The next World Cup will be jointly hosted by the USA, Canada and Mexico and will be held from June 11 to July 19, 2026.
It will be the first tournament to feature 48 teams, expanded from the previous number of 32.
That means there will be more games than ever — 104 in total.
The tournament is a long way off, so ticket details are thin on the ground, but this is what we know so far.
Where are the matches?
The World Cup will be played in 16 cities in three countries, more than any other tournament.
Three of these locations are located in Mexico: Monterrey, Guadalajara, and Mexico City.
Two others are on each coast of Canada: Vancouver and Toronto.
The remaining 11 are located in the US: Miami, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Houston, Kansas City, Dallas and New York.
This US list gives the nearest major city to each stadium. Some venues are located in lesser-known nearby settlements, such as East Rutherford in New Jersey for New York and Santa Clara for San Francisco.
Akron Stadium in Zapopan, Mexico (Sergio Navarrete/Getty Images)
How does the tournament work?
Since 1998, World Cups have had 32 teams, allowing for a neat symmetry, but this is longer and 48 teams means a somewhat more complex format is required.
The tournament had eight groups of four teams in which each country played each other once. The top two in each group then advance to four knockout stages – a round of 16, then the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final.
The USA, Canada and Mexico qualify automatically. The remaining 45 positions will be filled through qualifying competitions, which take place separately on each continent.
In 2026, there will still be four teams in a group and the top two will still qualify for the next stage, but there will be 12 groups instead of eight.
All eight best third teams — out of 12 — in the groups will also advance, similar to the European Championship (which has 24 teams).
Thirty-two teams will advance to the knockout stage, meaning an additional knockout round, before the tournament resumes from 16, as it has in previous tournaments.
Where are the biggest games?
The USA, Canada and Mexico will play their three groups on home soil.
Mexico City’s Azteca Stadium, which hosted the 1970 and 1986 World Cup finals, will host the opening match of the tournament. The USA will host a total of 78 games, while Canada and Mexico will host 13 each.
All quarter-finals and both semi-finals will be in the USA, along with the final. The quarterfinals will be played in Boston, Los Angeles, Miami and Kansas City, while the semifinals will be played in Dallas and Atlanta.
The 23rd World Cup Final will be held at the MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, just outside New York, on July 19, 2026.
These stadiums are divided into three areas, West, Central and East, in an effort to minimize travel for fans. However, the distances within the regions are vast, with Kansas City and Mexico City (1,385 miles apart) in the same region, as well as Toronto and Miami (1,239 miles apart).
(Yuki Iwamura/AFP via Getty Images)
Are tickets on sale?
No.
With more than two years to go until the tournament kicks off, there is little public information about tickets.
A page on FIFA’s website simply allows users to enter their details to receive information about tickets when they become available. The Athlete contacted tournament organizers for comment.
How will the ticketing process work?
We don’t know for sure, but looking at past World Cups as well as similar events like the European Championship, it’s possible to make some educated guesses.
Major tournament tickets are essentially divided into three categories.
First, there are tickets available to member associations — the two countries play each other in a specific match. These are generally given to supporters based on loyalty, for example with points collected from watching the country in the qualifiers.
How easy they will be to obtain varies greatly by country – they will be in high demand for host countries, but easier to come by for nations far away with less of a traveling following.
The second category are those tickets given to sponsors and other members of what FIFA likes to call the “football family”.
That doesn’t just mean VIPs in shiny hosting boxes. For last year’s Champions League final in Istanbul, only around 40,000 went to Manchester City and Inter fans. The remaining 35,000 went to sponsors and all sorts of other people with links to UEFA. A small number of them can find their way into the hands of ordinary fans through tickets and giveaways.
As the tournament progresses and the games become more glamorous, the demand from sponsors and other “neutral” supporters will increase.
The third is the rest. These are the tickets that the public can buy without being a member of any country’s rewards program or a member of the football family.
How will these general sale tickets be distributed?
We don’t know for sure, but we can take a look at how Germany, the host of this summer’s European Championship, is distributing tickets.
There were two stages of ballots in which people can choose to buy multiple tickets in four different categories. Cheaper tickets are generally more in demand, so it’s likely to be easier to get a ticket by entering the ballot in a more expensive class.
UEFA did not release details of further ticket sales. However, there will likely be a limited number of tickets on general sale between now and the tournament that begins in June, likely for the games with less glamorous teams in bigger stadiums.
The demand for tickets in Germany was extremely high for several reasons.
(Rob Pinney/Getty Images)
First, watching live football matches is a huge part of German culture, so demand from locals is high.
Second, the tournament is the only European Championship or World Cup in Western Europe to be held between 2016 and 2028, apart from Euro 2020, which took place across the continent but was heavily restricted in travel due to Covid.
This means that huge numbers of football fans across Europe want Germany tickets.
It remains to be seen how strong demand will be for the 2026 World Cup, particularly in cities like Kansas City and Houston that aren’t usually associated with soccer — but things in the US are changing fast in that regard.
How much are World Cup tickets?
We don’t know yet, but we can see the former.
It is often difficult to give a definitive answer to this question because tournament organizers often sell some tickets at low prices that are actually very difficult to obtain, with most fans paying much more.
An analysis by German sports consultancy Keller Sports in 2022 found that an average ticket to the Qatar World Cup was £286, rising to £684 for the final. This was a 46 percent increase over the tournament in Russia in 2018.
Excluding limited screening tickets and a special category available only to Qatari nationals, group stage tickets ranged in price from 40 Riyals ($11) to 800 Riyals ($213).
This steadily increased in price as the tournament progressed, with final tickets costing between 750 Riyals ($200) and 5850 Riyals ($1,560).
Tickets may also be available on secondary resale sites where prices are likely to be much higher.
These kinds of platforms are often dangerous to use in Europe, as football organizations do not cooperate with them due to deep-rooted cultural norms against very high ticket prices.
But in the US, that taboo didn’t apply, and it was entirely possible to buy a Super Bowl ticket through a reputable reseller — if you had $10,000 to spare.
It remains to be seen what approach the World Cup will take.
How much do tickets cost compared to the Super Bowl and other big events?
The cheapest face value tickets for this year’s Super Bowl sold directly by the NFL were around $2,000, far higher than any major football game.
Tickets changed hands for about five times that on the secondary market.
Tickets for the final are likely to fetch similarly impressive prices, but if you’re not too picky about which game you go to, you’ll probably be able to get tickets for the first World Cup games at much more affordable prices.
Is it possible to watch every game in the World Cup?
Soccer YouTuber Theo Ogden, known as Thogden, has watched every game of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, the first person in history to do so at a tournament.
This was possible due to Qatar’s tiny geographical size, although it had to lose half of many games to fit them all.
But there is absolutely no chance of repeating the same feat in 2026.
In 17 frantic days from June 11 to June 27, the entire group stage — all 72 games — will be completed. The last four of those days will have six games each, covering the entire North American continent.
With huge distances between stadiums, fans will have to plan their matches carefully.
(Top photo: Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images)
