific Bowl.

### Northern Hemisphere playoff

* 25 October 2025
| France | v | Jamaica |
| | Report | |
* Albi

### Southern Hemisphere playoff

* TBA
| Cook Islands | v | South Africa |
| | Report | |